Parks v. Peterson

Background

Steven Dean Parks filed seven civil cases and applied in each case to proceed without paying the entire filing fee at the outset. The court had granted those applications several years earlier and placed him on the payment schedule required by 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b). The cases had been closed, but the filing-fee obligations continued.

Parks moved to vacate the filing-fee obligation in each case. He argued that he had never agreed to have all of the funds in his inmate trust account taken and that the withdrawals therefore amounted to theft and breach of contract. An account statement showed that a $40 deposit led to five $8 encumbrances, which Parks indicated were used to reduce filing fees in five different cases.

Court’s Analysis

The court held that Parks was not entitled to have the filing-fee obligations vacated. Section 1915(b)(2) requires a prisoner to make monthly payments of 20% of the income credited to the account during the preceding month. Because the obligation arose from the statute, the court concluded that collecting the money was not theft or breach of contract.

The court also rejected any argument that officials could collect only 20% total each month and apply that amount to one filing fee at a time. Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruce v. Samuels, the court explained that the statute requires simultaneous collection for multiple filing fees. Thus, officials could withdraw 20% for each case filed under the payment system until that case’s obligation was satisfied.

Disposition

The court DENIED Parks’s motion to vacate the filing-fee obligations in all seven cases. The order identified the motion and docket number for each case: Case Nos. 12-cv-01352-EMC, 12-cv-05094-EMC, 12-cv-06018-EMC, 12-cv-06140-EMC, 13-cv-02489-EMC, 13-cv-04048-EMC, and 13-cv-05215-EMC. Judge Edward M. Chen signed the order.