Court Opinion

ID: 6985864
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-24 03:07:05.740906+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:09:26.882152
License: Public Domain

ANDERSON, Chief Judge,
concurring specially:
I concur in the result, and in much of the reasoning of the majority. I agree with the majority that the statutory language evinces a congressional purpose to discourage, indeed to bar, a prisoner from bringing a suit for mental or emotional injury suffered while in custody without a prior showing of physical injury. I do not believe that it is contrary to the statutory language to routinely dismiss such suits, even if the prisoner has been released *986after the filing of the suit. Indeed, I believe dismissal would be the appropriate action in most such circumstances; and that dismissal would best serve the congressional language and purpose.
However, I agree with the dissent that Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(d) would provide some discretion in a district judge to entertain a supplemental pleading setting forth the fact of a prisoner’s release, and to avoid dismissing a case under some of the more unusual circumstances described by the dissent. In my judgment, a district court should exercise such discretion only rarely (for example, when a prisoner had a color-able claim of physical injury which has been tried to a jury and when a dismissal would involve a manifest waste of judicial resources).
Because it is clear to me that the instant case is not one in which the district judge would exercise discretion to avoid dismissal, a remand would be futile. Accordingly, I concur in the judgment affirming the district court.