Johnson v. Spurgeon
- Jeffrey White
- 4:23-cv-00327
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Johnson v. Spurgeon, Judge White dismissed the case without prejudice because Johnson neither paid the filing fee nor showed imminent danger.
Paul David Johnson, a California prisoner representing himself, whose civil-rights case was dismissed without prejudice because he did not pay the filing fee or establish the statutory imminent-danger exception.
What happened
In Johnson v. Spurgeon, Paul David Johnson, a California prisoner representing himself, filed a civil-rights lawsuit and asked to proceed without paying the filing fee. The court denied that request under a rule limiting fee-free filings by prisoners with certain prior cases.
Johnson argued that an exception applied because he had contracted COVID-19 at Salinas Valley State Prison in May 2020 and September 2022. The court found those events did not show that he faced a serious and immediate danger when he filed this case in January 2023. It also noted the availability of an effective COVID-19 vaccine and found no allegation that the vaccine was unavailable to him.
Judge Jeffrey White dismissed the case without prejudice because Johnson did not pay the filing fee and did not show that the filing restriction did not apply. The court directed the Clerk to enter judgment and close the file.
The detailed version
- Johnson v. Spurgeon · No. 4:23-cv-00327
- Jeffrey White
- Mar. 1, 2023
Background
Paul David Johnson, a California prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed this civil-rights action and asked to proceed without paying the filing fee. The court denied his request under 42 U.S.C. § 1915(g), a rule that can prevent a prisoner from proceeding without paying the fee after qualifying prior filings. The court gave Johnson a deadline to pay the fee or explain why the rule did not apply.
Johnson did not pay the filing fee. Instead, he filed an opposition, which the court treated as his attempt to show that the rule did not apply because he faced an exception for prisoners in "imminent danger" of serious harm.
Court’s Analysis
Johnson relied on allegations that he contracted COVID-19 at Salinas Valley State Prison in May 2020 and September 2022. The court explained that imminent danger is assessed when the complaint is filed. Because the action was filed in January 2023, the court found that those earlier infections did not establish imminent danger at the relevant time.
The court also stated that the availability of an effective COVID-19 vaccine prevented a claim that the virus posed imminent danger, and Johnson did not allege that the vaccine was unavailable to him. The court further found that allegations about inadequate quarantine conditions months earlier and the denial of a COVID-19 test after quarantine did not establish that he faced imminent danger when he filed the complaint.
Disposition
The court concluded that Johnson had neither paid the filing fee nor shown why § 1915(g) did not apply. It therefore dismissed the case without prejudice to Johnson filing his claims in a future case in which he pays the filing fee. The Clerk was directed to enter judgment and close the file.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.