Arendas v. Gutholm

Background

Peter John Arendas filed a pro se prisoner action seeking damages for an alleged false arrest based on an invalid Washington state warrant. He applied to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP), meaning without paying the filing fee at the start of the case.

On April 10, 2020, the court denied Arendas’s IFP application under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). That provision generally prevents a prisoner from proceeding IFP after three or more prior prisoner actions were dismissed as frivolous, malicious, or for failure to state a claim, unless the prisoner was facing an imminent danger of serious physical injury when the case was filed. The court found that Arendas had at least three qualifying prior dismissals and did not meet the imminent-danger exception. It gave him 28 days either to show why the statute did not apply or to pay the required $400 filing fee, warning that failure to do so would result in dismissal without prejudice to filing a new paid complaint.

Arendas’s Motion

Arendas filed a motion arguing that the prior dismissals should not count as strikes because they occurred in 2010, when he was “unlearned” in the law. He also argued that the three cases were dismissed only for failure to state a claim and that the three-strikes rule was intended for abusive litigation.

Court’s Ruling

The court rejected those arguments. It explained that dismissals for failure to state a claim count as strikes under § 1915(g), and that a prisoner’s pro se status or limited legal skills at the time of the earlier dismissals do not change whether those dismissals qualify as strikes.

Because Arendas had three or more strikes and did not qualify for the imminent-danger exception, the court held that § 1915(g) barred him from proceeding IFP. The court dismissed the action without prejudice to bringing it in a new paid complaint. It also instructed the clerk to close the file and terminated Arendas’s motion on ECF No. 4 as moot.