Bonilla v. Lopey
- Phyllis Hamilton
- 4:25-cv-05601
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Bonilla v. Sacramento County Superior Court, Judge Hamilton dismissed the multiple civil-rights cases with prejudice because Bonilla could not proceed without fees and his claims were barred.
Steven Wayne Bonilla’s multiple civil-rights cases were dismissed with prejudice; the defendants named in those cases were not required to litigate the claims further.
What happened
In Bonilla v. Sacramento County Superior Court et al., Steven Wayne Bonilla, a state prisoner, filed many nearly identical civil-rights lawsuits without a lawyer against judges, courts, and law-enforcement officials.
He sought relief concerning his conviction or the handling of his other cases. The court said he could not proceed without paying filing fees because he had previously been barred from proceeding without them and his complaints did not show an immediate danger of serious physical injury. The court also said that, even if he could proceed without fees, the lawsuits were barred by several legal rules.
Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton dismissed all the cases with prejudice, ended the pending motions, closed the cases, and directed the clerk to return future documents submitted in them without filing them.
The detailed version
- Bonilla v. Lopey · No. 4:25-cv-05601
- Phyllis Hamilton
- July 28, 2025
Background
Steven Wayne Bonilla, a state prisoner, filed multiple complaints without a lawyer under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal law allowing certain civil-rights claims against government officials. The complaints were nearly identical. They named various federal judges, state judges, state courts, and law-enforcement officials. Bonilla sought relief concerning his underlying conviction or the way his other state and federal cases had been handled.
The opinion states that Bonilla also had a pending federal petition challenging his custody, with appointed counsel, and was represented by counsel in state-court proceedings.
Proceeding Without Paying Filing Fees
The court stated that Bonilla had been disqualified from proceeding without paying filing fees under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), unless he showed that he faced an imminent danger of serious physical injury when he filed the complaints. The court found that the allegations did not show such a danger. Therefore, Bonilla could not proceed without paying the fees.
Other Bars to the Lawsuits
The court further stated that, even if a request to proceed without paying fees were granted, the lawsuits would be barred under the legal rules identified in Heck v. Humphrey, Younger v. Harris, Demos v. U.S. District Court, and Mullis v. U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The opinion does not provide a separate analysis of each rule in the quoted text.
Ruling
The court dismissed the cases with prejudice. That wording means the cases were closed in a way that bars refiling the same claims. The clerk was ordered to terminate all pending motions and close the cases, and to return without filing any further documents Bonilla submitted in those closed cases.
The court also stated that the repetitive and frivolous nature of the filings did not create a reasonable question about Judge Hamilton’s impartiality. Judge Hamilton signed the order on July 28, 2025.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.