Pejouhesh

Background

Hassan Ali Pejouhesh, identified as a federal prisoner in Texas, brought a civil action without a lawyer against a governmental entity. The court had allowed him to proceed without paying the filing fee. He sought court intervention to obtain economic impact payments 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 Pejouhesh was a prisoner suing a governmental entity, the court was required to conduct an initial screening under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. Screening requires the court to identify claims that may proceed and dismiss claims that are frivolous, malicious, fail to state a legally sufficient claim, or seek money from an immune defendant. The court also applied the rule that a complaint must provide enough factual allegations to make the requested relief plausible, rather than relying only on labels or conclusions.

The CARES Act payments and the earlier class action

The court described the CARES Act as creating a tax credit for eligible individuals and authorizing advance refund payments. The Act required refunds or credits to be issued as rapidly as possible but provided that no refund or credit could be made or allowed after December 31, 2020.

The court discussed an earlier related class action concerning incarcerated people and these payments. That class action declared that the Internal Revenue Code did not allow the defendants to withhold advance refunds or credits from class members solely because they were or had been incarcerated. It also declared unlawful the policy treating people incarcerated at any time in 2020 as ineligible for the payments and required the Internal Revenue Service to reconsider payments denied solely for that reason.

The earlier court expressly did not decide whether particular plaintiffs or class members were actually owed payments or how much they were owed. It left those individual eligibility determinations to the Internal Revenue Service.

Reasons for dismissal

The court found that Pejouhesh was incarcerated and part of the earlier class. To the extent he claimed that his payments were denied because of his incarceration, the court held that he was not entitled to separate individual injunctive or equitable relief duplicating the existing class action. The court noted that class members could pursue additional action through the class representatives and attorneys, including contempt proceedings or intervention in the class action.

The court separately rejected Pejouhesh’s request to compel payment under the earlier class action or the CARES Act. The earlier class action barred denial based solely on incarceration but did not establish that Pejouhesh was personally eligible for a payment. In addition, the statutory December 31, 2020 deadline had passed, so the court concluded that the requested payments could not be issued under the CARES Act.

Disposition

The court concluded that Pejouhesh 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, the court ordered that the action be dismissed with prejudice and directed the clerk to close the case.

Judge

The order was signed by United States District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton.