IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

 FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO

 EASTERN DIVISION

Frank C. Brown, Jr., :

 Plaintiff, : Case No. 2:10-cv-965

 v. : JUDGE SARGUS

MAGISTRATE JUDGE KEMP

Captain Andre J. Johnson, :

et al.,

 Defendants. :

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

Plaintiff, Frank C. Brown, a state prisoner confined at the

London Correctional Institution, has submitted a complaint and a

request for leave to proceed in forma pauperis. As required by a

provision of the Prison Litigation Reform Act, see 28 U.S.C.

§1915(b), the Court has assessed a partial filing fee. As also

required by that Act, see 28 U.S.C. §1915A(b)(1), the Court now

conducts an initial screening of the complaint to determine if it

is “frivolous, malicious, or fails to state a claim upon which

relief may be granted ....” For the following reasons, the Court

will recommend dismissal of this action under §1915A(b) as well

as under 28 U.S.C. §1915(e)(2).

I. The Complaint

The following facts are all taken from Mr. Brown’s

complaint. The Court keeps in mind that because Mr. Brown is

without counsel, his complaint must be liberally construed. See

Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519 (1972). Although the events

described in Mr. Brown’s complaint took place over a long period

of time, it appears that the gist of his complaint arises out of

events which began on January 26, 2010. On that date, Mr. Brown

filed an informal complaint against a corrections officer

accusing the officer of throwing away a legal mail pass. That

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informal complaint, which is attached to Mr. Brown’s complaint as

Exhibit F, asserted that the officer had thrown the this type of

pass away on two occasions. The complaint also alleged that a

different corrections officer refused to show Mr. Brown a log

book that had pertinent information in it. Mr. Brown stated in

his complaint that the institution administration had “better

tell” the corrections officer that the log book was a public

record and that Mr. Brown would file a mandamus action to prove

it.

Two days later, Mr. Brown was taken to see Defendant Captain

Johnson and accused of threatening the institution’s staff in his

informal complaint. After some discussion, Captain Johnson

decided not to charge Mr. Brown with an institutional offense,

but he did advise Mr. Brown that he needed to be careful how he

worded his informal complaints and that if his next complaint was

not worded properly, he would be placed in segregation. Mr.

Brown claims not to have filed an informal complaint since that

date.

Perhaps as part of the same type of conduct, Mr. Brown

alleges that he has been continually threatened and harassed by

members of the institution staff for his litigation activities. 

He asserts, for example, that defendant Ferrell, a corrections

officer, stops and harasses him every time that Mr. Brown is seen

with legal material, and that another corrections officer,

defendant Klotz, has also been recruited to assist in this

harassment. He claims that yet a third corrections officer,

defendant Frye, wrote him a false conduct report on July 9, 2010,

and that defendant Klotz did the same thing nine days later. He

also asserts that defendant Hurwood, a librarian, engaged in

similar conduct. Mr. Brown was never convicted of any of these

institutional offenses. 

Perhaps by way of background, Mr. Brown alleges that in

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2009, defendant Blackwell, who is the Inspector of Institutional

Services, threatened to suspend him for using the inmate

grievance procedure due to abuse and disrespect to staff and also

retaliated against him on one occasion for using the process. 

Due to his uncertainty over how properly to word his grievances,

Mr. Brown asserts that he is now unable to utilize the inmate

grievance process to raise issues concerning the conditions of

his confinement. He claims that these events have deprived him

of his rights under the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to

the United States Constitution.

II. The Viability of the Claims

In keeping with the admonition that pro se complaints must

be liberally construed in favor of the pleader, the Court

construes Mr. Brown’s complaint as attempting to state both a

claim that Mr. Brown’s First Amendment rights have been directly

violated by the defendants’ conduct which has prevented him from

using the prison grievance procedure, and a claim that the

defendants have retaliated against him for his having used the

grievance procedure, which is an exercise of his First Amendment

rights.

