Wagner v. Hon. Jessica Bierwerth
Richard Mark Wagner v. Hon. Jessica Bierwerth, in her individual and official capacity as a judge of the Ramsey County Family Court, and Donald W. Harper, in his individual and official capacity as Court Administrator for the Ramsey County Family Court
- Laura Provinzino
- 0:25-cv-03444
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 8
In Wagner v. Bierwerth, Judge Provinzino denied Richard Mark Wagner's motion to reopen his dismissed case and his motion to file an amended complaint.
Individuals who have filed or attempted to file civil rights lawsuits in federal court challenging local court filing-fee policies, particularly litigants in Minnesota state-court divorce or family court proceedings who sought fee waivers and were denied. Also relevant to litigants seeking to reopen dismissed federal cases using post-judgment motions.
What happened
Richard Mark Wagner v. Hon. Jessica Bierwerth and Donald W. Harper involves a lawsuit Wagner filed in federal court against a Ramsey County Family Court judge and court administrator. The court had previously dismissed Wagner's original complaint after an initial review. Wagner then sought to reopen the case under a rule allowing courts to set aside final judgments (Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)) and also sought permission to file a revised complaint, this time targeting Ramsey County itself and claiming the county's filing-fee policies violated his constitutional rights to access the courts, due process, and equal protection.
Wagner's core argument was that the Ramsey County Court Administrator's Office refused to accept his filings in a divorce case unless he paid a $405 filing fee or had a fee-waiver application approved, and that his fee-waiver application was never properly processed. He argued this amounted to an unconstitutional county policy or practice. The court analyzed whether Wagner had a valid reason to reopen the judgment and whether his proposed revised complaint stated a plausible legal claim.
Judge Provinzino denied both motions. On the motion to reopen the judgment, the court found that Wagner only argued he made a mistake in how he filed his post-judgment motions — not that the original dismissal itself resulted from any mistake or error — which is insufficient for the extraordinary relief that rule requires. On the motion to amend, the court found the proposed complaint futile because Wagner's own pleadings contradicted each other (he acknowledged a fee-waiver process existed while claiming none was available), because denying a fee-waiver application without a hearing is not automatically unconstitutional, and because a single denied application cannot establish the widespread pattern required to hold a county liable under the governing legal standard known as Monell.
The detailed version
- Wagner v. Hon. Jessica Bierwerth · No. 0:25-cv-03444
- Laura M. Provinzino
- Feb. 17, 2026
Background
Plaintiff Richard Mark Wagner filed a federal lawsuit against Hon. Jessica Bierwerth (a Ramsey County Family Court judge) and Donald W. Harper (the Ramsey County Court Administrator). On October 9, 2025, the court dismissed Wagner's complaint after conducting a preservice review under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2) — a statutory process allowing courts to screen complaints filed by litigants seeking to proceed without paying court fees, dismissing those that are legally deficient before they are served on defendants.
Wagner subsequently attempted to file post-judgment motions. His October 28 and November 10, 2025 submissions included proposed amended complaints and proposed orders, but not actual motions as required. The court informed Wagner of the deficiency and set a deadline. On November 25, 2025, Wagner finally filed a proper motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) seeking relief from the judgment, and a motion for leave to amend his complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(2), attaching a proposed amended complaint.
The Proposed Amended Complaint
In his proposed amended complaint, Wagner dropped Bierwerth and Harper as defendants and instead brought a single claim against Ramsey County under the doctrine established in Monell v. Department of Social Services of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978). Under Monell, a local government entity (such as a county) can be held liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 — the federal civil rights statute — for constitutional violations that result from the entity's own official policy, unofficial custom, or deliberately indifferent failure to train employees.
Wagner alleged that in a pending state-court marriage dissolution (divorce) proceeding, the Ramsey County Court Administrator's Office refused to accept his filings unless he paid a $405 filing fee or had a fee-waiver application approved. He alleged he submitted a fee-waiver application that was "not processed and effectively denied without hearing or judicial review." He argued Ramsey County maintained an unconstitutional policy or custom of conditioning acceptance of pleadings on payment of filing fees without meaningful review or alternatives for indigent (low-income) litigants, in violation of his First Amendment right to access the courts and his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection.
