The opinion
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
NASHVILLE DIVISION
HAMID HOUBBADI, )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
v. ) NO. 3:22-cv-00004
)
MONTGOMERY COUNTY SHERIFF, )
et al., )
)
Defendants. )
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
On May 4, 2022, the Court performed an initial screening of pro se Plaintiff Hamid
Houbbadi’s Amended Complaint under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 28 U.S.C. §§
1915(e)(2) and 1915A, and found it subject to dismissal for failure to state a claim on which relief
may be granted. (Doc. No. 8). Nevertheless, the Court granted Plaintiff leave to file a Second
Amended Complaint in order to supply additional factual support for his claim of denial of access
to courts. (Id. at 12).
Plaintiff has now filed his Second Amended Complaint (Doc. No. 11), asserting that
Defendant Stilts––“a notary public who provides the inmates with a notary service under color of
state or local law”––violated his right of access to courts by delaying notarization of his state-court
complaint, despite receiving notice that the deadline for filing the complaint was fast approaching.
(Id. at 4, 7). After Stilts’s misconduct delayed the filing of the state-court complaint, the defendants
to that action sought its dismissal based on the statute of limitations. (Id. at 5).
The Court must review the Second Amended Complaint under the PLRA and dismiss it if
it fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii), 1915A(a),
(b)(1). This review requires the Court to determine whether the Second Amended Complaint
contains “sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its
face,” such that it would survive a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
12(b)(6). Hill v. Lappin, 630 F.3d 468, 470–71 (6th Cir. 2010) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556
U.S. 662, 678 (2009)).
As discussed in the Court’s prior screening order (Doc. No. 8), inmates have a fundamental
constitutional right to access the courts. Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 821, 828 (1977), abrogated
on other grounds by Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 351 (1996). In order to state a viable claim for
denial of access to courts, Plaintiff must allege an “actual injury” to a “nonfrivolous,” “arguable”
legal claim. Lewis, 518 U.S. at 349, 353 & n.3; see Brown v. Matauszak, 415 F. App’x 608, 612
(6th Cir. 2011) (describing “unique pleading requirements” applicable to denial of access claims:
“a plaintiff must plead a case within a case, alleging the law and facts sufficient to establish both
the interference with his access to the courts, and the non-frivolous nature of the claim that was
lost.”). Furthermore, the underlying, nonfrivolous claim must involve an attack on Plaintiff’s
incarceration or challenge to the conditions of his confinement; impairment of inmates’ ability to
prosecute legal claims that do not attack the fact or conditions of their confinement is not
redressable under Bounds, but “is simply one of the incidental (and perfectly constitutional)
consequences of conviction and incarceration.” Lewis, 518 U.S. at 355.
Plaintiff accuses Defendant Stilts of violating his right of access by intentionally
withholding notary services until Plaintiff’s statute of limitations for filing his state-court
complaint expired.1 (Doc. No. 11 at 7). The Court previously found that Plaintiff’s allegations
1 Plaintiff also alleges that other, unnamed jail staff failed to facilitate his attempts to send and receive mail
and to place international phone calls, but only Stilts is alleged to have interfered with Plaintiff’s access to
courts. (Doc. No. 11 at 5–6).
concerning his state-court case were insufficiently detailed to support his claim of interference
with a non-frivolous legal claim. (Doc. No. 8 at 11-12). Plaintiff has now supplied the missing
details about his underlying claim. He has clarified that the claim imperiled by Defendant Stilts’s
delayed response to his request for notary services was a claim “for fraud and breach of contract
against Kennedy law firm” in Montgomery County Circuit Court. (Doc. No. 11 at 7; see id. at 22—
37 (attached brief from Kennedy Law Firm, PLLC in underlying state-court litigation)). This claim
evidently arose from “Plaintiff's October 1, 2018 consultation with and engagement of [Kennedy
Law Firm] and its counsel to represent him in (1) an Order of Protection case in Montgomery
County General Sessions Court filed by his wife, Leila Chanane, and (2) a divorce from Chanane.”
(Id. at 25). Regardless of whether there is any merit to this claim against Plaintiff's former counsel,
it clearly does not involve an attack on Plaintiffs incarceration or a challenge to the conditions of
his confinement. Therefore, Defendant Stilts’s interference with its timely prosecution does not
support any plausible claim to a violation of Plaintiffs constitutional right to access the courts.
See Lewis, 518 U.S. at 355.
Accordingly, for the reasons given here and in the Court’s prior screening order (Doc. No.
8), this case is DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE for failure to state a claim on which relief
may be granted pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) and 1915A.
This is the final order in this action. The Clerk SHALL enter judgment. Fed. R. Civ. P.
58(b)(1).
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Wavd,> Che
WAVERLY Dims JR.
CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE