Isn't It Ironic? The “Particular Plaintiffs” Provision of the PLRA

Abstract

The “particular plaintiffs” provision of PLRA, 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(1), has had little success in restricting prisoners' access to class certification. Nonetheless, prisoners may now be largely unable to pursue class action litigation. In Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, the Supreme Court last year announced new restrictions on class certification that may make such litigation nearly unavailable in most civil rights cases, including those filed by prisoners. As a further irony, the Supreme Court's decision from the same term in Brown v. Plata demonstrates that the new standards announced in Dukes are unrelated to distinguishing cases in which class certification promotes judicial efficiency and fairness. This sequence of events underlines the importance of the federal courts' hostility to civil rights in exacerbating the effects of PLRA on prisoners' rights, and the Supreme Court's expression of that hostility through procedural decisions.