Masa v. Federal Bureau of Prisons

Background

Seven plaintiffs sued the Federal Bureau of Prisons under federal-question jurisdiction, seeking declarations and court orders requiring action. The complaint asserted claims under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents concerning First Amendment rights, as well as claims under the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act.

The incarcerated plaintiffs alleged that they were contacted by The Marshall Project about information for a story concerning the Prison Rape Elimination Act and the Bureau of Prisons’ alleged failure to protect people in its custody from sexual assault. They alleged that Bureau of Prisons officials monitored their communications, threatened retaliatory transfers and long-term segregation, investigated them, and transferred them to different facilities after they declined to stop cooperating. Esther Welsh alleged that communications with Jeremy Pinson were rejected by multiple Bureau of Prisons facilities without notice or an opportunity to challenge the rejections. The plaintiffs also alleged that the Bureau of Prisons ignored their Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act requests.

Severance analysis

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20 generally permits multiple plaintiffs to join one lawsuit when their claims arise from the same occurrence or series of occurrences and share a common legal or factual question. Rule 21 permits a court to sever claims even without finding that joinder was improper when severance would avoid prejudice, expense, or delay.

The court found that each plaintiff had different circumstances, including incarceration status and location, conditions and classification within the Bureau of Prisons, the alleged retaliation, the officials responsible, and the circumstances of any information requests. The court said each plaintiff would need to provide separate facts about the communications allegedly protected by the First Amendment, the alleged retaliation, and—if applicable—the exhaustion of administrative procedures for a Freedom of Information Act request.

The court also relied on the practical difficulties of joint litigation by people proceeding without lawyers. Each plaintiff had to appear only for himself or herself and personally sign pleadings and motions. Because incarcerated plaintiffs could be transferred and had limited opportunities to communicate, the court concluded that joint litigation could produce piecemeal filings, delays, and missed deadlines. The court determined that separate cases would be fairer and more efficient.

Ruling

The court severed all plaintiffs’ claims under Rule 21. Jeremy Pinson will proceed as the sole plaintiff in this action. The Clerk was directed to open separate civil actions, with new docket numbers, for Elmer Moreno, Ernesto Zaragosa-Solis III, Kevin Masa, Bruce Altenburger, Jayson McNeil, and Esther Welsh. The complaint, the order, and any corresponding application to proceed without paying filing fees were to be docketed in each new case.

The court stated that the new cases would proceed independently unless it later ordered otherwise, and that the cases could potentially be treated as related or consolidated if appropriate. It also required each prisoner to pay the full filing fee and certified that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith; fee-waiver status was therefore denied for purposes of an appeal.