Legal Standards
Rule 60(b)
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) permits a court to relieve a party from a final judgment on specific grounds, including "mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect" (Rule 60(b)(1)) and "any other reason that justifies relief" (Rule 60(b)(6)). This is characterized as "extraordinary relief" requiring an "adequate showing of exceptional circumstances," citing Harley v. Zoesch, 413 F.3d 866, 870 (8th Cir. 2005).
Post-judgment amendment
Under BLOM Bank SAL v. Honickman, 605 U.S. 204 (2025), the liberal amendment standard of Rule 15(a)(2) does not apply once a final judgment has been entered. Instead, a party can only amend a pleading after judgment if the Rule 60(b) motion is first granted. Even then, the amendment must satisfy the stringent Rule 60(b) standard, per United States v. Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer, 752 F.3d 737, 743 (8th Cir. 2014).
Futility
Even where leave to amend might otherwise be granted, courts appropriately deny leave if the proposed amendment is futile — meaning it could not survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). A complaint must contain sufficient factual allegations, accepted as true, to state a claim that is "plausible on its face," per Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).
Analysis
I. Rule 60(b) Motion
Wagner argued he was entitled to relief because he "reasonably but incorrectly believed his November 10 submissions constituted a 'motion.'" The court rejected this argument because it addressed only the mistake in filing post-judgment documents — not whether the underlying dismissal judgment itself resulted from any mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect. Because Wagner offered no reason to disturb the original judgment, he failed to make the required showing for Rule 60(b) relief.
II. Motion for Leave to Amend — Futility
The court proceeded to analyze futility notwithstanding its Rule 60(b) ruling.
a. Monell Policy Claim
An "official policy" under Monell requires a "deliberate choice to follow a course of action made from among various alternatives by an official" with final policymaking authority, per Ware v. Jackson County, 150 F.3d 873, 880 (8th Cir. 1998). The court identified two problems:
First, Wagner's own pleading was internally inconsistent: he alleged no meaningful alternatives existed for indigent litigants, yet simultaneously acknowledged that Ramsey County provides a fee-waiver application process. The court held it was not required to accept contradictory allegations as true, citing Preble v. Itasca County Board of Commissioners, No. 25-cv-3006 (LMP/LIB), 2025 WL 3458052 (D. Minn. Dec. 2, 2025).
Second, to the extent Wagner claimed the denial of his fee-waiver application without a hearing was per se unconstitutional, the court disagreed as a matter of law, noting that motions may be decided on the papers and due process does not require oral hearings on all applications, citing Greene v. WCI Holdings Corp., 136 F.3d 313, 315–16 (2d Cir. 1998).
The court also found Wagner's remaining allegations conclusory — he stated his application was "not processed and effectively denied" but did not explain why, and the bare fact of denial does not plausibly suggest unlawful conduct since applications may be denied for legitimate reasons under Minnesota Statute § 563.01, subd. 3.
In a footnote, the court took judicial notice of the state-court docket in the underlying divorce case (In re Marriage of Wagner & Wagner, No. 62-FA-24-1893 (Minn. Dist. Ct.)), observing that no fee-waiver application appeared on the docket, and that the state-court dissolution order noted Wagner had not properly filed responsive pleadings due to failure to pay required filing fees, with no mention of any properly submitted fee-waiver applications.
b. Monell Custom Claim
A municipal "custom" requires a "widespread and persistent pattern of unconstitutional misconduct" that policymakers were deliberately indifferent to or tacitly authorized, per Leonard v. St. Charles County Police Department, 59 F.4th 355, 363 (8th Cir. 2023). Critically, an unconstitutional custom "cannot arise from a single act," per Bolderson v. City of Wentzville, 840 F.3d 982, 986 (8th Cir. 2016). Wagner alleged only one incident — the denial of his own fee-waiver application — which is legally insufficient to establish a custom.
Disposition
The court denied Wagner's Rule 60(b) motion for relief from judgment (ECF No. 15) and denied Wagner's motion for leave to amend the complaint (ECF No. 14).
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.