Burns v. Griffin
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-06856
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Burns v. Griffin, Judge Swain denied Burns’s request to proceed without fees and dismissed the action without prejudice under the prisoner three-strikes rule.
George Burns is directly affected: while he remains incarcerated, he may not bring a new federal civil action without prepaying filing fees unless he shows imminent danger of serious physical injury. The present action was dismissed without prejudice, and fee-free status was also denied for an appeal.
What happened
In Burns v. Griffin, George Burns, who is incarcerated and represented himself, sued Shannon Griffin, a criminal defense attorney, over events connected to the state criminal proceedings that led to his incarceration. Burns asked to bring the case without paying filing fees.
The court ruled that Burns had already been barred under the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s three-strikes rule from bringing new federal civil cases without paying fees while incarcerated. Because his complaint did not show that he faced an immediate danger of serious physical injury when he filed it, the court denied his request to proceed without fees and dismissed the action without prejudice. Burns may start a new federal civil action by paying the required fees. The court also denied fee-free status for any appeal.
Chief United States District Judge Laura Taylor Swain issued the order on August 21, 2025. The ruling did not decide whether Burns’s claims against Griffin were legally valid.
The detailed version
- Burns v. Griffin · No. 1:25-cv-06856
- Laura Swain
- Aug. 21, 2025
Background
George Burns, who was incarcerated at Elmira Correctional Facility, brought this civil-rights action without a lawyer. He asked to proceed without prepaying filing fees, a status commonly called proceeding without fees. The complaint asserted claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Shannon Griffin, identified in the caption as a county law attorney, based on events allegedly occurring during the state-court criminal proceedings that led to Burns’s current incarceration.
Three-strikes rule
The Prison Litigation Reform Act bars a prisoner from bringing a new federal civil action without prepaying filing fees if the prisoner previously had three or more federal actions or appeals dismissed as frivolous, malicious, or for failure to state a claim. The exception applies when the prisoner shows that he was under imminent danger of serious physical injury when he filed the complaint. The court stated that Burns had already been recognized as subject to this bar in a prior related proceeding.
The court found that Burns’s complaint did not show that he was under imminent danger of serious physical injury at the time of filing. It therefore ruled that Section 1915(g) barred him from bringing this action without prepaying the fees.
Disposition
The court denied Burns’s request to proceed without prepaying fees and dismissed the action without prejudice under the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s three-strikes provision. The order states that Burns may commence a new federal civil action by paying the relevant fees; any such complaint would be reviewed under the prisoner-screening statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. The court also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal. Judge Laura Taylor Swain directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment dismissing the action.
The order addressed Burns’s ability to proceed without prepaying fees and did not decide the merits of his claims against Griffin.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.