Opinion ID: 767677
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Neitzke v. Williams

Text: 76 Neither the Franklin nor the Noll opinion would survive the Supreme Court's decision in Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319 (1989). The Court's decision suggested that (1) Noll was incorrect in extending procedural protections to a complaint dismissed under S1915(d); and (2) Franklin was incorrect in allowing complaints whose only defect was failure to state a claim to be characterized as frivolous and dismissed under S1915(d). 77 In Neitzke, a pro se inmate brought an IFP civil rights suit against prison officials, alleging that those officials violated the Eighth Amendment by denying him medical treatment and his due process rights by transferring him to a cell which he found undesirable. 490 U.S. at 320-21. The district court dismissed the complaint as frivolous, sua sponte, without an opportunity to amend, pursuant to S1915(d). The Supreme Court held that a complaint that failed to state a claim was not necessarily frivolous under S1915(d). See id. Important to this case was how the Supreme Court crystallized the difference between procedures under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) and the old S1915(d): 78 Under Rule 12(b)(6), a plaintiff with an arguable claim is ordinarily accorded notice of a pending motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim and an opportunity to amend the complaint before the motion is ruled on . . . . By contrast, the sua sponte dismissals permitted by, and frequently employed under, S1915(d), necessary though they may some times be to shield defendants from vexatious law suits, involve no such procedural protections . 79 Id. at 329-30 (emphasis added). 80 Thus, in Neitzke, the Supreme Court stated unequivocally that district courts were not required to provide leave to amend to prisoners's vexatious lawsuits when proceeding IFP under the then existing S1915(d). 490 U.S. at 329-30. The Court reasoned that the dismissal under 1915(d) of complaints without leave to amend whose only defect was a failure to state a claim was incorrect. Specifically, the Court said it would not conflate the standards of frivolousness and failure to state a claim by allowing dismissal of the latter under S1915(d). Id. at 330. To do so would deny indigent plaintiffs the practical protections against unwarranted dismissal generally accorded under the Federal Rules. Id. 81 Thus, after Neitzke, an IFP prisoner complaint that failed to state a claim could not be dismissed under S1915(d) and thus could not be dismissed without leave to amend.