Moore v. Minnesota Department of Corrections
- John Docherty
- 0:24-cv-00436
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 3
In Moore v. Minnesota Department of Corrections, Magistrate Judge Docherty recommended dismissal without prejudice because Moore did not pay the required initial partial filing fee.
Anthony Moore, the Minnesota Department of Corrections, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehensions, and the agencies’ named employees and officials are affected by the recommended dismissal. The recommendation is based on Moore’s failure to pay the initial partial filing fee and is not itself a final district-court order.
What happened
Anthony Moore sued the Minnesota Department of Corrections, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehensions, and their employees and officials. The court had ordered Moore to pay at least $1.73 as an initial partial filing fee within 21 days.
Moore did not pay the fee by the deadline. The court also said that, if the case continued, his complaint would not state a viable claim because the agencies could not be sued under the federal civil-rights law involved, the complaint did not identify what any individual employee did wrong, and being a sex offender is not a constitutionally protected class.
Magistrate Judge John F. Docherty recommended dismissing the case without prejudice for failure to prosecute. The recommendation was not itself a final order, and the notice allowed the parties to object within 14 days after service.
The detailed version
- Moore v. Minnesota Department of Corrections · No. 0:24-cv-00436
- John F. Docherty
- Apr. 16, 2024
Background
Anthony Moore brought this action against the Minnesota Department of Corrections; the Bureau of Criminal Apprehensions; and employees and officials of those agencies sued in their individual and official capacities. The court had previously ordered Moore to pay an initial partial filing fee of at least $1.73 within 21 days. That order warned that failing to pay could lead to a recommendation that the action be dismissed for failure to prosecute.
Court’s analysis
The payment deadline passed, and Moore had not paid the required fee. The court therefore relied on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b), which allows dismissal when a plaintiff fails to prosecute an action.
The court also explained that Moore’s complaint would not state a viable claim if the case proceeded to required screening under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. It said that neither state agency could be sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the federal civil-rights statute at issue. Although individual agency employees could be sued under that statute, the complaint did not allege what any specific employee had done wrong. The court further stated that Moore’s claim that the agencies treated him differently because he is a sex offender was not viable because “sex offender” is not a constitutionally protected class.
The court noted that screening dismissal could result in a strike under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g) and could require withdrawals from Moore’s prison trust account toward the $350 statutory filing fee under § 1915(b). It said Moore avoided those consequences by not prosecuting the action.
Recommendation and procedure
The Report and Recommendation recommended that the action be dismissed without prejudice under Rule 41(b) for failure to prosecute. “Without prejudice” means the recommendation did not state that refiling was barred. The document was not an order or judgment of the District Court and was not directly appealable to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The notice stated that a party could file specific written objections within 14 days after being served with the recommendation.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.