Bonilla v. Marin County
- Phyllis Hamilton
- 4:21-cv-02930
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Bonilla v. Clay, Judge Hamilton dismissed multiple civil-rights cases with prejudice because Bonilla could not proceed without paying filing fees and the suits were barred.
Steven Wayne Bonilla’s seven listed civil-rights cases were dismissed with prejudice. The order also affected the named defendants, including various federal and state judges and a correctional officers’ union, and directed the clerk to close the cases and return later submissions without filing them.
What happened
Steven Wayne Bonilla, a condemned state prisoner, filed multiple civil-rights cases under federal law against various federal and state judges and a correctional officers’ union. He sought relief related to his conviction and the handling of his other court cases.
The court found that Bonilla could not proceed without paying filing fees because he had previously been disqualified from that status and had not shown that he faced an immediate serious physical danger when he filed. The court also said the lawsuits would be barred even if that request were granted, and dismissed the cases with prejudice.
Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton ordered the clerk to terminate all pending motions and close the cases. The clerk was also directed to return, without filing, any further documents Bonilla submitted in those closed cases.
The detailed version
- Bonilla v. Marin County · No. 4:21-cv-02930
- Phyllis Hamilton
- Apr. 29, 2021
Background
Steven Wayne Bonilla filed multiple lawsuits as a pro se state prisoner—that is, without a lawyer—under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal law that allows certain civil-rights claims against persons acting under state law. The listed case numbers were 21-cv-02926-PJH, 21-cv-02927-PJH, 21-cv-02928-PJH, 21-cv-02929-PJH, 21-cv-02930-PJH, 21-cv-02931-PJH, and 21-cv-03055-PJH.
The complaints named various federal and state judges and a correctional officers’ union as defendants. The court said the complaints presented very similar claims seeking relief concerning Bonilla’s underlying conviction or the way state and federal courts had handled his other cases. The opinion also noted that Bonilla had a pending federal petition challenging his conviction with appointed counsel and was represented by counsel in state-court proceedings.
Filing-fee status
Bonilla sought, or might have sought, permission to proceed without paying the filing fees. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), a prisoner who has accumulated qualifying prior dismissals generally cannot proceed without those fees unless the complaint shows that the prisoner faced an imminent danger of serious physical injury when the complaint was filed. The court stated that Bonilla had already been disqualified from proceeding under that provision.
The court found that the complaints did not show imminent danger at the time of filing. It therefore ruled that Bonilla could not proceed without paying the filing fees.
Other grounds for dismissal
The court further stated that, even if an application to proceed without paying fees were granted, the lawsuits would be barred under the legal rules identified in Heck v. Humphrey, Younger v. Harris, Demos v. U.S. District Court, and Mullis v. U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The opinion did not provide a separate claim-by-claim analysis of those rules.
Ruling
The court dismissed the cases with prejudice. It also stated that the cases did not present a basis to question the undersigned judge’s impartiality because of the repetitive and frivolous nature of the filings. The clerk was ordered to terminate all pending motions, close the cases, and return without filing any further documents Bonilla submitted in the closed cases.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.