Court Opinion

ID: 9951626
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-18 16:01:15.030257+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:41:50.268860
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 23-11099   Document: 17-1    Date Filed: 03/18/2024   Page: 1 of 7

                                                [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                 In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                         ____________________

                              No. 23-11099
                         Non-Argument Calendar
                         ____________________

       BENJAMIN BOSTON,
                                                   Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
       versus
       HARALSON COUNTY JAIL, et al.,

                                                          Defendants,

       SGT. GATES,
       Oﬃcer,
       OFFICER CODY GOODMAN,
       OFFICER AVERY SAVAGE,
       OFFICER RODNEY ROBINSON,
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       2                       Opinion of the Court                  23-11099

                                                      Defendants-Appellees.

                            ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Northern District of Georgia
                     D.C. Docket No. 3:21-cv-00102-TCB
                           ____________________

       Before JORDAN, JILL PRYOR, and BRANCH, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
               Benjamin Boston, a pro se prisoner, appeals the district
       court’s sua sponte dismissal, without prejudice, of his complaint
       against jail officials for failure to comply with the court’s orders and
       for failure to prosecute. He also appeals the district court’s denial
       of his motion for reconsideration of that dismissal order.
               Mr. Boston filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against three jail
       officials and the Haralson County Jail on July 1, 2021. He alleged
       that while an inmate at the Jail in Georgia, Officers John Doe, Jane
       Doe, and Sergeant Gates tazed him six times and pepper sprayed
       him even though he was compliant and handcuffed behind his
       back. Mr. Boston asserted violations of the First, Eighth, and Four-
       teenth Amendments.
              On July 20, 2021, the magistrate judge granted Mr. Boston
       leave to proceed in forma pauperis and ordered him to file an
       amended complaint containing the addresses of all defendants or
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       23-11099               Opinion of the Court                        3

       other identifying information for them, such as physical character-
       istics. On August 11, 2021, Mr. Boston amended his complaint and
       identified the defendants as Sgt. Gates, a Black woman; Officer
       John Doe, a white man; and Officer Jane Doe, a white woman. All
       were employed at the Jail. In October of 2021, the district court
       dismissed the Eighth Amendment claims and the claims against the
       Jail, but allowed excessive force claims under the Fourteenth
       Amendment to proceed against the officers. As to the two officers
       that Mr. Boston named fictitiously, the district court reasoned that
       Mr. Boston could uncover their names through discovery.
               The U.S. Marshals Service was unable to serve Sgt. Gates at
       the Jail on December 28, 2021, because she no longer worked there.
       That kicked off an over one year back and forth between the mag-
       istrate judge and Mr. Boston. In that time, the magistrate judge
       ordered Mr. Boston on multiple occasions to provide an address for
       Sgt. Gates. Mr. Boston would respond that he could not obtain the
       information because he was incarcerated. He instead tried to point
       the Marshals Service in the right direction and moved the court to
       compel the Jail staff to provide Sgt. Gates’ address. Mr. Boston also
       amended his complaint once more to raise excessive force claims
       against Officers Cody Goodman, Avery Savage, and Rodney Rob-
       inson (Officers Goodman and Savage were the Doe defendants
       from the initial complaint). Eventually, though, Mr. Boston ran
       into trouble because he stopped timely responding to the magis-
       trate judge’s orders and could not, despite the multiple extensions,
       come up with Sgt. Gates’ address.
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       4                          Opinion of the Court                        23-11099

               On December 6, 2022, the district court adopted the magis-
       trate judge’s report, which recommended dismissing without prej-
       udice Mr. Boston’s second amended complaint for failure to com-
       ply with the court’s orders and failure to prosecute. The district
       court rejected Mr. Boston’s explanation that the Jail had been “play-
       ing with people[s’] mail” because it found the timing suspicious
       given the numerous other instances in which Mr. Boston timely
       made other filings. Even setting that aside, the district court ex-
       plained, Mr. Boston had not offered an excuse for failing to provide
       Sgt. Gates’ address. The district court concluded that “[i]f Plaintiff
       has the addresses for the Defendants, he is invited to file a new
       complaint and include the Defendants’ addresses.” D.E. 55 at 8.
              In a motion for reconsideration, Mr. Boston again argued
       that he mailed his filings on a timely basis and was entitled to the
       benefit of the “Mail-Box Rule.” The district court again rejected
       Mr. Boston’s argument. 1
               This timely appeal followed.
              We review for abuse of discretion a district court’s decision
       to dismiss a complaint for failure to follow a court order and/or for
       failure to prosecute. See Foudy v. Indian River Cnty. Sheriﬀ’s Oﬀ., 845
       F.3d 1117, 1122 (11th Cir. 2017) (failure to follow court order);

       1 “Under the prison mailbox rule, a pro se prisoner’s court filing is deemed filed

       on the date it is delivered to prison authorities for mailing.” Jeffries v. United
       States, 748 F.3d 1310, 1314 (11th Cir. 2014) (quotation marks omitted). Absent
       evidence to the contrary, we assume that a prisoner delivered a filing to prison
       authorities on the date that he signed it. See id.
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       23-11099                   Opinion of the Court                                5

