Court Opinion

ID: 9456678
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:00:00.969062+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:04.318129
License: Public Domain

HASTINGS, Senior Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Plaintiff-appellant Harris is presently incarcerated in the Illinois State Penitentiary, Joliet, Illinois as a prisoner of the State of Illinois. He brings this action pro se and has acted as such throughout this proceeding.
The instant complaint should be placed in proper perspective for a determination of its true character. First, plaintiff does not claim he is unlawfully in custody nor does he seek release from prison. Second, plaintiff makes no charge of physical mistreatment nor does he charge discrimination because of his religious beliefs.
Plaintiff files what purports to be a complaint under the Federal Civil Rights Act1 in which he seeks to recover $1,000,000 actual damages and $1,000,000 punitive damages against defendant Frank J. Pate, Warden of the prison where he is held in custody, as well as an injunction to restrain defendant from alleged illegal acts.2 In substance, plaintiff complains of interference with his mail privileges in a variety of ways; a detainer at times against his funds; and the spreading of various false rumors about him.
Defendant filed a motion to dismiss the complaint or for summary judgment with voluminous supporting memoranda, affidavits and exhibits. Plaintiff filed a cross-motion to dismiss. Subsequently, the district court entered an order granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment and dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief might be granted.
I would affirm the dismissal of the complaint on the grounds that it fails to state a cause of action pursuant to § 1983 of the Civil Rights Act. In my considered judgment, its allegations are merely broad conclusions, utterly devoid of any factual, support or any degree of specificity required to show a deprivation of defendant’s federal constitutional rights.
I am fully aware of the rule of law which accords a liberal construction to prisoner pro se petitions and complaints and have joined in its application over the years The majority cites and relies upon Sigafus v. Brown, 7 Cir., 416 F.2d 105 (1969). However, in that case our court found the requisite degree of specificity to make the conclusions meaningful, which I find absent in the case before us.
I am also cognizant of the well established rule that where a complaint, such as the one we have before us, at best does nothing more than merely state vague and conclusionary allegations, failing to state facts which reasonably may be held to support such conclusions, then the complaint must fall as not being within the reach of § 1983, supra. Dieu v. Norton, 7 Cir., 411 F.2d 761, 763 (1969); Powell v. Workmen’s Compensation Bd. of State of New York, 2 Cir., 327 F.2d 131, 137 (1964).
*320My disagreement with my brothers in the majority is that I do not read the complaint as they have done. To me it appears as but another in the ever increasing volume of frivolous civil actions filed by state custodial prisoners seeking to engage the attention of the federal judiciary through the recitation of a federal statute or a federal constitutional amendment. Of course, most prisoners would enjoy a holiday in court. I cannot believe that such a course in the case at bar is consistent with the deference due a busy district court nor that it will serve well the orderly administration of the state prisons of Illinois.
Finally, I find no abuse of the sound discretion vested in the district court in denying the defendant’s motion for an order directing the prison personnel to mail certain attached uncompleted forms to the persons to whom they are directed, and to continue the case until such time as they are “posted, filled and verified, returned to the Court, filed and duly considered.”
I would affirm the order of the district court dismissing the complaint in issue.

. Title 42, Ü.S.C.A. §§ 1983, 1985(3).

. Plaintiff at times makes reference to other unnamed defendants, but Warden Pate is the only identifiable defendant named.