Court Opinion

ID: 9889781
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-11 17:01:17.134216+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:49:04.167175
License: Public Domain

FOR PUBLICATION

     UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
          FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

LEON L. MEYERS,                                  No. 17-16907

                  Plaintiff-Appellant,        D.C. No. 3:14-cv-
                                                 03123-RS
    v.

EDWARD M. BIRDSONG, Dr.; R.                         ORDER
MACK; P. LAHEY, RN; A.
REYNOSO,

                  Defendants-Appellees.

          Appeal from the United States District Court
              for the Northern District of California
         Richard Seeborg, Chief District Judge, Presiding

           Argued and Submitted September 15, 2023
                   San Francisco, California

                     Filed October 11, 2023

Before: Danny J. Boggs, * Sidney R. Thomas, and Danielle
               J. Forrest, Circuit Judges.

*
 The Honorable Danny J. Boggs, United States Circuit Judge for the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation.
2                       MEYERS V. BIRDSONG

                          SUMMARY **

     Prisoner Civil Rights/In Forma Pauperis Status

     The panel denied California state prisoner Leon Meyers’
motion to recall the mandate and reinstate his 2017 appeal
but directed the Clerk of the District Court to refund Meyers’
filing fees for this appeal.
    In 2017, this Court granted Meyers’ motion to proceed
in forma pauperis (“IFP”) on appeal but subsequently, on
defendants’ motion, revoked IFP authorization because
under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), Meyers previously had more
than three actions or appeals dismissed as frivolous or for
failure to state a claim. Meyers did not elect to pay the filing
fee in full at that time and the appeal was dismissed in
January 2019. Meyers’ prison trust account, however,
continued to be debited pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(2)
to satisfy the outstanding balance on the initial filing fee. In
2020, the filing fee was paid in full, and Meyers sought to
reinstate his appeal.
    The panel first determined that Meyers’ motion to recall
the mandate, filed 661 days after the mandate became
effective, was untimely. The panel next held that the
extraordinary remedy of recalling the mandate and ordering
reinstatement to prevent injustice or address exceptional
circumstances was not necessary given that Meyers did not
dispute that he had three strikes, was ineligible to proceed

**
  This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has
been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
                     MEYERS V. BIRDSONG                    3

IFP under § 1915(b)’s payment plan, and had not timely paid
the filing fee. The appeal therefore was properly dismissed.
    The panel held that § 1915 neither permits nor requires
the collection of fees from a prisoner who is ineligible for
IFP status because he has struck out under
§1915(g). Meyers’ purported IFP appeal therefore was
barred by 1915(g) and the Court was without authority to
collect the filing fees from Meyers’ prison account. The
panel directed the Clerk of the District Court to return to
Meyers any fees that it collected on behalf of this court for
this appeal.

                        COUNSEL

Sheridan Caldwell (argued), Latham & Watkins LLP, San
Francisco, California, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Nicole H. Welindt (argued), Associate Deputy Solicitor
General; Neah Huynh, Supervising Deputy Attorney
General; California Attorney General’s Office, San
Francisco, California; Helen H. Hong, Attorney, California
Attorney General’s Office, San Diego, California; Alicia A.
Bower, Deputy Attorney General, California Attorney
General’s Office, Business & Tax Section, Sacramento,
California; for Defendants-Appellees.
4                    MEYERS V. BIRDSONG

                          ORDER

    Leon Meyers, a California state prisoner, moves to recall
the mandate and reinstate his 2017 appeal of the dismissal of
his civil rights action against state agencies and Salinas
Valley Prison medical staff and officials. We deny the
motion to reinstate the appeal, but direct that his filing fees
be refunded.
    Meyers appealed the dismissal of his § 1983 action to
this Court in 2017, and we granted his motion to proceed in
forma pauperis (IFP). After Meyers filed an informal
opening brief, Appellees moved to revoke IFP authorization
on the grounds that Meyers was ineligible for IFP status
under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g) because he had previously had
more than three actions or appeals dismissed as frivolous or
for failure to state a claim. A motions panel granted that
request, ordered Meyers to pay the full $505 filing fee within
35 days, and warned that a failure to pay the fee in full would
cause the appeal to be dismissed. The order also noted that
the Court would not entertain any motions to reinstate the
appeal “not accompanied by proof of payment of the
docketing and filing fees.” Meyers did not pay the filing fee,
and the appeal was dismissed in January 2019. Meanwhile,
Meyers’s prison trust account continued to be debited
pursuant to § 1915(b)(2) to satisfy the outstanding balance
on the initial filing fee.
    In November 2020, Meyers brought the instant motion
to reinstate his appeal and attached a prison bank account
statement showing the filing fee had been paid in full as of
October 2020. We appointed counsel for Meyers and
directed the parties to brief “the effect, if any, of the
revocation of a prisoner’s in forma pauperis status pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g) upon the collection of fees for the
                     MEYERS V. BIRDSONG                     5