       Gratton v. Great Am. Commc’ns, 178 F.3d 1373, 1374 (11th Cir. 1999)
       (failure to prosecute).
              A dismissal without prejudice for failure to comply with
       court orders generally does not constitute an abuse of discretion
       because the aﬀected party may simply reﬁle. See Dynes v. Army Air
       Force Exch. Serv., 720 F.2d 1495, 1499 (11th Cir. 1983) (holding that
       dismissal without prejudice for failure to ﬁle a court-ordered brief
       was not an abuse of discretion). But when a dismissal “has the ef-
       fect of precluding [an] appellant from reﬁling his claim due to the
       running of the statute of limitations,” the dismissal is “tantamount
       to a dismissal with prejudice,” and must be reviewed as such. See
       Burden v. Yates, 644 F.2d 503, 505 (5th Cir. 1981) (emphasis added). 2
              This is one of those cases where a dismissal without preju-
       dice is in eﬀect a dismissal with prejudice. The district court dis-
       missed Mr. Boston’s second amended complaint without prejudice.
       Mr. Boston’s § 1983 claims, however, were subject to Georgia’s two-
       year statute of limitations for personal injury claims. See Mullinax
       v. McElhenney, 817 F.2d 711, 716 n.2 (11th Cir. 1987). The injuries
       Mr. Boston complained of—injuries arising out of an alleged beat-
       ing by jail guards—occurred on July 5, 2020. Thus, the statute of
       limitations on his § 1983 claims ran on July 5, 2022—about ﬁve
       months before the district court’s order of dismissal. Mr. Boston
       timely initiated this action on July 1, 2021. The complaint that was

       2 Because it was decided by the former Fifth Circuit prior to October 1, 1981,

       Burden is binding precedent in the Eleventh Circuit. See Bonner v. City of Prich-
       ard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir.1981) (en banc).
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       6                          Opinion of the Court                         23-11099

       dismissed was almost certainly his only opportunity to vindicate an
       alleged violation of his federal rights.
              Dismissals with prejudice are “sanction[s] of last resort,” ap-
       propriate “only in extreme circumstances.” Zocaras v. Castro, 465
       F.3d 479, 483 (11th Cir. 2006) (quoting Goforth v. Owens, 766 F.2d
       1533, 1535 (11th Cir. 1985)). To sua sponte dismiss a case with prej-
       udice, a district court must “[1] ﬁnd[ ] a clear record of delay or
       willful conduct and [2] that lesser sanctions are inadequate to cor-
       rect such conduct.” Id. (quoting Betty K Agencies, Ltd. v. M/V
       MONADA, 432 F.3d 1333, 1339 (11th Cir. 2005)).
               Here we are primarily concerned with the second require-
       ment. Although the requisite ﬁnding need not be explicit, see Zoca-
       ras, 465 F.3d at 484, the district court failed to make any ﬁnding that
       lesser sanctions would be inadequate to correct the oﬀending con-
       duct. In fact, the district court seemed to indicate the opposite by
       stating that “[i]f Plaintiﬀ has the addresses for the Defendants, he is
       invited to ﬁle a new complaint and include the Defendants’ ad-
       dresses.” D.E. 55 at 8. 3

       3 We assume, without deciding, that there is a clear record of delay or willful

       conduct by Mr. Boston. We take a moment, however, to note that when the
       court grants a pro se prisoner leave to proceed in forma pauperis, as was the
       case here, the oﬃcers of the court must “issue and serve all process.” See 28
       U.S.C. § 1915(d). Under those circumstances, “it is unreasonable to expect
       incarcerated and unrepresented prisoner-litigants to provide the current ad-
       dresses of prison-guard defendants who no longer work at the prison.” Rich-
       ardson v. Johnson, 598 F.3d 734, 739–40 (11th Cir. 2010). After all, prison oﬃcials
       are not likely to provide inmates with the locations where oﬃcers are em-
       ployed. All the prisoner-litigant must do to establish good cause under Fed. R.
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       23-11099                  Opinion of the Court                                7

              Given that the district court believed Mr. Boston could
       simply reﬁle his complaint, it is unclear whether it would have nev-
       ertheless dismissed Mr. Boston’s case. Accordingly, we vacate and
       remand this case for proceedings not inconsistent with this opin-
       ion.
              In closing, we add one more observation. The district court
       dismissed Mr. Boston’s second amended complaint, and in that
       pleading Mr. Boston had named three oﬃcers who worked at the
       Jail. Two of them—Oﬃcers Goodman and Savage—were defend-
       ants who had previously been named as Oﬃcers Jane Doe and John
       Doe. Even if dismissal might have been appropriate as to Sgt.
       Gates, it is unclear as to why the entire second amended complaint
       should have been dismissed when the Doe defendants were identi-
       ﬁed by name.
               VACATED AND REMANDED.

       Civ. P. 4(m) is provide “enough information to identify the prison-guard de-
       fendant” so that the court-appointed agent can locate the guard with “reason-
       able eﬀort.” See id. at 740 (vacating and remanding dismissal for district court
       to determine whether prison-guard defendant could be located with “reason-
       able eﬀort”).