The First Amendment generally protects the right to petition

the government for the redress of grievances. The mere fact of

incarceration does not eliminate that right altogether. As the

Court of Appeals has observed, “an individual in the custody of

the state ... retains his rights to free speech, and is entitled

to petition the state for redress of grievances.” Noble v.

Schmitt, 87 F.3d 157, 162 (6th Cir. 1996). Nevertheless, as the

Noble court also stated, see id., “[t]he ambit of those rights

must be measured with regard to the legitimate needs of the

particular institution.” In other words, inmates are not

entitled to petition for redress of their grievances however and

whenever they want, but must follow regulations or procedures

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imposed by the institution so long as any restrictions imposed by

such regulations or procedures are reasonably related to

legitimate penological interests. See generally Turner v.

Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987).

Here, Mr. Brown has not alleged that he has actually been

prohibited from filing informal grievances, or that he has ever

been punished for doing so. Rather, he claims that the

circumstances surrounding his January 26, 2010 grievance,

including the warning that he must word his grievances properly

in order to avoid punishment, has had the effect of deterring him

from filing grievances for fear that he will be punished.

This allegation does not state a viable constitutional

claim. The unpublished opinion in Walker v. Michigan Dept. of

Corrections, 128 Fed. Appx. 441 (6th Cir. April 1, 2005) is

particularly helpful here. That decision also recognized that

there is a constitutional right for prisoners to file grievances

without being subject to retaliation, but it held that this

constitutional right was not infringed by “a policy that merely

provided that a grievance officer would screen frivolous

grievances.” Id. at *3. There were consequences for filing

frivolous grievances, including an extension of an inmate’s

status on “modified access,” but the court held that this was not

enough to deter a person of ordinary firmness from filing

grievances. See id. at *3-4, citing Thaddeus-X v. Blatter, 175

F.3d 378, 394 (6th Cir. 1999). 

Here, even according to Mr. Brown’s complaint, prison

officials did no more than inform Mr. Brown that if he filed a

grievance which could be construed as threatening or

disrespectful, he could be subjecting himself to institutional

punishment. In fact, Ohio Administrative Code 5120-9-31(F)

contains exactly this language, stating that “[a]n inmate may be

subject to disciplinary action for disrespectful, threatening or

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otherwise inappropriate comments made in an informal complaint,

grievance or grievance appeal.” Certainly, prison officials may

legitimately review informal complaints for compliance with this

regulation, and may inform inmates that it will be enforced

against them, especially where, as here, the informal complaint

which gave rise to the meeting between Mr. Brown and Captain

Johnson appears to have come close to the line of being

disrespectful. As noted above, there is language in the

complaint telling prison officials what they had “better do” in

their supervision of a corrections officer, as well as the threat

of litigation, which may, if the litigation is not properly

grounded in law, be treated as a threat. See Harrison v. Seay,

856 F.Supp. 1275 (W.D. Tenn. 1994). 

Subjectively, Mr. Brown may have felt uncertain about

whether he could file informal complaints in the future without

risking discipline, but he has not alleged that he was subjected

to a standard that either varied from the one contained in O.A.C.

§5120-9-31(F) or a standard that was applicable only to him. 

Objectively, however, telling an inmate that he or she may be

subject to discipline if the inmate’s conduct violates a written

institutional rule is not enough to deter a person of ordinary

firmness from engaging in protected conduct in the future. The

threat of discipline received by Mr. Brown addressed only

unprotected conduct, namely filing a threatening or disrespectful

grievance. It is constitutional for a prison to punish inmates

who submit disrespectful grievances or complaints because such

disrespectful conduct implicates concerns about the “constant

state of tension over who is to control the prison” and the

“‘ever-present potential for violent confrontation.’” Brown v.

Carpenter, 889 F.Supp. 1028, 1033 (W.D. Tenn. 1995). Thus, the

complaint fails to state a claim under the First Amendment with

respect to the January 28, 2010 incident or its impact on Mr.

