Sharde v. Contra Costa District Attorney
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:24-cv-07177
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Ronisha Sharde v. Vivianna Becerra, Judge Gilliam denied fee-waiver status, finding no viable claim, and said the case would be dismissed without prejudice unless Sharde paid the filing fee.
Ronisha Sharde, who must pay the $405 filing and administrative fee by June 3, 2025, or face dismissal of this action without prejudice to refiling upon payment.
What happened
In Ronisha Sharde v. Vivianna Becerra, et al., the court reviewed Sharde’s second amended complaint and again denied her request to proceed without paying the filing fee. The court had previously found that her earlier allegations did not state a plausible claim but allowed her to amend one forced-labor claim.
The amended complaint named Meta as the only defendant and appeared to allege that Facebook and Instagram accounts used Sharde’s name and photographs without permission. Sharde cited California and federal criminal statutes, but removed the forced-labor claim. The court held that she could not bring claims under those criminal statutes because they did not give private people the right to sue under them.
Judge Gilliam concluded that another opportunity to amend would be futile. He denied the request to proceed without paying the fee and said the action would be dismissed without prejudice unless the $405 fee was paid by June 3, 2025. He also denied Sharde’s sanctions request and denied as moot her request to reschedule the case-management conference.
The detailed version
- Sharde v. Contra Costa District Attorney · No. 4:24-cv-07177
- Haywood Gilliam
- May 6, 2025
Background
Ronisha Sharde proceeded without a lawyer and asked to proceed without paying the filing fee. The court had previously dismissed her earlier complaint and denied that request, but allowed her to amend one claim under 18 U.S.C. § 1589, a federal forced-labor statute. The court had dismissed the other claims without leave to amend and instructed that any amendment had to include specific facts connecting each defendant to a violation of § 1589.
Sharde timely filed an amended complaint. The amended complaint named Meta as the only defendant and appeared to allege that Facebook and Instagram accounts used her name and photographs without her consent. It cited California Penal Code § 529, 18 U.S.C. § 241, and 18 U.S.C. § 1028. It no longer asserted a claim under § 1589 and included no allegations about forced-labor trafficking.
Rulings on the Filing-Fee Request
The court found that the amended complaint stated no viable claim for two reasons. First, the court had authorized amendment only of the § 1589 claim, which Sharde had removed. Second, the court reaffirmed that the criminal statutes cited in the amended complaint did not create a private right of action, meaning they did not authorize Sharde to sue under those statutes.
Because Sharde had already received an opportunity to amend, and because the court found that she continued to be unable to state a plausible claim, it concluded that further amendment would be futile. The court therefore again denied her motion to proceed without paying the filing fee. It stated that Sharde could continue the action only by paying the $405 filing and administrative fee by June 3, 2025. If the full fee was not received by that date, the court would dismiss the action without prejudice to refiling upon payment of the full fee.
Other Motions
The court also denied Sharde’s request for sanctions. The request appeared to seek sanctions against the court and was based on a clerk’s notice about filing exhibits separately and an email that was not associated with the court.
The court denied as moot Sharde’s motion to reschedule the case-management conference because the court had previously vacated that conference.
Classification
This is a procedural order. The court ruled on the filing-fee request and the sufficiency of the pleadings as part of its screening process; it did not reach the merits of a viable claim.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.