Tobias Payton v. Ryan Kram

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted January 4, 2024*
Decided January 11, 2024
Before
ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge
DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
No. 22-2212
TOBIAS PAYTON,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
RYAN KRAM,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Central District of Illinois.
No. 17-cv-1292-JBM
Joe Billy McDade,
Judge.
O R D E R
Tobias Payton, an Illinois prisoner, appeals the judgment dismissing his suit
against a correctional officer at Pontiac Correctional Center for incidents related to an
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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. 22-2212 Page 2
alleged staff assault. See 42 U.S. § 1983. The district court dismissed his case with
prejudice as a sanction after determining that Payton fraudulently omitted his litigation
history from his complaint. We affirm.
In 2017, Payton filed the first of two nearly identical suits in the Central District
of Illinois. On a form complaint, he alleged that various correctional officers assaulted
him, failed to document his injuries, and locked him in a strip cell for three days under
a false disciplinary report. See Payton v. Kram, et al., No. 17-cv-1022 (C.D. Ill., 2017)
(“Payton v. Kram I”). In response to his request to proceed in forma pauperis, Judge
Myerscough directed him to show cause why he should not be assessed the full filing
fee, given that he had spent $2,500 in his prison account immediately before filing the
suit. Payton then filed a “motion to withdraw complaint”—which the judge construed
as a motion to voluntarily dismiss his complaint—and said that he intended to file a
claim in the Illinois Court of Claims.
Three weeks later, Payton filed a new form complaint in the Central District,
reprising his claims against the same parties. See Payton v. Kram, No. 17-cv-1292, 2022
WL 2713555 (C.D. Ill. June 17, 2022) (“Payton v. Kram II”). In the section of the form
entitled “Litigation History,” he checked the box confirming that he had not brought
any other lawsuit in state or federal court dealing with the same facts. In that same
section of the form, he also identified five other lawsuits that he had filed in federal
court while incarcerated; he failed, however, to disclose his prior suit, Payton v. Kram I.
This case was screened under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A by Judge McDade, who allowed
Payton to proceed only on his excessive force claims against two officers, Ryan Kram
and Ray Roddick. The judge later granted summary judgment for Roddick (concluding
that no reasonable jury could find that he acted with excessive force) but allowed
Payton to continue on his excessive force claim against Kram.
Kram then moved for sanctions on grounds that Payton had intentionally
withheld information from the court concerning his litigation history—specifically,
reference to his prior suit, Payton v. Kram I. Kram, who said that he had discovered the
omission while preparing for trial, highlighted Payton’s statement in his complaint that
he had not filed any other suits dealing with the same facts. Kram argued that Payton
had acted in bad faith by trying to defraud the court and that, as a sanction, his action
should be dismissed with prejudice.

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No. 22-2212 Page 3
Judge McDade agreed with Kram and dismissed the case with prejudice. The
judge found that Payton had defrauded the court by “intentionally” and “egregiously”
omitting from his litigation history any reference to Payton v. Kram I.1 Based on the short
timeline between the two suits, the judge suggested that Payton was trying to avoid
either paying a separate filing fee or responding to Judge Myerscough’s order to show
cause.
On appeal, Payton challenges Judge McDade’s decision to sanction him without
Kram’s having submitted any proof that Payton v. Kram I had closed. But the judge was
entitled to take judicial notice of court records from Payton’s prior proceedings, see
Ennenga v. Starns, 677 F.3d 766, 774 (7th Cir. 2012), and a text order from the docket of
Payton v. Kram I, entered on May 31, 2017, expressly states that Judge Myerscough had
granted his motion to withdraw (which she construed as a motion to voluntarily
dismiss the case) and that “[t]his case is closed.” Judge McDade’s handling of this
matter was entirely appropriate. Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, district courts
must ensure that a prisoner has not incurred three strikes, and the Act allows judges to
independently review the litigation history of a prisoner seeking to proceed in forma
pauperis. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g); Hoskins v. Dart, 633 F.3d 541, 543 (7th Cir. 2011). Judge
McDade justified his findings that Payton’s omission was material, that monetary
sanctions would be ineffective against a litigant like Payton who sought to proceed in
forma pauperis, and that dismissal with prejudice was a reasonable sanction in these
circumstances. See id. at 543–44 (upholding court’s dismissal of complaint with
prejudice as sanction for prisoner’s fraudulent misrepresentation of his litigation
history); see also Greyer v. Illinois Dep’t. of Corr., 933 F.3d 871, 879–82 (7th Cir. 2019).
AFFIRMED
1 Even if the second case were—as Payton believes—merely a continuation of the earlier one, he was still
obligated to inform the court of the prior proceedings. The form Payton completed specifically asked if he
had “brought any other lawsuits in state or federal court dealing with the same facts involved in this
case.”

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