Stribling v. Department of State Hospitals
- Yvonne Rogers
- 4:19-cv-00299
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Stribling v. Department of State Hospitals, Judge Rogers dismissed the action without prejudice after Stribling neither paid the fee nor filed a completed fee-waiver application.
Aaron Stribling’s action was dismissed without prejudice, and the court directed that all pending motions be terminated and the file closed. The Department of State Hospitals and the other defendants were not subject to a ruling on the underlying claims.
What happened
In Stribling v. Department of State Hospitals, Aaron Stribling, a state prisoner representing himself, filed a civil-rights complaint under federal law. The clerk told him to pay the filing fee or submit a completed application to waive the fee.
The court gave Stribling three extensions of time, warning each time that the case would be dismissed without prejudice if he did not pay or submit the application. The court also denied his requests for an order requiring prison officials to pay the fee from his funds and denied his request for a one-year extension.
Stribling missed the final deadline and did not submit the fee or application. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers dismissed the action without prejudice, directed the clerk to terminate all pending motions, and closed the file.
The detailed version
- Stribling v. Department of State Hospitals · No. 4:19-cv-00299
- Yvonne Rogers
- Sept. 24, 2019
Background
Aaron Stribling, identified in the opinion as a state prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal law that allows certain civil-rights claims against state actors. The clerk notified Stribling that the case could not proceed until he either paid the filing fee or filed a completed prisoner application to proceed without paying the fee.
Extensions and Earlier Requests
The court granted Stribling three extensions of time, in orders dated March 12, May 24, and June 28, 2019. Each order warned that failing to pay the fee or return a completed application would result in dismissal without prejudice.
Stribling also asked the court to order prison officials to pay the filing fee from his prison funds. The court denied those requests because he had not shown a sufficient reason for the court to interfere with the prison’s day-to-day operations. When Stribling requested a one-year extension, the court denied that request as unwarranted but granted him another 28 days—the third and final extension absent extraordinary circumstances.
Ruling
The final deadline was July 26, 2019. Stribling had neither paid the filing fee nor filed a completed prisoner application, and he had not communicated with the court since requesting the one-year extension. The court therefore dismissed the action without prejudice. It directed the clerk to terminate all pending motions and close the file.
This was a procedural dismissal based on Stribling’s failure to satisfy the filing-fee or fee-waiver requirement; the order did not decide the underlying claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.