Trujillo Cruz v. Calderon
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:22-cv-05556
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
In Trujillo Cruz v. Calderon, Judge Gilliam denied fee-waiver status, denied two extension requests as moot, and required payment to continue.
Guillermo Trujillo Cruz must pay the full $402 filing and administrative fee within 28 days to proceed with the action; the court stated that failure to pay would result in dismissal without prejudice to refiling upon payment.
What happened
Guillermo Trujillo Cruz, an inmate who filed this civil-rights case without a lawyer, asked to proceed without paying the filing fee. The court considered his history of prior cases and his claim that he faced imminent danger from threats and a previous assault.
The court determined that Cruz had three qualifying prior dismissals under the prisoner filing-fee law. It also found that his allegations did not plausibly show imminent danger of serious physical injury when he filed this case. The court therefore denied his request to proceed without paying the fee.
The court required Cruz to pay the full $402 filing and administrative fee within 28 days. It denied as moot his two requests for more time because the related filings were timely; Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. warned that failure to pay would lead to dismissal without prejudice to refiling after payment.
The detailed version
- Trujillo Cruz v. Calderon · No. 4:22-cv-05556
- Haywood Gilliam
- Dec. 16, 2022
Background
Guillermo Trujillo Cruz, an inmate at Pelican Bay State Prison, filed this civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 without a lawyer. He asked to proceed in forma pauperis, meaning without paying the filing fee at the outset. The court had previously ordered him to explain why that request should not be denied under the Prison Litigation Reform Act's “three strikes” provision, 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g).
The court stated that Cruz had been denied permission to proceed without paying the filing fee in at least seven other cases under § 1915(g). Cruz did not dispute that he had three qualifying strikes. He argued that he qualified for the statute's exception for a prisoner facing imminent danger of serious physical injury when the complaint was filed. He relied on allegations that defendants had ordered an assault on May 27, 2022, and had threatened him with assault, including on September 23, 2022.
Court's Analysis
The court found that Cruz provided no facts supporting his allegation that the defendants ordered the May 27 assault. The court noted that the altercation involved inmates and that Cruz did not explain how those inmates were connected to the defendants. It also noted that Cruz had identified different prison officials as responsible for the same assault in other lawsuits.
The court further stated that, apart from the unsupported allegation about the assault, Cruz relied on allegations of verbal threats. Assuming those allegations were true, the court said the threats had not been accompanied by action causing serious physical injury. The court therefore found it speculative to conclude that Cruz faced imminent danger when he filed this action.
Disposition
The court DENIED Cruz leave to proceed in forma pauperis under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). It ordered him to pay the $402 filing and administrative fee in full within 28 days of the order. The court stated that, if the fee was not received by then, it would dismiss the action without prejudice to refiling upon payment of the full fee.
The court also DENIED as moot Cruz's requests for extensions of time to file his fee-waiver application and his response to the order to show cause, because both filings were timely. The order terminated docket entries 4, 5, and 7. Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. signed the order.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.