Bonilla v. Katz
- Phyllis Hamilton
- 4:22-cv-05344
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Bonilla v. Katz, Judge Hamilton dismissed Bonilla’s multiple civil-rights cases with prejudice because he could not proceed without prepaying filing fees and his claims were barred.
Steven Wayne Bonilla’s multiple cases were dismissed with prejudice. The named defendants included numerous state and federal judges and county clerks.
What happened
Bonilla v. Katz involved multiple civil-rights complaints filed without a lawyer by Steven Wayne Bonilla, a state prisoner. The complaints named state and federal judges and county clerks and sought relief concerning Bonilla’s conviction or the handling of his other cases.
The court said Bonilla was barred from proceeding without prepaying filing fees unless he showed an immediate danger of serious physical injury, which his complaints did not show. The court also said that, even if he could proceed without prepaying fees, the cases were barred by several legal rules concerning challenges to convictions, ongoing proceedings, and court decisions. It dismissed the cases with prejudice.
Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton also stated that the repetitive and frivolous filings did not reasonably question her impartiality. She ordered the clerk to terminate pending motions, close the cases, and return any further documents Bonilla submitted in them without filing them.
The detailed version
- Bonilla v. Katz · No. 4:22-cv-05344
- Phyllis Hamilton
- Sept. 28, 2022
Background
Steven Wayne Bonilla, a state prisoner, filed multiple complaints without a lawyer under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal civil-rights statute. The order covers the related cases listed in the caption. Bonilla was also described as a condemned prisoner with a pending federal petition challenging his custody in the same court, where he had appointed counsel. The opinion also said he was represented by counsel in state court proceedings concerning that petition.
The complaints presented nearly identical claims against numerous state and federal judges and county clerks. According to the opinion, Bonilla sought relief concerning his underlying conviction or the way his other cases had been handled by state and federal courts.
Filing-fee status and barriers to the lawsuits
The court stated that Bonilla had previously been disqualified from proceeding in forma pauperis, meaning without prepaying the filing fee, under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). That restriction allows such a prisoner to proceed without prepaying fees only if the complaint shows that he faced an imminent danger of serious physical injury when he filed it.
The court found that the allegations did not show that Bonilla faced that danger at the time of filing. It therefore ruled that he could not proceed without prepaying the filing fee. The court further stated that, even if an application to proceed without prepaying 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.
Disposition
The court dismissed the cases with prejudice. The order also directed the clerk to terminate all pending motions and close the cases. It instructed the clerk to return, without filing, any further documents Bonilla submitted in the closed cases.
Impartiality statement
The court stated that these cases were not ones in which the undersigned judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned because of the repetitive and frivolous nature of the filings. The opinion cited the rule that, absent legitimate reasons for recusal, a judge has a duty to decide cases assigned to that judge.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.