Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/487/266/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 04:24:35+00:00

Document:
While incarcerated in a Tennessee prison, petitioner drafted a pro se notice of appeal from the Federal District Court's judgment dismissing his pro se habeas corpus petition, and, 27 days after the judgment, deposited the notice with the prison authorities for mailing to the District Court. The date of deposit was recorded in the prison's outgoing mail log. Because petitioner lacked the necessary funds, prison authorities refused his requests to certify the notice for proof that it had been deposited for mailing on the day in question, and to send the notice air mail. Although the record contains no evidence of when the prison authorities actually mailed the notice or when the District Court actually received it, the court stamped the notice "filed" 31 days after the habeas judgment -- that is, one day after the expiration of the 30-day filing period for taking an appeal under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(1). For this reason, the Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal as jurisdictionally out of time.
for most civil appeals, should not apply in the pro se prisoner context. Nothing in either Rule 3(a) or Rule 4(a)(1) compels the conclusion that receipt by the clerk must be the moment of filing in all cases, and, in fact, a number of federal courts have recognized exceptions to the general principle. Moreover, the rationale for the general rule is that the appellant has no control over delays after the court clerk's receipt of the notice -- a rationale that suggests that the moment of filing here should be the moment when the pro se prisoner necessarily loses control over his notice: the moment of delivery to prison authorities for forwarding. The bright-line rule recognizing receipt by prison authorities as the moment of filing will also decrease disputes and uncertainty as to when a filing actually occurred, since such authorities keep detailed logs for recording the date and time at which they receive papers for mailing, and can readily dispute a prisoner's contrary assertions. Relying on the date of receipt, by contrast, would raise difficult questions as to whether the prison authorities, the Postal Service, or the court clerk is to blame for any delay. Pp. 487 U. S. 269-276.
BRENNAN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which WHITE, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, and STEVENS, JJ., joined. SCALIA, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and O'CONNOR and KENNEDY, JJ., joined, post, p. 487 U. S. 277.
Pro se prisoners can file notices of appeal to the federal courts of appeals only by delivering them to prison authorities for forwarding to the appropriate district court. The question we decide in this case is whether, under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(1), such notices are to be considered filed at the moment of delivery to prison authorities for forwarding or at some later point in time.
"filed" by the Clerk of the District Court at 8:30 a.m. on February 7, 1986, 31 days after the District Court's judgment was entered -- that is, one day after the expiration of the 30-day filing period for taking an appeal established by Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(1).
Neither the District Court nor respondent suggested that the notice of appeal might be untimely. Rather, the District Court issued a certificate of probable cause on February 18, 1986, noting that the appeal presented a "question of first impression" in the jurisdiction. App. 22. On March 5, 1986, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit circulated a briefing schedule to the parties. On March 21, 1986, however, 13 days after the time had expired to request an extension of the time for filing a notice of appeal under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(5), the Court of Appeals discovered the time problem concerning the filing of petitioner's notice of appeal and alerted the parties by entering an order requiring petitioner to show cause why the appeal should not be dismissed for want of jurisdiction. Eventually the Court of Appeals appointed counsel to argue the time question for petitioner. On May 22, 1987, the court entered an order dismissing the appeal as jurisdictionally out of time. We granted certiorari, 484 U.S. 1025 (1988), and now reverse.
"for purposes of Rule 37(a)(2), a defendant incarcerated in a federal prison and acting without the aid of counsel files his notice of appeal in time, if, within the 10-day period provided by the Rule, he delivers such notice to the prison authorities for forwarding to the clerk of the District Court. In other words, in such a case, the jailer is in effect the clerk of the District Court within the meaning of Rule 37."
date he delivered the notice to those prison authorities and the date ultimately stamped on his notice.
"[N]o appeal shall bring any judgment, order or decree in an action, suit or proceeding of a civil nature before a court of appeals for review unless notice of appeal is filed, within thirty days after the entry of such judgment, order or decree."
