Court
of Claims LC No. 17-000001-MZ
Before: Gleicher, P.J., and Gadola and Cameron, JJ.
PER
CURIAM.
MCL
600.2963(8) precludes prisoners from filing new civil actions
or civil appeals when they have outstanding court fees and
costs from previous civil actions. The purpose of this
provision is to limit serial frivolous lawsuits. This Court
recently held, however, that the application of the statute
is unconstitutional under certain circumstances. This case
does not fall within that ambit. Accordingly, we uphold this
Court's previous order and dismiss plaintiff's
delayed application for leave to appeal.
I.
BACKGROUND
In
2014, Michael Anthony Grabinski, a prisoner, filed an
original action for habeas relief in this Court against the
Kinross Correctional Facility Warden. This Court advised
Grabinski that he was "responsible for paying [a] $375
fee and may not file another new civil appeal or original
action in this Court until such time that either the
Department of Corrections remits or plaintiff pays the entire
outstanding balance due." Grabinski v Kinross
Correctional Facility Warden, unpublished order of the
Court of Appeals, entered March 2, 2015 (Docket No. 325955).
This order was based on MCL 600.2963(8), which provides,
"A prisoner who has failed to pay outstanding fees and
costs as required under this section shall not commence a new
civil action or appeal until the outstanding fees and costs
have been paid." Grabinski has yet to pay this
obligation.
In
2017, Grabinski filed the current civil action in the Court
of Claims against the governor, attorney general, secretary
of state, auditor general, director of the corrections
department, and the warden of the Richard A. Handlon
Correctional Facility. Grabinski sought an injunctive order
for the recovery of bonds, prevention of a prison transfer,
release of withheld mail, and accommodation in a
single-occupancy cell. In a separate "common law tort
claim suit," Grabinski essentially asserted that he was
a "Sovereign American" and therefore the state and
federal government had no jurisdiction to hold him prisoner.
The Court of Claims summarily dismissed the action for
failure to comply with MCL 600.5507(2), which requires a
prisoner litigant to "disclose the number of civil
actions and appeals [he or she] has previously
initiated."
Grabinski
filed a delayed application for leave to appeal in this Court
and concurrently filed a motion to waive the filing fee. This
Court reminded Grabinski by letter that he was required to
pay his outstanding balance of $375 from Docket No. 325955 or
his current application would be dismissed pursuant to MCL
600.2963(8). Grabinski did not pay, and this Court dismissed
his application for leave to appeal and denied his motion to
waive fees as moot. Grabinski v Governor,
unpublished order of the Court of Appeals, entered August 9,
2017 (Docket No. 339082).
Grabinski
then sought relief from the Supreme Court and requested that
his filing fees be waived in that Court as well. The Supreme
Court initially denied Grabinski's motion to waive his
fees and ordered that Grabinski be barred from filing further
civil suits until his outstanding balance was paid.
Grabinski v Governor, 901 N.W.2d 405 (2017). The
Court subsequently vacated our order dismissing
Grabinski's application and ordered this Court to
reconsider our dismissal following our resolution of In
re Jackson (Docket No. 339724). Grabinski v
Governor, 503 Mich. 868; 917 N.W.2d 83 (2018).
This
Court has now resolved the appeal in In re Jackson.
In In re Jackson, 326 Mich.App. 629, 631-632; 929
N.W.2d 798 (2018), this Court held that "MCL 600.2963(8)
cannot constitutionally be applied to bar a complaint for
superintending control over an underlying criminal case if
the bar is based on outstanding fees owed by an indigent
prisoner-plaintiff from an earlier case and the
prisoner-plaintiff lacks funds to pay those outstanding
fees."
II.
ANALYSIS
As
directed by the Supreme Court, we now reconsider this
Court's dismissal of Grabinski's current application
for leave to appeal based on his failure to pay outstanding
fees in a prior appeal as directed by MCL 600.2963(8). This
case is distinguishable from Jackson and the cases
upon which Jackson relied. Accordingly, this Court
properly dismissed Grabinski's application.
Jackson's
holding was limited to the situation before it: the
unconstitutional prohibition of an appeal in a case that was
criminal in nature although designated as civil. In
Jackson, 326 Mich.App. at 632, the
prisoner-plaintiff filed an original complaint for
superintending control in this Court because the trial court
in his criminal case failed to rule on a motion for
reconsideration. The prisoner-plaintiff was required to file
a separate civil action to force the criminal court's
action because absent a final order in the criminal matter,
the prisoner-plaintiff could not pursue a direct appeal.
Id. at 636. The Jackson Court acknowledged
that Griffin v Illinois, 351 U.S. 12; 76 S.Ct. 585;
100 L.Ed.2d 891 (1956), and a series of subsequent cases had
deemed unconstitutional "legal rules that bar an
indigent person from seeking review in a higher court because
of an inability to pay filing fees or fees for the
preparation of transcripts, particularly in the context of
criminal appeals." Jackson, 326 Mich.App. at
635. This Court declined to be limited by "[f]ormalistic
procedural labels," recognized the criminal nature of
the superintending control complaint, and found
unconstitutional MCL 600.2963(8)'s bar as applied.
Id. at 636-637.
In
Jackson, 326 Mich.App. at 638, the American Civil
Liberties Union filed an amicus brief arguing "that
application of MCL 600.2963(8) would be unconstitutional
whenever it would bar an indigent prisoner from proceeding
with a civil appeal or original action because of outstanding
fees owed for an earlier civil case subject to MCL
600.2963." The Jackson panel declined to reach
that issue, but noted that its opinion was "rooted in
the heightened protection given to criminal defendants for
access to the courts in criminal cases for purposes of
securing the federal constitutional right to the appellate
process." Id. The panel left "for another
day" the issues of whether MCL 600.2963(8) could be used
to block appellate access to an indigent prisoner "in a
civil case that does not seek relief related to an underlying
criminal case and that is not otherwise provided heightened
protection for purposes ...