Prison Litigation Reform Act

By Eric R. Bargoot

I am a jailhouse lawyer and paralegal student who is currently pursuing my Diploma in paralegal studies, and I have litigated both federal and state conditions of confinement claims pro se. My experiences have taught me much about the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e, and here are some of my thoughts concerning this act.

The PLRA was passed into law in 1996 with the intention of reducing the number of frivolous prisoner lawsuits being filed in the Federal District Courts of this Country. This Bill has ultimately proven to be counterproductive and has since wreaked havoc on legitimate claims of unconstitutional conditions of confinement. Instead of reducing the volume of prisoner litigation which is frivolous it has done the opposite of its statutory intent – it is now dismissing legitimate petitions on spurious grounds while allowing timely, yet ultimately frivolous, petitions to grind the court’ s dockets to a halt.

Reading the statutory language of 42 U.S.C. § 1997e (PLRA), it appears as though the legislative intent was to provide several threshold barriers to inmate suits, thereby eliminating docket-jamming prisoner litigation. Such barriers include the PLRA’s “screening” provision in which a judge reviews an inmates Complaint and can dismiss sua sponte the entire action on three grounds: failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, frivolous or bad-faith actions, and any action which seeks monetary damages from a defendant who is immune from damages liability. Other barriers include the “physical injury” requirement of the PLRA which precludes any prisoner lawsuit brought for mental or emotional injury without that prisoner first showing a resultant physical injury. This provision, on its face, and in the opinion of Supreme Court Justice Blackmun in Hudson v. McMillian, would allow correctional officials carte-blanche to psychologically torture prisoner’s. Another provision of the PLRA which affect prisoner’s profoundly is the one in which potential attorneys willing to take on a prisoner’s lawsuit have their fees greatly reduced should they successfully prosecute the prisoner’s suit and achieve a jury verdict in their favor (max recovery of 150% of the jury award). Many other draconian provisions are found throughout the PLRA that are huge hurdles for any claimant to overcome, never mind an inexperienced pro se prisoner plaintiff.

The PLRA has back-fired, and as a result, the court is overwhelmed with frivolous prisoner lawsuits while the truly violated prisoner’s find themselves on the outside looking in, trying to figure out just why their valid claim(s) were dismissed. I myself ran head first into the PLRA in 2007 when I sued various Massachusetts DOC Officials and officers for violations of my state and federal constitutional rights.

I was left in a feces and rotten-food covered cell for over 96 hours unabated at the Souza-Baranowski maximum security prison. When I was finally let out for a shower, I was locked into the cubicle and told “[I was going to] have a long night; get used to it.” Later, after “flooding” demonstrations resulted in further harassment, two prisoners on the tier upped the ante by firing fecal and urinary matter at the C.O.s on the tier. I was not one of these prisoners. Nonetheless, the bodily waste had mingled with the water on the tier and the C.O.s immediately began to cover my body with the waste using broom-sized squeegees. I was then left in this predicament for over nine hours.

After exhausting all of my administrative remedies (another horrible stipulation included in the PLRA), I promptly filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Boston for both compensatory and punitive damages in violation of the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article 26 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, among other state law claims.

My suit was met by the DOC legal staff with various affirmative defenses, most including one provision of the PLRA or another. One such defense was that my injuries were “De Minimus”, did not rise to a constitutional level, and were therefore barred by the physical injury requirement of the PLRA. My argument against this was that the injuries inflicted against me were “[o]f a sort repugnant to the conscience of mankind”, as set forth in Norman v. Taylor, 25 F.3d 1259, 1263 n.4 (4th Cir. 1994) (en bane), and, therefore, did meet the necessary constitutional threshold for such matters.

Luckily, I never had to present this argument on an opposition to a summary judgment motion because Massachusetts Correctional Legal Service, now known as Prisoners’ Legal Services, had graciously agreed to accept my case on contingency. I was then ably and awesomely represented by attorney Bonnie Tenneriello (a Guild member), who managed to squeeze a very good settlement out of the DOC ($5,630) in a case that really didn’t have much potential in the way of permanent damages.

Although the end result of my suit was satisfactory to say the least, the moral of the story I’m trying to put into words here is this: the PLRA is unconstitutional, a slap to the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, and an illegal provision which makes prisoners, both state and federal, second-class citizens. This surely couldn’t have been the intention of the drafters of that wonderful document called the United States Constitution when they were dreaming, and then subsequently proclaiming, the action that ALL men are created equal – even prisoners of this great country.

NOTE FOR THE EDITORS:
I would like to extend my greatest gratitude to the freedom-fighters of the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. Without your booming voices there would be but silence within the Massachusetts prison system. You are the protectors of the condemned and the voiceless. And in such a time as today, in a Country consumed by overzealous prosecutors, politicians, and press, your voices couldn’t be more poignant.

Eric R. Bargoot is an inmate at the Souza-Baranowski Correc-tional Center in Shirley.