The statute thus does not define when a notice of appeal has been "filed" or designate the person with whom it must be filed, and nothing in the statute suggests that, in the unique circumstances of a pro se prisoner, it would be inappropriate to conclude that a notice of appeal is "filed" within the meaning of § 2107 at the moment it is delivered to prison officials for forwarding to the clerk of the district court.
"An appeal permitted by law as of right from a district court to a court of appeals shall be taken by filing a notice of appeal with the clerk of the district court within the time allowed by Rule 4."
"In a civil case in which an appeal is permitted by law as of right from a district court to a court of appeals the notice of appeal required by Rule 3 shall be filed with the clerk of the district court within 30 days after the date of entry of the judgment or order appealed from. . . ."
clerk of the district court -- delivery of a notice of appeal to prison authorities would not, under any theory, constitute a "filing" unless the notice were delivered for forwarding to the district court. The question is one of timing, not destination: whether the moment of "filing" occurs when the notice is delivered to the prison authorities or at some later juncture in its processing. The Rules are not dispositive on this point, for neither Rule sets forth criteria for determining the moment at which the "filing" has occurred. See Fallen, 378 U.S. at 378 U. S. 144 (Stewart, J., joined by Clark, Harlan, and BRENNAN, JJ., concurring) (concluding that, under Rule 37(a), a "filing with the clerk of the district court" of a pro se prisoner's notice of appeal occurs when he delivers it to prison authorities for forwarding to the district court). Indeed, our own Rules recognize that the moment when a document is "filed" with a court can be the moment it is sent to that court. See Rule 28.2 (providing that a document can be deemed "filed" at the moment it is deposited in the mail for delivery to the Clerk of the Court).
the prison authorities' receipt of the notice and its filing, and their lack of freedom bars them from delivering the notice to the court clerk personally.
is taken has adopted a rule which deems a document filed on mailing. See generally Placeway Construction Corp. v. United States, 713 F.2d 726 (CA Fed.1983).
These questions are made particularly difficult here, because any delays might instead be attributable to the prison authorities' failure to forward the notice promptly. Indeed, since, as everyone concedes, the prison's failure to act promptly cannot bind a pro se prisoner, relying on receipt in this context would raise yet more difficult to resolve questions concerning whether the prison authorities were dilatory. The prison will be the only party with access to at least some of the evidence needed to resolve such questions -- one of the vices the general rule is meant to avoid -- and evidence on any of these issues will be hard to come by for the prisoner confined to his cell, who can usually only guess whether the prison authorities, the Postal Service, or the court clerk is to blame for any delay.
"(1) Notice of Appeal. An appeal permitted by law from a district court to a court of appeals is taken by filing with the clerk of the district court a notice of appeal in duplicate. . . ."
"(2) Time for Taking Appeal. An appeal by a defendant may be taken within 10 days after entry of the judgment or order appealed from. . . ."
Respondent suggests that this Court has rejected the mailbox rule, citing Parissi v. Telechron, Inc., 349 U. S. 46 (1955), and United States v. Lombardo, 241 U. S. 73 (1916). Parissi, though, merely held that timely receipt was sufficient, not necessary, to meet the filing requirement under 28 U.S.C. § 2107, and Lombardo did not involve the filing of a notice of appeal, but a filing requirement imposed by a criminal statute. Neither case involved the efforts of a prisoner to file a notice of appeal without the aid of counsel.
In this very case, for example, it is not clear when the notice was actually mailed, and petitioner alleges both that the mail service was slower than advertised and that the date stamped on the notice is not the date of receipt. In connection with the latter allegation, he notes that most of the papers mailed to the District Court were stamped as filed at 8:30 a.m., and suggests that the time of stamping may simply reflect a method of processing incoming papers wherein the papers received in the court's post office box are not collected and stamped until the start of the following working day. See generally In re Piper Aircraft Distribution System Antitrust Litigation, 551 F.2d 213, 216, n. 7 (CA8 1977) (leaving it open to party to prove that clerk received the notice of appeal on a date earlier than that recorded on it); Da'Ville v. Wise, 470 F.2d 1364, 1365, and n. 2 (CA5 1973) (refusing to hold notice untimely when the court clerk's practices created a strong possibility that the notice was not stamped when received).
