McElroy v. McLean
- Phyllis Hamilton
- 4:20-cv-01900
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In McElroy v. McLean, Judge Hamilton dismissed the prisoner’s civil-rights case because he did not pay the required filing fee.
Latwahn J. McElroy’s action was dismissed, and the clerk was directed to close the case; the underlying claims against Maureen McLean and the other defendants were not decided.
What happened
McElroy v. McLean began when Latwahn J. McElroy, a state prisoner representing himself, filed a civil-rights complaint against Maureen McLean and others.
The court had denied McElroy’s request to proceed without paying the filing fee because it found that he was barred by the rule limiting repeated unsuccessful prisoner lawsuits. McElroy argued that an exception applied because he faced immediate danger of serious physical injury, but the court found that he had not shown such danger when he filed the complaint.
Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton dismissed the action for failure to pay the filing fee and ordered the clerk to close the case. The order did not decide the underlying civil-rights claims.
The detailed version
- McElroy v. McLean · No. 4:20-cv-01900
- Phyllis Hamilton
- Aug. 11, 2020
Background
Latwahn J. McElroy, a state prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a civil-rights complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The complaint concerned events at Pelican Bay State Prison in 2015 and later. The opinion states that McElroy filed the complaint on March 11, 2020, while he was at RJ Donovan Correctional Facility, and that he was later held at North Kern State Prison.
Filing-fee issue
The court denied McElroy’s request to proceed without paying the filing fee after finding that he was barred under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), which limits fee-free filings by prisoners who have accumulated three qualifying prior dismissals. The court gave him an opportunity to pay the full filing fee and warned that the case would be dismissed if he did not do so. The deadline passed without payment.
McElroy filed another motion arguing that the imminent-danger exception to the three-strikes rule allowed him to proceed without paying the fee. The court explained that imminent danger must be assessed when the complaint is filed. Because the alleged events involved a different prison and McElroy did not show that he faced imminent danger when he filed the complaint, the court rejected that argument.
Disposition
The court ordered that the action be dismissed for failure to pay the filing fee and directed the clerk to close the case. Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton did not rule on the merits of McElroy’s civil-rights claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.