Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-06-05339/USCOURTS-caDC-06-05339-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Tyrone Hurt
Appellant
Social Security Administration
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Decided October 3, 2008 

No. 06-5339 

TYRONE HURT, 

APPELLANT

v. 

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, 

APPELLEE

Associated with Nos. 06-5340, 06-5341, 06-5342, 06-5343, 

06-5344, 06-5345, 06-5346, 06-5347, 06-5348, 06-5349, 06-

5350, 06-5351, 06-5352, 06-5360, 06-5368, 06-5369, 06-

5370, 06-5387, 06-7185, 06-7186, 06-7187, 06-7188, 06-

7189, 06-7190, 06-7191, 06-7192, 07-5012, 07-5013, 07-

5014, 07-5015, 07-5017, 07-5018, 07-5020, 07-5035, 07-

5096, 07-5193, 07-7001, 07-7003, 07-7004, 07-7005, 07-

7033, 07-7048, and 07-7058. 

Appeals from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(Nos. 06cv1787, 06cv1795, 06cv1790, 06cv1793, 06cv1789, 

06cv1732, 06cv1794, 06cv1782, 06cv1783, 06cv1784, 

06cv1785, 06cv1786, 06cv1730, 06cv1723, 06cv1864, 

06cv1878, 06cv1880, 06cv1865, 06cv1879, 06cv1792, 

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06cv1791, 06cv1801, 06cv1788, 06cv1780, 06cv1796, 

06cv1727, 06cv1720, 07cv0032, 07cv0037, 07cv0039, 

07cv0040, 07cv0081, 07cv0082, 07cv0085, 07cv0150, 

06cv1446, 07cv0962, 06cv2141, 07cv0083, 06cv0738, 

06cv1663, 07cv0327, 06cv1468, 07cv0647) 

 Tyrone Hurt, pro se, filed the submissions on behalf of 

the appellant. 

Before: HENDERSON, RANDOLPH and BROWN, Circuit 

Judges. 

Opinion for the Court filed PER CURIAM. 

 PER CURIAM: Tyrone Hurt has filed numerous appeals 

without paying any filing fees. Finding Hurt abused the 

privilege of proceeding before this Court without paying the 

usually required fees, we revoke this privilege, dismiss his 

forty-four pending cases and bar him from filing any future 

civil appeals without paying the required fees. 

I. 

 An extraordinary number of people, institutions, and 

inanimate objects have wronged Tyrone Hurt. In just the last 

couple of years, Hurt has sued the Declaration of 

Independence, Black’s Law Dictionary, the United Nations, 

agencies of the District of Columbia and the Federal 

Government, and various courts and their officers. Hurt has 

claimed the existence of state supreme courts violates the 

Eighth Amendment, requested the Secret Service and the 

President’s Cabinet be declared unconstitutional, and 

demanded the deportation of a Spanish-speaking government 

employee. See Hurt v. The Declaration of Independence, No. 

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07cv0647, 3/30/07 Mem. Op. and Order at 2–4 & n.4–7 

(summarizing filings). Nor are the slights Hurt suffered mere 

glancing blows; he routinely demands trillions of dollars in 

damages. In the overwhelming majority of these suits, the 

district court granted Hurt’s application to proceed in forma 

pauperis (“IFP”)—in other words, without paying any filing 

fees. In each case, the district court then dismissed Hurt’s 

suit as meritless. 

Not surprisingly, Hurt disagreed with these dismissals 

and has filed more than seventy appeals with this Court since 

2006. Hurt paid no filing fees, usually relying upon the IFP 

status the district court granted him. See D.C. CIRCUIT RULE 

24(a)(3). After summarily dismissing more than twenty-five 

of Hurt’s appeals, we held the rest in abeyance pending the 

resolution of his suit against this Circuit. Three judges sitting 

by designation disposed of both that suit and a related claim, 

Hurt v. United States Court of Appeals for the Dist. of 

Columbia Circuit Banc, 264 F. App’x 1 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (per 

curiam); Hurt v. United States Dist. Court Judges, 258 F. 

App’x 341 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (per curiam), and Hurt’s fortyfour remaining appeals became active again. This Court then 

ordered Hurt to show cause why we should not both revoke 

his IFP status for the pending appeals and deny him IFP status 

for any future civil appeals. 

II. 

