Kimner v. Berkeley County South Carolina

Background

The court had previously granted Berkeley County’s motion to dismiss Kimner’s case with prejudice and entered judgment for Berkeley County. Kimner then filed a notice of appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and asked to proceed in forma pauperis, meaning without paying the appellate filing fee.

The Ninth Circuit referred the request to the district court for the limited purpose of deciding whether Kimner could continue the appeal without paying the fee or whether the appeal was frivolous or brought in bad faith. The opinion states that an appeal may proceed without the fee only when the applicant has shown an inability to pay and presented a claim that is not factually or legally frivolous.

Earlier Proceedings

At the beginning of the case, a magistrate judge found that Kimner could not pay the filing fee and granted her permission to proceed without paying it. The magistrate judge nevertheless found that her complaint did not provide the short and plain statement required by the federal pleading rules. The order explained that the filings made it difficult to identify Kimner’s claims and appeared to challenge a South Carolina state-court decision that had caused her to lose her home and assets. The court explained that federal courts cannot hear appeals from state-court judgments and allowed Kimner an opportunity to amend.

Kimner later filed an amended complaint. Berkeley County moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim and lack of personal jurisdiction, meaning that the court lacked authority over the defendant. The district court stated that the amended complaint did not fix the identified problems. Although it read the complaint liberally because Kimner was representing herself, the court could not identify a claim or legal cause of action in the hundreds of pages filed. The court also found that Kimner had not alleged a basis for federal jurisdiction and that the record did not show a reason to believe Berkeley County was subject to personal jurisdiction in California. The court therefore dismissed the complaint with prejudice.

Ruling on Appellate Fee Status

The court found that Kimner’s failure to state a claim, failure to correct the deficiencies previously identified, and failure to allege grounds for personal jurisdiction made the appeal legally frivolous. It therefore denied Kimner’s motion and revoked her permission to proceed without paying the filing fee for the appeal.

The order did not dismiss the appeal. It stated that Kimner could proceed by paying the appellate filing fee or by submitting a motion in the court of appeals under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 24(a)(5). Judge Edward J. Davila signed the order.