Jeffrey E. Olson v. J. Dinse

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted July 24, 2023*
Decided July 24, 2023
Before
ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge
MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge
JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge
No. 23-1488
JEFFREY E. OLSON,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
J. DINSE, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Western District of
Wisconsin.
No. 22-cv-673-jdp
James D. Peterson,
Chief Judge.
O R D E R
Jeffrey Olson, a Wisconsin prisoner, asked his prison’s business office to draw
upon his inmate trust-fund account to pay a state-court filing fee. But the business office
balked, requiring Olson first to submit a court document that verified the filing fee
* The appellees were not served with process and are not participating in this
appeal. We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the brief and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 23-1488 Page 2
owed. Olson in turn sued prison staff members for violating his right to access the
courts. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court screened the complaint under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1915(e)(2) and § 1915A and dismissed it for failure to state a claim. We affirm.
As he set forth in his complaint, Olson encountered a roadblock when he tried to
file a lawsuit in Wisconsin state court. (Olson did not allege any facts about the lawsuit
itself except that it was a mandamus action about the “canteen.”) To pay the full $164.50
filing fee in that case, Olson asked his prison’s business office to have funds disbursed
from his inmate account. Olson received a letter (which he attached to his complaint)
from J. Dinse in the prison’s business office, directing him to provide “a copy of the
court document that states you have a partial filing fee owed of $164.50.” Dinse
explained that she needed to verify that Olson had a filing fee due and in what amount.
Olson believed that Dinse’s letter was an attempt to censor him and violate his
constitutional right to access the courts. He sued Dinse, as well as another employee of
the prison’s business office, the prison’s warden, and Wisconsin’s Secretary of
Corrections, alleging that they implemented an unconstitutional rule that requires
inmates like himself to submit legal filings to prison administrators for “review and
possible censorship” before funds will be disbursed to pay a filing fee.
The district court dismissed Olson’s suit at screening because Olson’s complaint
did not state a claim. The court concluded that the contents of Dinse’s letter
contradicted the allegations in Olson’s complaint. That is, Dinse did not ask to censor or
review Olson’s filings as a condition of disbursing funds; rather, she wanted merely to
verify the existence and amount of the filing fee.
On appeal, Olson challenges the district court’s decision to dismiss his complaint
with prejudice and not allow him an opportunity to amend. In his appellate brief, he
proposes that, if allowed, he would amend the complaint to allege that Dinse obstructed
his access to the courts by not disbursing funds until he produced a court document
that he now says was unavailable to him. Olson asserts that a state-court employee told
him that he had not provided the requisite documents—which included a notarized
affidavit of indigency—to receive the requested court order. Olson is not indigent and
alleges that he could be penalized for submitting the notarized affidavit of indigency.
But the proposed amendment would not help Olson state a claim of denial of
access to the courts against the defendants. To state such a claim, Olson needed to “spell
out, in minimal detail, the connection between the alleged denial of access to legal
materials and an inability to pursue a legitimate challenge to a conviction, sentence, or

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No. 23-1488 Page 3
prison conditions.” Marshall v. Knight, 445 F.3d 965, 968 (7th Cir. 2006) (citing Lewis v.
Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 355 (1996)). The nature and description of the underlying challenge
must be set forth in the complaint “just as if it were being independently pursued.”
Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403, 417 (2002); Rivera v. Monko, 37 F.4th 909, 916 (3d Cir.
2022). In other words, Olson had to suggest how Dinse’s refusal to disburse the filing
fee prevented him from legitimately challenging what we presume to be conditions at
the prison’s canteen. But the problem is that, even with his proposed amendment,
Olson says almost nothing about the underlying mandamus suit, much less plausibly
allege that it is a legitimate challenge to prison conditions. The allegations merely allude
to the “canteen” and say nothing else to suggest that his potential to prevail on the
underlying claim is “more than hope.” Christopher, 536 U.S. at 416. Olson’s barebones
description of the underlying mandamus claim thus falls short of what is required to
state a claim of denial of access to the courts.
We therefore will not upset the district court’s dismissal with prejudice. But we
repeat that, in general, our precedent requires district courts to give pro se litigants at
least one chance to file an amended complaint before dismissing a case with prejudice.
See Zimmerman v. Bornick, 25 F.4th 491, 492 (7th Cir. 2022).
AFFIRMED

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