Biron v. Sawyer

Background

Lisa A. Biron, who was representing herself, was incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Waseca, Minnesota. She sued officials of the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the facility in their official capacities, alleging that they violated her constitutional rights by preventing her from communicating with her daughter. Biron sought preliminary and permanent orders requiring the defendants to stop interfering with that communication.

The restriction was based on language in Biron’s original criminal judgment that prohibited her from contacting the victim or anyone under age 18. Biron’s daughter later became an adult. Biron asked the sentencing court to correct the judgment, and that court entered an amended judgment stating that the contact restriction applied when the victim was under age 18, subject to the conditions stated in the amended judgment. The next day, the Warden at the facility rescinded the blanket restriction on Biron’s correspondence with her daughter, subject to general Bureau of Prisons communication rules.

Motions and objections

The magistrate judge denied Biron’s motions to join her daughter as a party and denied her motion for leave to amend the complaint. The magistrate judge granted her motion to file a surreply and recommended denying her motion for a preliminary injunction and granting the defendants’ motion to dismiss.

Biron objected to the recommendation to grant dismissal and to the denial of leave to amend. She did not object to the denial of the joinder motions or the recommendation to deny the preliminary injunction.

Motion to amend

Biron sought to add claims for damages against Deanna Hiller and Barnes in their individual capacities. The court upheld the denial of leave to amend because Biron did not comply with local procedural requirements. She did not first confer with the opposing party, and she did not provide the required proposed amended complaint and redlined version showing the changes.

The magistrate judge had also concluded that the proposed amendment would be futile, meaning it would not produce a legally viable claim. The district court did not reach that issue because the procedural grounds independently resolved the motion. The court therefore affirmed the denial of the motion to amend and overruled Biron’s objection to that ruling.

Motion to dismiss and mootness

The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), which permits dismissal when the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction. They argued that the case had become moot. A case is moot when a court can no longer provide effective relief or when there is no longer a live dispute.

The court agreed. Biron’s only requested relief was an order ending the restriction on communication with her daughter, and the restriction had been lifted after the sentencing court amended the judgment. The court also found that the dispute was not reasonably likely to happen again. It rejected Biron’s argument that the defendants had only voluntarily stopped the restriction to avoid judicial review, finding that the change followed the amended judgment and that the restriction was not reasonably expected to recur.

Because mootness deprived the court of subject-matter jurisdiction, the court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. The court expressly stated that dismissal for lack of jurisdiction was not a decision on the merits and dismissed the action without prejudice.

Other rulings and disposition

The court affirmed and adopted the magistrate judge’s order and report and recommendation and overruled Biron’s objections. It denied Biron’s motion for a preliminary injunction, affirmed the denial of her joinder motions, and denied her motion to substitute official-capacity defendants with their successors as moot because the substitution was automatic under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 25(d). The court also affirmed the grant of Biron’s motion for leave to file a surreply.

Judge Susan Richard Nelson ordered that the action be dismissed without prejudice.