Opinion ID: 1346280
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Fee Cap's Application to Released Prisoners

Text: Plaintiffs also argue that the plain text of the PLRA applies only to prisoners who are still incarcerated at the time of the successful resolution of their suits, and has no application to plaintiffs who were incarcerated when they filed suit but who have since been released. They rely heavily on Morris v. Eversley, 343 F.Supp.2d 234 (S.D.N.Y.2004), in which Judge Chin conducted a thoughtful analysis of the question and concluded that the fee cap applied only to currently incarcerated prisoners. Plaintiffs, following Morris, point to the statutory text, which applies the fee cap to any action brought by a prisoner who is confined to any jail, prison, or other correctional facility.  42 U.S.C. § 1997e(d)(1) (emphasis added). The highlighted portion, the argument runs, must refer to the status of the plaintiff at the conclusion of the suit, rather that its inception, or else it would be redundant. For, they assert, a prisoner is, by definition, an individual confined to [a] jail, prison, or other correctional facility. See Morris, 343 F.Supp.2d at 241. Additionally, they argue, Congress intended the PLRA to curb frivolous lawsuits, not meritorious ones. As a result, they contend, any ambiguities should be construed in ways that are favorable to successful (and, by implication, meritorious) suits. See id. at 241-42. Finally, they say, applying the fee cap to released prisoners would give rise to absurd results. It would create a senseless disparity between prisoners who file toward the end of their incarceration and those who wait until their release to file. Even more absurdly, it would create incentives for prisoners to withdraw suits filed while in jail, only to refile their claims upon the prisoners' release. See id. at 244. While not without some merit, these arguments do not persuade us. First, we believe that the text of the PLRA, although not entirely unambiguous, is most naturally read as referring solely to a plaintiff's status at the time of filing, not at subsequent stages of the proceedings. The act applies to any action brought by a prisoner who is confined to any jail, prison, or other correctional facility. § 1997e(d)(1) (emphasis added). Its only temporal hook is to the time the action is brought  that is, when it is filed. See Jackson v. State Bd. of Pardons & Paroles, 331 F.3d 790, 795 (11th Cir.2003) ([T]he term `brought' as used in § 1997e(d)'s `in any action brought' language means filed.). The reference to a prisoner's confine[ment in] any jail, prison, or other correctional facility thus seems to describe the status of a plaintiff at the time of filing, not that of the plaintiff at some later time. Nor do we find the redundancy that Plaintiffs say attaches to such a reading. Plaintiffs are right, of course, that we construe statutes to avoid surplusage whenever possible. See, e.g., Cal. Pub. Employees' Ret. Sys. v. Worldcom, Inc., 368 F.3d 86, 106 (2d Cir.2004) (Statutes should be construed, if possible, to give effect to every clause and word.). But our understanding of § 1997e(d)(1) does not leave us with a bare redundancy. The phrases prisoner and confined to any jail, prison, or other correctional facility are not synonymous. The term prisoner, as defined in the PLRA, means any person incarcerated or detained in any facility who is accused of, convicted of, sentenced for, or adjudicated delinquent for, violations of criminal law or the terms and conditions of parole, probation, pretrial release, or diversionary program. § 1997e(h) (emphasis added). The fee cap, instead, applies to only three types of facilities: jails, prisons, and other correctional facilities in which a prisoner may be confined. § 1997e(d)(1). As a result, some prisoners are not made subject to the fee cap: for example, those incarcerated or detained in medical facilities or mental institutions. Without going further into the matter, we conclude that Plaintiffs' reliance on the canon against surplusage is misplaced. Contrary to Plaintiffs' claim, we also do not believe that applying the fee cap to suits filed when Plaintiffs are incarcerated produces absurd results. True, the fee cap draws a distinction between otherwise identical claims, leading one plaintiff to file while incarcerated and others to wait until their release from incarceration to file suit. Cf. Doe v. Wash. County, 150 F.3d 920, 924 (8th Cir.1998) (holding that the fee cap does not apply to suits brought by former prisoners). But this is not a wholly artificial distinction; Congress may well have thought that persons still incarcerated were more inclined to bring suits than those who were back in the world and now had less time on their hands and better things to do with it. See Hearing on S. 3 and S. 866 Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 104th Cong., 1995 WL 496909 (F.D.C.H.) (July 27, 1995) (prepared statement of O. Lane McCotter, Exec. Dir., Utah Dep't of Corrections) (The driving force behind this flood of litigations is that inmates have `nothing to lose' in filing even the most frivolous case....). Moreover, Plaintiffs' preferred reading would produce results at least as peculiar: a plaintiff who obtained a settlement or a verdict on the eve of her release would be covered by the fee cap, while one who obtained similar success immediately after her release would not. All in all, we conclude that the more likely textual reading survives any absurdity test.