Richburg v. Department of the Treasury

Background

Leon Richburg, a state prisoner in Maryland, filed a civil action without a lawyer against the Department of the Treasury and other defendants. The court had allowed him to proceed without paying the filing fee. Richburg sought court intervention to obtain an economic impact payment under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, commonly called the CARES Act. He stated that he had not received his payments and asked the court to require the Internal Revenue Service to provide them.

Screening standard

Because Richburg was a prisoner suing a governmental entity, the court was required to conduct an initial screening under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. At that stage, the court had to identify claims that could proceed and dismiss claims that were frivolous, malicious, failed to state a claim for relief, or sought money from a defendant immune from such relief. The court also explained that complaints filed without a lawyer are read liberally, but they still must provide enough factual allegations to make a claim plausible rather than relying only on labels or conclusions.

The CARES Act and the earlier class action

The court described the CARES Act as creating a tax credit for eligible individuals and authorizing advance payments, subject to statutory eligibility requirements. The Act stated that no refund or credit under the relevant subsection could be made or allowed after December 31, 2020.

The court relied on an earlier related class action concerning incarcerated people’s economic impact payments. In that case, the court declared that the CARES Act did not permit the government to withhold payments solely because a person was or had been incarcerated. It also found that a policy treating people incarcerated at any time in 2020 as ineligible was unlawful, and it ordered the government to reconsider payments denied solely for that reason. But the earlier court expressly did not decide whether any particular person was actually owed a payment or the amount of any payment; those determinations were left to the Internal Revenue Service.

Application to Richburg’s claims

The court found that Richburg was incarcerated and a member of the earlier class. To the extent he claimed that his payment was denied solely because he was incarcerated, the court held that he was not entitled to separate individual injunctive or equitable relief because his request duplicated the existing class action. The court stated that class members could pursue additional action through the class representatives and attorneys, including contempt proceedings or intervention in the class action.

The court also rejected Richburg’s request to compel payment under the earlier class action or the CARES Act. The earlier decision did not establish that every incarcerated person was owed a payment. In addition, the CARES Act deadline for making or allowing the payments had passed, so the court concluded that the requested relief could no longer be obtained in this case.

Disposition

The court concluded that Richburg failed to state a claim for relief. It dismissed the complaint without leave to amend because it found that no amendment could cure the identified problems. In the conclusion, Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton ordered that the action be DISMISSED with prejudice, directed the clerk to close the case, and entered the order on July 6, 2021.