Court Opinion

ID: 9460124
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:42:16.615545+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:29.598265
License: Public Domain

ADAMS, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
I am constrained to concur in the result reached by the Court in this case, *282and do so solely on the ground that the complaint sufficiently states a section 1983 cause of action to survive a motion to dismiss. Having been reluctantly persuaded that the ancient maxim “de min-imis non curat lex” does not apply to civil rights actions such as the one presented here, it is my view that this Court has no choice but to conclude that the district court erred in dismissing the complaint as frivolous.
This result may well be expected to come as a surprise to the district judge who dismissed the complaint. It will also no doubt generate a certain amount of disbelief in those taxpayers and citizens generally, not to mention judges and lawyers, who will ask how federal courts have come to be concerned with a case in which a state prisoner alleges simply that his constitutional rights were violated when a prison guard took seven packages of cigarettes from him. I have yet to answer this question satisfactorily for myself.