Cruz v. Pierston
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:19-cv-08039
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
Cruz v. Pierston: Judge Gilliam denied Cruz’s request to proceed without paying appellate fees, finding his appeal was not taken in good faith.
Guillermo Trujillo Cruz was denied permission to proceed without paying the appellate filing fees. The defendants had already received judgment after the underlying action was dismissed for failure to pay the required fees.
What happened
In Guillermo Trujillo Cruz v. Pierston, Cruz brought a civil-rights case without a lawyer. The court previously denied his request to proceed without paying filing fees because he had at least three earlier cases dismissed as qualifying “strikes.”
After Cruz did not pay the required filing and administrative fees, the court dismissed the case and entered judgment for the defendants. Cruz then appealed and asked to pay the appellate filing fees in installments.
Judge Gilliam treated Cruz’s filing as a request to proceed without paying the appellate fees and denied it. The court found that the appeal was not taken in good faith and terminated the related docket entry.
The detailed version
- Cruz v. Pierston · No. 4:19-cv-08039
- Haywood Gilliam
- June 29, 2020
Background
Guillermo Trujillo Cruz filed this civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 without a lawyer. On March 9, 2020, the court denied Cruz permission to proceed without paying the case fees under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), finding that he had at least three earlier cases dismissed as “strikes” before filing this action. The court ordered him to pay the filing and administrative fees in full if he wanted the case to continue.
Cruz did not pay those fees. On April 29, 2020, the court dismissed the action for failure to pay and entered judgment for the defendants. Cruz filed a notice of appeal on May 18, 2020.
Request on Appeal
Cruz later filed a document titled “Order to Show Cause Regarding to In Forma Pauperis and Have Case Proceed Forward.” Although the title did not expressly identify the request, the court construed it as a request to proceed without paying the appellate filing fees, including by paying those fees in installments.
Ruling
The court denied Cruz’s request to proceed without paying the appellate fees. It found that the appeal was not taken in good faith under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3). The order terminated the docket entry associated with Cruz’s request. Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. signed the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.