Because of our holding, we need not reach petitioner's other arguments: that any untimeliness should be excused because he "did all he could" under Fallen v. United States, 378 U. S. 139, 378 U. S. 144 (1964); that the District Court received the notice on time, but stamped it late; that he was lulled into thinking that his appeal was timely by the issuance of a certificate of probable cause and a briefing schedule, and thus any untimeliness should be excused because of "unique circumstances" under Harris Truck Lines, Inc. v. Cherry Meat Packers, Inc., 371 U. S. 215, 371 U. S. 217 (1962), and Thompson v. INS, 375 U. S. 384 (1964); and that his notice of appeal should be treated as a motion for extension of time under Rule 4(a)(5).
JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE O'CONNOR, and JUSTICE KENNEDY join, dissenting.
Today's decision obliterates the line between textual construction and textual enactment. It would be within the realm of normal judicial creativity (though in my view wrong) to interpret the phrase "filed with the clerk" to mean "mailed to the clerk," or even "mailed to the clerk or given to a person bearing an obligation to mail to the clerk." But interpreting it to mean "delivered to the clerk or, if you are a prisoner, delivered to your warden" is no more acceptable than any of an infinite number of variants, such as: "delivered to the clerk or, if you are out of the country, delivered to a United States consul"; or "delivered to the clerk or, if you are a soldier on active duty in a war zone, delivered to your commanding officer"; or "delivered to the clerk or, if you are held hostage in a foreign country, meant to be delivered to the clerk." Like these other examples, the Court's rule makes a good deal of sense. I dissent only because it is not the rule that we have promulgated through congressionally prescribed procedures.
"[N]o appeal shall bring any judgment, order or decree in an action, suit, or proceeding of a civil nature before a court of appeals for review unless notice of appeal is filed within thirty days after the entry of such judgment, order or decree."
(Emphasis added.) It is clear, then, that there was a notice of appeal effective to give the Court of Appeals jurisdiction in this case if, and only if, it was "filed with the clerk of the district court" within the 30-day period.
"To be timely filed, a document must be received by the Clerk within the time specified for filing, except that any document shall be deemed timely filed if it has been deposited in a United States post office or mailbox, with first-class postage prepaid, and properly addressed to the Clerk of this Court, within the time allowed for filing, and if there is filed with the Clerk a notarized statement by a member of the Bar of this Court, setting forth the details of the mailing, and stating that to his knowledge the mailing took place on a particular date within the permitted time."
(Emphasis added.) Since "received by the Clerk" must, in the context of such a rule, reasonably be understood to have a unitary meaning, which would, of course, normally be actual receipt, we felt constrained to specify an exception in which mailing would suffice. It would have been as inappropriate (though no less possible) there, as in the present case, to create the exception through interpretation -- reasoning that the Post Office can be deemed the agent of the addressee, Household Fire & Carriage Accident Ins. Co. v. Grant, 4 Ex.D. 216 (1879) ("[P]ost office [is] the agent of both parties"), and hence it is theoretically possible to consider the document "received by" the Clerk when it is mailed, and the policy considerations usually militating in favor of a rule of actual receipt are well enough satisfied by an affidavit from a member of our Bar, etc.
excepts from the courts' broad equitable power to "suspend the requirements or provisions of any of these rules in a particular case," Fed.Rule App. Proc. 2, the power to "enlarge the time for filing a notice of appeal." When we adopted Rules 3 and 4 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, we delayed, as required by law, their effective date until 90 days after they were "reported to Congress by the Chief Justice," 28 U.S.C. § 2072, so that Congress might consider whether it wished to legislate any changes in them. Surely Congress could not have imagined that "filing . . . with the clerk" in Rule 3(a) and "filed with the clerk" in Rule 4(a)(1) could have a meaning as remote from plain English as "delivered to the warden of a prison" -- or whatever else might be held in the future to fit today's announced "rationale . . . that the appellant has no control over delays," ante at 487 U. S. 273.
of "filed with the clerk" may be adopted -- even one as remote as "addressed to the clerk and given to the warden" -- depending upon what equity requires. It may turn out that we will not often agree that equity requires anything other than "received by the clerk," but parties will often argue it, and the lower courts will sometimes hold it. Thus is wasteful litigation in our appellate courts multiplied.
