Bruce v. Samuels (14-844)

argument 14-844

Bruce v. Samuels

Supreme Court of the United States 49 min 5 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 5 days ago official recording ↗

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What is the central dispute over the “per‑prisoner” versus “per‑case” approach in the PLRA?

John G. Roberts 0:00

We'll hear argument next in case Fourteen eight forty four, Bruce versus Samuels. Mr Shelley.

William Shelley 0:08

Mr Chief Justice, and may it please the court. There are at least three reasons why the courts should adopt what the Courts of Appeals have called the per prisoner approach under PLRA section nineteen fifteen B two. One, the per prisoner approach best comports with the statutory text. Two, the per prisoner approach is the only one consistent with the careful balance Congress struck between deterring frivolous prisoner lawsuits in preserving their right to bring meritorious ones. And three. The per prisoner approach avoids anomalies and disincentives that Congress could never have intended, disincentives such as discouraging prisoner work by taking one hundred percent of their income month after month.

William Shelley 0:48

I'd like to of course start with the text. The key sentence is in the key sentence is the second sentence of s of uh subsection B two. It says the following. The agency having custody of the prisoner shall forward payments from the prisoner's account To the clerk of the court singular. Each time the amount in the account exceeds ten dollars, until the filing fees plural are paid. The combination of that singular clerk of the court and filing fees plurals indicates the per prisoner approach because it means one clerk is to receive payments even when there are numerous filing fees. Um filing fees, the plural appears in the statute exactly twice. Can't there be more than one filing fee for a single court?

William Shelley 1:34

No, there cannot, not in the way Congress understood the term in the PLRA. If you look to B one and B three, Congress uh i creates it almost as a term of art. A filing fee includes a filing fee with the word filing in front of fee, a filing fee includes all of the subsidiary costs to start up a case. So a Court of Appeals, for instance, has a five hundred dollar docketing fee and a five dollar statutory fee and that's referred to as a

Unknown 2:00

happens um If you have the district court Um makes an order. But there has to be a filing fee.

William Shelley 2:14

In the district court.

Unknown 2:15

Yeah. And then that that fee is not totally paid. In fact the prisoner loses so there's a cost award in addition. And then goes up to the Court of Appeals where there's another filing fee.

2:31

Right.

Unknown 2:31

Does that does And your reading. Does the Court of Appeals filing fee also have to wait? Until the district court filing fee is fully paid.

William Shelley 2:42

Yes, there would be an initial partial filing fee that's paid upon the the filing of the appeal. Under subsection B one there's a twenty percent initial partial filing fee um that would be assessed against the prisoner.

Unknown 2:55

And that would be uh Across the board that you always have to pay.

How does the petitioner's opening argument interpret the statutory text of §1915(b)(2)?

Unknown 3:00

Always

William Shelley 3:01

have to pay that. But uh the second filing fee, the one from the Court of Appeals, would line up. So the first filing fee from the District Court would be paid off first, and then sequentially the Court of Appeals would be paid off, but only twenty percent would be taken every month from the prisoner. You wouldn't take forty percent.

Kathryn Hackett King 3:17

If he files enough cases, he is never going to have to pay for it, right? I mean, you know, he files twenty cases. That tw that you know, that uh Twenty percent will never will never come home to roost. What what's the disincentive for him for for his continuing to file

William Shelley 3:33

cases? Well, first of all, uh it would come to roost in back in nineteen ninety five when Congress enacted the statute, because the filing fee for a district court case was only one hundred and twenty dollars and a Court of Appeals was one hundred and five. And so a prisoner who earns, say, fifty five or a hundred doll fifty or a hundred dollars a month, which is not uh landish given the small wages, um could pay off a filing fee in a in a matter of months under that. It's much higher now. But to get to the rest of your question, Justice Scalia, Um there are a number of other things in the statute that work in tandem with B two to stop that kind of behaviour. So there's the initial partial filing fee.

William Shelley 4:13

He or she's always going to have to pay that.