same case from the prisoner’s trust account pursuant to 28
U.S.C. § 1915(b).”
                              I
    Pursuant to Ninth Circuit Rule 42-1, an appeal may be
dismissed when “an appellant fails to file a timely record,
pay the docket fee, file a timely brief, or otherwise comply
with the rules requiring processing the appeal for hearing.”
Motions for reinstatement of an appeal following dismissal
for failure to prosecute are directed to the sound discretion
of the Court. In exercising our discretion, we generally
consider: (1) the reason for the failure to prosecute; (2) the
timeliness of the motion (and an explanation for
untimeliness, if appropriate); (3) whether the defect has been
cured, see Ninth Circuit General Order 2.4 (“Any motion to
reinstate an appeal dismissed for want of prosecution shall
indicate how the deficiency has been corrected or explain
why correction is impossible.”); and (4) whether the motion
is opposed.
    Our authority to recall a mandate and reinstate an appeal
stems from our inherent “power to protect the integrity of
[our] own processes.” Zipfel v. Halliburton Co., 861 F.2d
565, 567 (9th Cir. 1988). We may exercise that authority “in
exceptional circumstances,” “for good cause or to prevent
injustice.” Id. (internal citation and quotation marks
omitted).
    Meyers’s motion is untimely. See United States v.
Lozoya, 19 F.4th 1217, 1218 (9th Cir. 2021) (en banc)
(holding that a motion to recall the mandate filed over 300
days after the filing of the opinion was untimely). This
mandate became effective January 25, 2019, and the motion
to recall the mandate was filed on November 16, 2020, 661
days after the mandate became effective.
6                     MEYERS V. BIRDSONG

    More importantly, the circumstances here do not present
exceptional circumstances, “good cause,” or the need to
intervene in order “to prevent injustice.” Meyers does not
dispute that he has three strikes and is therefore ineligible to
proceed IFP under the 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b) payment plan.
Accordingly, Meyers may only appeal a civil judgment if he
can prepay the filing fee, which he was not able to do.
§ 1915(g). Because Meyers did not timely pay his fees, the
correct result was dismissal, see Ninth Cir. R. 3-1, 42-1, and
the extraordinary remedy of recalling the mandate and
ordering reinstatement of the appeal is therefore not
necessary to prevent injustice or address exceptional
circumstances.
                               II
    Meyers argues, in the alternative, that his filing fees were
unlawfully collected because § 1915 does not authorize or
require the collection of filing fees from a prisoner who
attempts to file an appeal IFP but is denied IFP status. This
claim presents a novel question of statutory interpretation in
this Circuit, so we begin by presenting some statutory
background.
    As part of an effort to reduce the number of frivolous
prisoner-filed lawsuits, the Prison Litigation Reform Act of
1995 (“PLRA”) overhauled the in forma pauperis system for
prisoner litigants. 28 U.S.C. § 1915; see Jackson v. Stinnett,
102 F.3d 132, 136–37 (5th Cir. 1996). Indigent prisoners
have long been eligible to proceed IFP and avoid the
prepayment of filing fees upon court approval. See § 1915
(a). But the PLRA added new requirements for prisoner IFP
eligibility. First, under § 1915(b)(1), “if a prisoner brings a
civil action or files an appeal in forma pauperis, the prisoner
shall be required to pay the full amount of a filing fee” via a
                      MEYERS V. BIRDSONG                       7

