Everett v. Director of I.R.S.

Background

Deyon N. Everett, identified by the court as a Florida state prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, brought a civil action against the Director of the Internal Revenue Service. He had been granted permission to proceed without paying the filing fee. Because Everett was a prisoner suing a governmental entity, the court screened the complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. That screening requires dismissal of claims that are frivolous, malicious, fail to state a claim for relief, or seek money from an immune defendant.

Everett sought court intervention to obtain economic impact payments under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, commonly called the CARES Act. The court explained that the Act created tax credits and advance payments for eligible individuals, subject to statutory eligibility requirements. It also stated that the Act barred issuing or allowing these payments after December 31, 2020.

Earlier class action

The court described an earlier class action involving incarcerated people and the IRS’s policy of treating incarceration as a reason to deny economic impact payments. That court declared that the law did not authorize withholding payments solely because a person was or had been incarcerated, and that the IRS policy was arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law. The earlier court ordered the IRS to reconsider payments denied solely on that basis.

The earlier court expressly did not decide whether particular class members were actually owed payments or how much they should receive. Those individual eligibility decisions were left to the IRS.

Court’s analysis

The court found that Everett was incarcerated and part of the earlier class. To the extent he sought an order stopping the IRS from denying payments solely because of incarceration, the requested relief duplicated the class action. The court therefore concluded that he was not entitled to separate individual injunctive or equitable relief on that issue.

The court separately rejected Everett’s request to compel the IRS to provide his individual payments under the earlier class action or the CARES Act. The earlier class action established only that incarceration alone could not justify denial; it did not establish that every incarcerated person was owed a payment. In addition, the statutory deadline for issuing or allowing the payments had passed, so the court stated that no more funds could be distributed under the CARES Act.

Disposition

The court concluded that Everett 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 deficiencies. The action was dismissed without leave to amend, and the clerk was ordered to close the case. Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton signed the order on August 15, 2023.