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Case 3:22-cv-00134-JAG-MRC Document 26 Filed 12/22/22 Page 8 of 12 PagelD# 137
defendants. Therefore, Claim Six (b) is not properly joined with Claim (a) and (c). Accordingly,
the Court will proceed with the analysis it announced in the August 4, 2022, Memorandum Order,
and “the Court will drop all defendants not properly joined with the first named defendant.”* (ECF
No. 21, at 3.)
The remaining claims—Claims One through Four, Six (a) and (c), Seven, and Eight—are
different types of claims, alleging different conduct, on different dates, against different
defendants. Thus, it is apparent that Melby has failed to articulate a common question of law and
fact for all of the named defendants, and that Melby’s various causes of action do not arise “out of
the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 20(a).
Instead, Melby has submitted the sort of “mishmash of a complaint” that the rules governing
joinder aim to prevent. Jackson, 2010 WL 724023, at *7 (quoting George, 507 F.3d at 607). As
such, permitting the joinder of Claims One through Four, Six (a) and (c), Seven, and Eight will not
promote the objectives of Rule 20 or judicial efficiency. See id. at *8 n.10.
For the reasons set forth above, Melby’s Particularized Complaint “comprises multiple law
suits, rather than one suit.” Jd. at *8 (quoting Canada v. Ray, No. 7:08cv00219, 2009 WL
2448557, at *2 (W.D. Va. Aug. 10, 2009)).”
§ “Such a procedure fosters the objectives of the Rules of Civil Procedure[ ] of expediting
the resolution of disputes, without further squandering scarce judicial resources on ‘disputes that
are not structurally prepared to use those resources efficiently.’” Jackson, Civil Action No.
3:09cv43, 2010 WL 724023, at *8 n.10 (E.D.Va. Mar. 1, 2020) (quoting Wagner v. First Horizon
Pharm. Corp., 464 F.3d 1273, 1279-80 (11th Cir. 2006)).
7’ Through the PLRA, Congress sought to ensure “that the flood of nonmeritorious
[prisoner] claims does not submerge and effectively preclude consideration of the allegations with
merit.” Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 203 (2007) (citing Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 327
(1989)). The requirement that inmates must pay the full filing fee for each separate suit, see 28
U.S.C. § 1915(b)(1), is one of the PLRA’s key “reforms designed to filter out the bad claims and
facilitate consideration of the good.” Jd. at 204. To allow an inmate, such as Melby, to “package
many lawsuits into one complaint exempts him from such a cost, benefit analysis and thus
undercuts the PLRA.” Canada, 2009 WL 2448557, at *3.
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