specified payment plan that automatically deducts available
funds from the prisoner’s prison bank account. Additionally,
§ 1915(g) renders some serial prisoner litigants ineligible for
IFP status altogether. Under subsection (g), a prisoner who
has had three or more suits dismissed as frivolous or
malicious, or for failure to state a claim—known as having
“three strikes”—may not proceed IFP unless the prisoner
faces “imminent danger.” See Williams v. Paramo, 775 F.3d
1182, 1188 (9th Cir. 2015).
    The parties dispute whether § 1915 mandates the
collection of fees where a prisoner files an appeal and is
granted IFP status, but IFP status is later revoked. Meyers
argues that because he does not qualify for IFP status under
§ 1915(g), he cannot be subjected to the IFP fee payment
scheme in § 1915(b). Appellees argue that we may not
refund Meyers’s fees because the obligation under
§ 1915(b)(1) to pay the full fee attached as soon as Meyers
filed his appeal, whether he qualified for IFP status or not.
     In statutory interpretation, the “plain meaning of a statute
controls where that meaning is unambiguous.” Khatib v.
County of Orange, 639 F.3d 898, 902 (9th Cir. 2011) (en
banc); see Harris v. Harris, 935 F.3d 670, 676 (9th Cir.
2019) (noting Congress “said what it meant” in § 1915(g)).
We read “words in their context and with a view to their
place in the overall statutory scheme.” Tovar v. Sessions,
882 F.3d 895, 901 (9th Cir. 2018) (quoting King v. Burwell,
576 U.S. 473, 486 (2015)). “[W]e do not look at individual
subsections in isolation.” Id. Applying these rules, § 1915
does not authorize or require the collection of fees from a
prisoner who is ineligible for IFP status under subsection (g).
The requirement in subsection (b) that a prisoner pay the full
filing fee only applies “if a prisoner . . . files an appeal in
forma pauperis.” § 1915(b)(1) (emphasis added). And
8                    MEYERS V. BIRDSONG

under subsection (g), a struck-out prisoner can never file an
appeal IFP. § 1915(g); see Williams, 775 F.3d at 1189
(holding that “§ 1915(g), by using the present tense, clearly
refers to the time when the . . . appeal is filed”); see also
Dubuc v. Johnson, 314 F.3d 1205, 1207 (10th Cir. 2003)
(“Whether viewed from the so-called plain language
perspective or more broadly to determine Congress’ intent,
§ 1915(g)’s mandate is that ‘in no event’ shall a post-three-
strikes civil action be brought.”); Smith v. Dist. of Columbia,
182 F.3d 25, 29 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (“[W]e will not treat [a
prisoner] as having ‘filed an appeal in forma pauperis’ when
he has not been granted in forma pauperis status and his
appeal has not been considered.”).
    Therefore, § 1915(b) neither permits nor requires the
collection of fees from a struck-out prisoner who attempts to
file an appeal IFP. A struck-out prisoner who has been
denied IFP has the option of timely filing the full fee or
electing not to proceed with the appeal. We join the D.C.
Circuit in holding that a struck-out plaintiff who has been
denied IFP status is not deemed to have “‘filed an appeal in
forma pauperis’ when he has not been granted in forma
pauperis status and his appeal has not been considered.”
Smith, 182 F.3d at 29.
    This interpretation fulfills the statutory purpose of the
PLRA without creating a needlessly punitive rule. Section
1915(g) was “designed to discourage vexatious and
voluminous prisoner litigation.” Harris, 935 F.3d at 673.
We have repeatedly recognized this purpose but have also
announced a reluctance to extend the PLRA’s burdens on
prisoner litigants farther than the text makes necessary. See
Williams, 775 F.3d at 1189. While Appellees’ interpretation
of § 1915 would certainly serve as a greater deterrent to
prisoner litigation by requiring even struck-out prisoners to
                     MEYERS V. BIRDSONG                      9

pay all fees, Meyers’s version also adequately serves the
statute’s purpose because it still prevents struck-out prisoner
litigants from reaching the courts unless they can pay the
filing fee in one lump sum. There is no reason under the text
of the statute to punitively require such litigants to pay the
fees for appeals that were dismissed for failure to pay the
fees.
    Meyers’s purported IFP appeal was barred by subsection
(g) and therefore could not proceed to the benefits and the
burdens conferred at subsection (b). The Court was
therefore without authority to collect the filing fees from
Meyers’s prison account, and they must be returned.
Therefore, we direct the Clerk of the District Court to return
any fees that it collected on our behalf for this appeal.
   MOTION DENIED WITH INSTRUCTIONS.