It was melted ice cream that led Roy Clendinen to file a civil rights suit in 1992, demanding $1 million for the "cruel and unusual punishment" he suffered when a guard at the Mohawk state prison near Syracuse refused to refrigerate the snack.
Another New York inmate, Reginald Troy, who developed an ulcer while a prisoner at the Shawangunk State Prison at Wallkill, filed his civil rights suit in 1991, contending it was unconstitutional not to provide him lamb, veal and oysters for his meals - foods allowed by a doctor but not required.The two cases, ultimately dismissed, are among the tens of thousands of civil rights suits brought in recent years by inmates protesting prison conditions in New York and elsewhere across the nation. After three decades of startling growth, such suits have become one of the largest categories of all federal civil filings.
Over the years, the civil rights suits have become a powerful method to force improvements in prison medical care, legal access and inmate treatment. But along with such landmark cases have come a bounty of frivolous and groundless complaints.
The lawsuits, brought by inmates in federal and state prisons, have burdened the courts and overwhelmed the state attorneys who have to defend their prison systems, costing taxpayers millions in legal fees.
Since the 1960s, the number of prisoner suits have grown from just a few hundred to more than 33,000 last year, when they made up 15 percent of all civil suits filed in the federal courts.
Of these cases, about 97 percent were dismissed long before trial. Of those that continued on, only 13 percent resulted in any success for the prisoner - the worst rate of any type of civil suit filed in federal court.
"I mean 70 percent of these don't even state a complaint on which relief can be granted," said Thomas J. McAvoy, the chief judge of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of New York in Albany. "There may be deprivation, but it doesn't rise to the level of a constitutional violation."
Consider Clendinen's suit over melted ice cream. Filed in 1992, the suit asserted that Clendinen was not allowed to eat or freeze an ice cream he had bought, and that a guard later twisted his arm when he protested.
The New York attorney general's office argued that even if Clendinen's description of the incident was true, none of his claims rose to the level of a constitutional violation.
As defined by the U.S. Supreme Court, a constitutional violation of a prisoner's rights involves denial of the "minimal civilized measure of life's necessities" or a use of force "repugnant to the conscience of mankind."
The Federal District Court agreed with the state, and the case was dismissed but not before consuming hours of work by an assistant attorney general presenting a defense.
The proliferation of cases has led some states, including New York, to begin looking at ways to curb prisoners' access to the courts. Such measures might include requiring inmates to exhaust prison grievance procedures before filing suit, requiring a small filing fee and setting up a screening system for cases before they are filed in federal courts.