Petitioner Prentiss Houston's notice of appeal in this case was stamped received 31 days after the District Court's judgment was entered -- that is, one day after the expiration of the 30-day filing period set out in Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(1). Since there is no legal warrant for creating a special exception to the rule of receipt for the benefit of incarcerated pro se appellants, I cannot join the Court in reversing the judgment on that basis.
Petitioner advanced several additional arguments supporting reversal which the Court did not have to reach. Ante at 487 U. S. 276-277, n. 4. I must consider them, and, having done so, find that none of them has merit.
First, petitioner asserts that his untimeliness in filing his notice of appeal should be excused because he "did all he could under the circumstances," as required by Fallen v. United States, 378 U. S. 139, 378 U. S. 144 (1964). This argument fails because there is no warrant for equitable tolling of filing deadlines in the civil context of this habeas proceeding as there was in the criminal context that was at issue in Fallen. The bar erected by § 2107 in civil cases is jurisdictional, and this Court is without power to waive it, no matter what the equities of a particular case. As noted above, this is made explicit in Rule 26(b) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. In Fallen, by contrast, there was no jurisdictional statute at issue, and the relevant Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 2 provided that a "just determination" should be achieved. See 378 U.S. at 378 U. S. 142.
"Filing deadlines, like statutes of limitations, necessarily operate harshly and arbitrarily with respect to individuals who fall just on the other side of them, but if the concept of a filing deadline is to have any content, the deadline must be enforced. 'Any less rigid standard would risk encouraging a lax attitude toward filing dates,' United States v. Boyle, 469 U.S. [241,] 469 U. S. 249 [(1985)]. A filing deadline cannot be complied with, substantially or otherwise, by filing late -- even by one day."
"The district court, upon a showing of excusable neglect or good cause, may extend the time for filing a notice of appeal upon motion filed not later than 30 days after the expiration of the time prescribed by this Rule 4(a)."
"Under the present rule, there is a possible implication that, prior to the time the initial appeal time has run, the district court may extend the time on the basis of an informal application. The amendment would require that the application must be made by motion, though the motion may be made ex parte. After the expiration of the initial time, a motion for the extension of the time must be made in compliance with the F.R.C.P. and local rules of the district court."
28 U.S.C.App. p. 469. The courts below were therefore without power to treat petitioner's late filed notice of appeal as a motion for extension of time under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(5).
"Rules of procedure are a necessary part of an orderly system of justice. Their efficacy, however, depends upon the willingness of the courts to enforce them according to their terms. Changes in rules whose inflexibility has turned out to work hardship should be effected by the process of amendment, not by ad hoc relaxations by this Court in particular cases. Such dispensations in the long run actually produce mischievous results, undermining the certainty of the rules and causing confusion among the lower courts and the bar."
375 U.S. at 375 U. S. 390.
That could not be more correct, nor more applicable to the present case. The filing rule the Court supports today seems to me a good one, but it is fully within our power to adopt it by an amendment of the Rules. Doing so, instead, in the present fashion not only evades the statutory requirement that changes be placed before Congress so that it may reject them by legislation before they become effective, 28 U.S.C. § 2072, but destroys the most important characteristic of filing requirements, which is the certainty of their application. It is hard to understand why the Court felt the need to short-circuit the orderly process of rule amendment in order to provide immediate relief in the present case. Petitioner delivered his notice of appeal to the warden three days before it was due to be filed with the Clerk. It would have been imprudent even to place it in a mailbox with the deadline so close at hand.

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