The United States Code allows federal courts to 

“authorize the commencement, prosecution or defense of any 

suit ... or appeal therein, without prepayment of fees,” but 

also requires them to dismiss “frivolous or malicious” cases 

and cases seeking monetary relief from defendants immune 

therefrom. 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(a), (e)(2). This Circuit grants 

IFP status to various plaintiffs, see D.C. CIRCUIT RULE 24, but 

USCA Case #06-5339 Document #1141959 Filed: 10/03/2008 Page 3 of 6
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asserts its discretion to deny or revoke this privilege for 

abusive litigants, looking to “the number, content, frequency, 

and disposition of [their] previous filings,” Butler v. Dep’t of 

Justice, 492 F.3d 440, 445 (D.C. Cir. 2007). Given Hurt’s 

history of filing frivolous claims and appeals, he easily 

satisfies the standard for revocation of the IFP privilege. 

However, his penchant for litigation as a form of costless 

entertainment compels us to go one step further and ask 

whether we may bar him from proceeding IFP in all future 

civil appeals. 

When “the number, content, frequency, and disposition” 

of a litigant’s filings show an especially abusive pattern, we 

think a court may deny IFP status prospectively. We 

recognize this holding conflicts with In re Green, 669 F.2d 

779, 781 (D.C. Cir. 1981) (per curiam), where this Circuit, 

vacating a district court order requiring an abusive litigant to 

pay filing fees and $100 cash deposit in any future suits, 

explained section 1915(a) requires a court to determine 

“separately in every case” whether to allow a litigant to 

proceed in forma pauperis. Id. at 786. 

Subsequent Supreme Court cases suggest Green was 

wrong when it held section 1915(a) prohibited prospective 

denials of IFP status.1

 For example, in In re McDonald, 489 

U.S. 180 (1989) (per curiam), the Court directed its Clerk not 

to process unpaid extraordinary writ petitions from a 

particularly abusive litigant, explaining, “[e]very paper filed 

with the Clerk of this Court, no matter how repetitious or 

 

1

 Since intervening Supreme Court cases have overruled 

Green’s holding on this point, we need not resort to en banc

endorsement under Irons v. Diamond, 670 F.2d 265, 268 n. 11 

(D.C. Cir. 1981). See In re Sealed Case, 352 F.3d 409, 412 (D.C. 

Cir. 2003); see also Policy Statement on En Banc Endorsement of 

Panel Decisions at 2–3 (Jan. 17, 1996). 

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frivolous, requires some portion of the institution’s limited 

resources. A part of the Court’s responsibility is to see that 

these resources are allocated in a way that promotes the 

interests of justice.” Id. at 184. Importantly, the McDonald

Court made this decision after analyzing section 1915(a), thus 

rejecting Green’s contrary interpretation of that section. Id.

at 183–84. Since McDonald, the Supreme Court has 

regularly issued blanket prohibitions against granting IFP 

status for non-criminal petitions from abusive filers, see, e.g., 

Al-Hakim v. Publix Supermarkets, 128 S. Ct. 712 (2007) (per 

curiam); Martin v. D.C. Court of Appeals, 506 U.S. 1 (1992) 

(per curiam), and other circuits have relied on the Court’s 

pronouncements in prospectively denying IFP status to 

abusive litigants, see, e.g., Visser v. Supreme Court of Cal., 

919 F.2d 113, 114 (9th Cir. 1990) (order); Maxberry v. SEC, 

879 F.2d 222, 224 (6th Cir. 1989) (per curiam). Finally, in 

1996, Congress amended 28 U.S.C. § 1915 to prevent 

prisoners who have filed three frivolous, malicious or 

meritless claims from proceeding IFP in future cases unless 

they are “under imminent danger of serious physical injury.” 

See Prison Litigation Reform Act, Pub. L. No. 104-134 

§§ 801–10, 110 Stat. 1321 (1996). If such a rule is 

appropriate for prisoners, who are severely limited in their 

ability to earn money to pay filing fees, surely it is 

permissible for similarly vexatious non-incarcerated litigants. 

Applying these principles to Hurt’s case, we think “the 

number, content, frequency, and disposition” of his filings 

shows an especially abusive pattern, aimed at taking 

advantage of the IFP privilege. Hurt has brought numerous 

meritless appeals—suits targeting institutions, people and 

inanimate objects—while asking for sums of money dwarfing 

the size of the Federal Government’s annual budget. Indeed, 

since the start of 2006, Hurt has filed appeals in over seventy 

cases before this Court, none of which had any chance of 

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success. If Hurt wishes to continue wasting this Court’s time 

by appealing dismissals of his absurd and frivolous claims, he 

should have to do it on his own dime. 

III. 

We revoke Hurt’s IFP privilege, dismiss all his appeals 

pending before this Court and direct the Clerk of the Court to 

refuse to accept any more of Hurt’s civil appeals that are not 

accompanied by the appropriate filing fees. 

So ordered. 

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