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Brown’s willingness to submit informal complaints to officials at

his institution.

Mr. Brown has also alleged a variety of incidents which he

claims to be related in some way to his ability to use the prison

grievance process. However, he admits to not having filed any

grievances since January 26, 2010. The allegation that false

conduct reports were filed against him in July or September of

2010 does not plausibly state a claim that this type of alleged

harassment was related in some way to his use of the grievance

process more than six months before. Claims that are not

plausible do not satisfy the new standard to be applied when

determining if a complaint could survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion

to dismiss. See Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 554

(2007). It is also the case that “an inmate cannot immunize

himself from adverse administrative action by prison officials

merely by filing grievances and then claiming that everything

that happens to him is retaliatory.” Rienholtz v. Campbell, 64

F. Supp. 2d 721, 734 (W.D. Tenn.), aff’d 198 f.3d 247 (6th Cir.

1999). There is still a causation element involved in a

retaliation claim which requires an inmate to prove (or, in this

context, to allege plausibly) that “the adverse action was

motivated at least in part by the plaintiff's protected conduct.” 

Thaddeus-X v. Blatter, 175 F.3d 378, 394 (6th Cir. 1999). Mr.

Brown has not done that here.

Further, the conduct described in Mr. Brown’s complaint is

not independently actionable. It is clear that mere verbal

harassment and threats directed to an inmate by a prison guard,

while perhaps unprofessional, are not unconstitutional. “Not

every unpleasant experience a prisoner might endure while

incarcerated constitutes cruel and unusual punishment within the

meaning of the Eighth Amendment.” Ivey v. Wilson, 832 F.2d 950,

954 (6th Cir 1987). A prisoner simply “has no protectable right

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not to have threats made against him or verbal abuse directed

towards him.” Willis v. Draper, 2010 WL 1875704, *5 (E.D. Tenn.

May 10, 2010). 

This principle applies not just to verbal harassment and

threats but to allegedly harassing activities such as the filing

of false conduct reports. “The prison inmate has no

constitutionally guaranteed immunity from being falsely or

wrongly accused of conduct which may result in the deprivation of

a protected liberty interest.” Freeman v. Rideout, 808 F.2d 949,

951 (2d Cir. 1986); see also Jackson v. Hamlin, 61 Fed. Appx.

131, *2 (6th Cir. March 11, 2003). Mr. Brown has not claimed

that as a result of any of these allegedly false charges, he was

either convicted of a prison disciplinary offense or subjected to

some punishment that is atypical for persons already confined in

prison and which would therefore implicate his due process

rights. See Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472 (1995). 

Consequently, no viable constitutional claim can be based on the

allegations of harassment or threats which are found in Mr.

Brown’s complaint.

III. Recommended Order

It is therefore recommended that this case be dismissed

under 28 U.S.C. §§1915(e)(2) and §1915A(b). If this

recommendation is adopted, a copy of the complaint, this Report

and Recommendation, and any dismissal order should be mailed to

the defendants.

IV. Procedure on Objections

 If any party objects to this Report and Recommendation, that

party may, within fourteen days of the date of this Report, file

and serve on all parties written objections to those specific

proposed findings or recommendations to which objection is made,

together with supporting authority for the objection(s). A judge

of this Court shall make a de novo determination of those

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portions of the report or specified proposed findings or

recommendations to which objection is made. Upon proper

objections, a judge of this Court may accept, reject, or modify,

in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made herein,

may receive further evidence or may recommit this matter to the

magistrate judge with instructions. 28 U.S.C. §636(b)(1).

 The parties are specifically advised that failure to object

to the Report and Recommendation will result in a waiver of the

right to have the district judge review the Report and

Recommendation de novo, and also operates as a waiver of the

right to appeal the decision of the District Court adopting the

Report and Recommendation. See Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140

(1985); United States v. Walters, 638 F.2d 947 (6th Cir.1981).

 /s/ Terence P. Kemp 

 United States Magistrate Judge

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