United States District Court, S.D. California
ORDER: 1) GRANTING MOTION TO PROCEED IN FORMA
PAUPERIS [ECF NO. 2] AND 2) DISMISSING COMPLAINT FOR FAILING
TO STATE A CLAIM PURSUANT TO 28 U.S.C. § 1915(E)(2) AND
§ 1915A(B)
HON.
GONZALO P. CURIEL, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Plaintiff,
Justin Coyle, is a pretrial detainee at George Bailey
Detention Facility (“GBDF”) in San Diego,
California. He has filed a civil rights Complaint pursuant to
42 U.S.C. § 1983 (ECF No. 1) and a Motion to Proceed In
Forma Pauperis (“IFP”) pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 1915(a) (ECF No. 2). Because Plaintiff’s Motion
to Proceed IFP complies with 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(2), the
Court grants him leave to proceed without full prepayment of
the civil filing fees required by 28 U.S.C. § 1914(a),
but dismisses his Complaint for failing to state a claim
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2) and § 1915A(b).
Background
While
his Complaint is difficult to decipher, it appears Plaintiff
seeks to sue the San Diego Sheriff’s Department, GBDF,
San Diego Jail, and unidentified members of “San Diego
Internal Affairs, ” “San Diego County Property
Claims, ” the Jail’s “Medical Department,
” “all doctors [he’s] had” at UCSD,
the “U.S. Postal Supervisor, ” and “a
person or persons” working as a Supervisor in the
Jail’s Commissary for denying him medical attention,
and disposing or “defrauding” him of personal
property, including “legal papers, ” manila
envelopes, a “white soap box” and “8
separate books” he ordered from Amazon.com and Prison
Legal News in Lakeworth, Florida (ECF No. 1 at 3-5).
Discussion
A.
Plaintiff’s IFP Motion
All
parties instituting any civil action, suit or proceeding in a
district court of the United States, except an application
for writ of habeas corpus, must pay a filing fee of
$400.[1] See 28 U.S.C. § 1914(a). The
action may proceed despite a plaintiff’s failure to
prepay the entire fee only if he is granted leave to proceed
IFP pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a). See Andrews v.
Cervantes, 493 F.3d 1047, 1051 (9th Cir. 2007);
Rodriguez v. Cook, 169 F.3d 1176, 1177 (9th Cir.
1999). However, a prisoner who is granted leave to proceed
IFP remains obligated to pay the entire fee in
“increments” or “installments, ”
Bruce v. Samuels, ___U.S. ___, 136 S.Ct. 627, 629
(U.S. 2016); Williams v. Paramo, 775 F.3d 1182, 1185
(9th Cir. 2015), and regardless of whether his action is
ultimately dismissed. See 28 U.S.C. §
1915(b)(1) & (2); Taylor v. Delatoore, 281 F.3d
844, 847 (9th Cir. 2002).
Section
1915(a)(2) requires prisoners seeking leave to proceed IFP to
submit a “certified copy of the trust fund account
statement (or institutional equivalent) for . . . the 6-month
period immediately preceding the filing of the
complaint.” 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(2); Andrews v.
King, 398 F.3d 1113, 1119 (9th Cir. 2005). From the
certified trust account statement, the Court assesses an
initial payment of 20% of (a) the average monthly deposits in
the account for the past six months, or (b) the average
monthly balance in the account for the past six months,
whichever is greater, unless the prisoner has no assets.
See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(1); 28 U.S.C. §
1915(b)(4). The institution having custody of the prisoner
then collects subsequent payments, assessed at 20% of the
preceding month’s income, in any month in which his
account exceeds $10, and forwards those payments to the Court
until the entire filing fee is paid. See 28 U.S.C.
§ 1915(b)(2); Bruce, 136 S.Ct. at 629.
In
support of his IFP Motion, Plaintiff has submitted a
certified prison certificate, verified by an accounting
officer at GBDF, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(2) and
S.D. Cal. CivLR 3.2. See ECF No. 2 at 4;
Andrews, 398 F.3d at 1119. This certificate shows
that while Plaintiff had an average monthly deposit of
$152.57, he carried an average balance of only $.20 in his
trust account during the 6-month period preceding the filing
of this action, and had an available balance of just $1.20 at
the time of filing. Therefore, the Court assesses
Plaintiff’s initial partial filing fee to be $30.51
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(1). However, it appears
Plaintiff may be unable to pay that initial fee at this time.
See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(4) (providing that
“[i]n no event shall a prisoner be prohibited from
bringing a civil action or appealing a civil action or
criminal judgment for the reason that the prisoner has no
assets and no means by which to pay the initial partial
filing fee.”); Bruce, 136 S.Ct. at 630;
Taylor, 281 F.3d at 850 (finding that 28 U.S.C.
§ 1915(b)(4) acts as a “safety-valve”
preventing dismissal of a prisoner’s IFP case based
solely on a “failure to pay . . . due to the lack of
funds available to him when payment is ordered.”).
Therefore,
the Court grants Plaintiff leave to proceed IFP, declines to
“exact” the initial $30.51 filing fee because his
prison certificate shows he “has no means to pay it,
” Bruce, 136 S.Ct. at 629, and directs the
Watch Commander at GBDF to collect the entire $350 balance of
the filing fees required by 28 U.S.C. § 1914 and forward
them to the Clerk of the Court pursuant to the installment
payment provisions set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(1).
See id.
B.
Legal Standards for Screening Complaint Pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§§ 1915(e)(2)(B) and 1915A(b)
Because
Plaintiff is a prisoner and is proceeding IFP, his Complaint
requires a pre-Answer screening pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §
1915(e)(2) and § 1915A(b). Under these statutes, the
Court must sua sponte dismiss a prisoner’s IFP
complaint, or any portion of it, which is frivolous,
malicious, fails to state a claim, or seeks damages from
defendants who are immune. See Lopez v. Smith, 203
F.3d 1122, 1126-27 (9th Cir. 2000) (en banc) (discussing 28
U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)); Rhodes v. Robinson, 621
F.3d 1002, 1004 (9th Cir. 2010) (discussing 28 U.S.C. §
1915A(b)). “The purpose of [screening] is ‘to
ensure that the targets of frivolous or malicious suits need
not bear the expense of responding.’”
Nordstrom v. Ryan, 762 F.3d 903, 920 n.1 (9th Cir.
2014) (quoting Wheeler v. Wexford Health Sources,
Inc., 689 F.3d 680, 681 (7th Cir. 2012)).
“The
standard for determining whether a plaintiff has failed to
state a claim upon which relief can be granted under §
1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) is the same as the Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 12(b)(6) standard for failure to state a
claim.” Watison v. Carter, 668 F.3d 1108, 1112
(9th Cir. 2012); see also Wilhelm v. Rotman, 680
F.3d 1113, 1121 (9th Cir. 2012) (noting that screening
pursuant to § 1915A “incorporates the familiar
standard applied in the context of failure to state a claim
under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)”). Rule
12(b)(6) requires a complaint to “contain sufficient
factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief
that is plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v.
Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (internal quotation
marks omitted); Wilhelm, 680 F.3d at 1121.
Detailed
factual allegations are not required, but “[t]hreadbare
recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by
mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.”
Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. “Determining whether a
complaint states a plausible claim for relief [is] . . . a
context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to
draw on its judicial experience and common sense.”
Id. The “mere possibility of misconduct”
or “unadorned, the defendant-unlawfully-harmed me
...