Bonilla v. Skillman
- Phyllis Hamilton
- 4:25-cv-06961
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Bonilla v. Judge Jeffrey A. Thompson et al., Judge Hamilton dismissed multiple civil-rights cases with prejudice after finding Bonilla could not use the fee-waiver process and his claims were barred.
Steven Wayne Bonilla’s multiple civil-rights cases were dismissed with prejudice. The order also terminated pending motions, closed the cases, and directed the clerk not to file further documents submitted in them.
What happened
In Steven Wayne Bonilla v. Judge Jeffrey A. Thompson et al., Bonilla, a state prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed many nearly identical civil-rights lawsuits under a federal civil-rights statute. He sued various federal judges, state judges, and state courts over his conviction and the handling of his other cases.
The court found that Bonilla could not proceed without paying the required filing fees because he did not show that he faced an immediate risk of serious physical injury when he filed the complaints. The court also said that, even if he could proceed without those fees, his lawsuits were barred under several legal rules identified in the opinion.
Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton dismissed the cases with prejudice, terminated all pending motions, closed the cases, and directed the clerk to return any further documents Bonilla submitted in them without filing them.
The detailed version
- Bonilla v. Skillman · No. 4:25-cv-06961
- Phyllis Hamilton
- Aug. 26, 2025
Background
Steven Wayne Bonilla, a state prisoner proceeding without counsel, filed multiple nearly identical civil-rights complaints under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The caption lists multiple related case numbers. The complaints named various federal judges, state judges, and state courts as defendants. According to the order, Bonilla sought relief concerning his underlying conviction and the way his other state and federal cases had been handled.
The order also noted that Bonilla had a pending federal petition challenging his custody in the same court, with appointed counsel, and was represented by counsel in state-court proceedings concerning his custody.
Court’s analysis
The court held that, to the extent Bonilla sought to proceed without paying the filing fees, 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g) barred him from doing so unless he showed that he was under an immediate danger of serious physical injury when he filed each complaint. The court found that the allegations did not show such danger. The opinion also referred to prior proceedings in concluding that Bonilla had been disqualified from proceeding under that fee-waiver provision.
The court further stated that, even if a fee-waiver application were granted, the lawsuits would be barred under the legal rules discussed in Heck v. Humphrey, Younger v. Harris, Demos v. U.S. District Court, and Mullis v. U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The order did not reach the underlying merits of Bonilla’s claims. It also stated that the repetitive and frivolous filings did not provide a basis to question the undersigned judge’s impartiality.
Disposition
The court dismissed the cases with prejudice. It directed the clerk to terminate all pending motions and close the cases, and to return without filing any further documents Bonilla submitted in those closed cases.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.