Lamon v. Foss
- Beth Freeman
- 5:20-cv-05450
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 10
In Lamon v. Foss, Judge Freeman granted the motion to revoke Barry Louis Lamon’s fee waiver and ordered full payment within 14 days.
Barry Louis Lamon must pay the full filing fee within 14 days to continue this case; otherwise, the action will be dismissed without prejudice. The defendants’ motion to revoke his permission to proceed without prepaying the fee was granted.
What happened
In Lamon v. Foss, Barry Louis Lamon, a California inmate representing himself, brought a civil-rights case against prison staff. The court had previously allowed him to proceed without paying the filing fee upfront.
The defendants asked the court to revoke that permission under a rule that generally bars prisoners from proceeding without prepaying fees after three qualifying prior dismissals. The court found four qualifying dismissals or appeals and found no imminent danger of serious physical injury when Lamon filed this case.
Judge Freeman granted the motion to revoke Lamon’s permission to proceed without prepaying the fee. She ordered him to pay the full filing fee within 14 days; otherwise, the case will be dismissed without prejudice.
The detailed version
- Lamon v. Foss · No. 5:20-cv-05450
- Beth Freeman
- Jan. 24, 2022
Background
Barry Louis Lamon, a California inmate proceeding without a lawyer, filed a civil-rights complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against staff at Salinas Valley State Prison. The court had previously allowed him to proceed in forma pauperis, meaning without paying the filing fee upfront, and found that his amended complaint stated legally recognizable claims.
The defendants moved to revoke that status under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), a rule that generally prevents a prisoner from proceeding without prepaying the filing fee if the prisoner has had three or more earlier cases or appeals dismissed as frivolous, malicious, or for failing to state a claim, unless the prisoner was facing imminent danger of serious physical injury. Lamon did not oppose the motion.
Prior dismissals and appeals
The defendants identified five possible qualifying matters. The court ruled that Adams did not count because it was dismissed as duplicative and the defendants had not shown that this was one of the qualifying reasons listed in § 1915(g).
The court found that Allison counted because Lamon repeatedly failed to comply with the requirement that a complaint provide a short and plain statement, even after receiving opportunities to correct it. Gomez counted because the complaint failed to state a claim after opportunities to amend, and Lamon did not file the required further amended complaint. The appeals in Pliler and Tilton also counted because they were dismissed for reasons the court found equivalent to frivolousness.
The court also granted the defendants’ request to take judicial notice of records from the earlier cases and appeals.
Imminent-danger exception
The court concluded that Lamon had not shown that the imminent-danger exception applied. His original complaint concerned events at Salinas Valley State Prison from September through December 2018, and the opinion states that he transferred to another prison on January 1, 2019. He filed this action on July 29, 2020. Because the alleged events had occurred more than a year earlier and the complaint did not show an ongoing danger when filed, the court found that he did not meet his burden.
Ruling
The court granted the defendants’ motion to revoke Lamon’s in forma pauperis status. Lamon was ordered to pay the full filing fee within 14 days after the order was filed. The court stated that failure to pay would result in dismissal of the action without prejudice, meaning the dismissal would not bar him from filing his claims in a future case in which he pays the full filing fee. Judge Beth Labson Freeman signed the order.
Read the full 10-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.