558 F.2d 257 - Rasberry v. Spradling — 558 F.2d 257

How this case has been cited

154 federal appellate ·

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

¶1Summary Calendar.*

¶2Sam F. Baxter, Dist. Atty., Harrison County, Marshall, Tex., for defendants-ap-pellees.

¶3Before COLEMAN, GODBOLD and TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges.

¶5PER CURIAM:

¶6This is a § 1983 prisoner civil rights case. Rather than ruling on the sufficiency of the complaint under standards of Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 92 S.Ct. 594, 30 L.Ed.2d 652 (1972), the court referred the matter to a Magistrate who made an independent, ex parte factual investigation, including interviews of one or more witnesses.

¶7The Magistrate concluded that plaintiff could not prove any set of facts that would entitle him to recover, and recommended that the case be dismissed as frivolous. The district court accepted the recommendation and dismissed the suit as frivolous. This does not comport with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or the governing case law.

¶8VACATED and REMANDED for reconsideration under correct legal standards.