Bonilla v. Contra Costa County Superior Court
- Phyllis Hamilton
- 4:23-cv-05393
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Bonilla v. Judge Chhabria, Judge Hamilton dismissed multiple civil-rights cases with prejudice because filing-fee restrictions and other legal bars applied.
Steven Wayne Bonilla’s multiple civil-rights cases were dismissed with prejudice. The order also affects the defendants named in those cases and directs the clerk not to file further documents Bonilla submits in the closed cases.
What happened
In Steven Wayne Bonilla v. Judge Vince Chhabria et al., Bonilla, a state prisoner representing himself, filed multiple nearly identical civil-rights cases against federal judges and federal and state courts. He sought relief related to his conviction and the handling of his other cases.
The court ruled that Bonilla could not proceed without paying the filing fee because he had previously been barred from that status and had not shown an imminent danger of serious physical injury when he filed. The court also said that, even if he had been allowed to proceed without paying, the lawsuits were barred by other legal rules. It dismissed the cases with prejudice.
Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton also declined to recuse herself, finding no reasonable basis to question her impartiality. She directed the clerk to terminate pending motions, close the cases, and return future documents Bonilla submitted in those closed cases without filing them.
The detailed version
- Bonilla v. Contra Costa County Superior Court · No. 4:23-cv-05393
- Phyllis Hamilton
- Oct. 30, 2023
Background
Steven Wayne Bonilla, a state prisoner representing himself, filed multiple civil-rights complaints under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The complaints were nearly identical. They named various federal judges and federal and state courts as defendants and sought relief concerning Bonilla’s underlying conviction or the way other state and federal cases had been handled.
The order states that Bonilla also had a pending federal petition in this court with appointed counsel concerning his conviction.
Ruling on filing-fee status and dismissal
The court held that Bonilla was disqualified from proceeding without paying the filing fee under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), unless he showed that he was facing an imminent danger of serious physical injury when he filed the complaints. The court found that the allegations did not show such danger.
The court further stated that, even if an application to proceed without paying the filing fee were granted, the lawsuits would be barred under the legal rules identified in the order, including rules concerning challenges to criminal convictions, interference with ongoing proceedings, and limits on suing federal judges or courts. The court therefore dismissed the cases with prejudice.
Recusal and case closure
Bonilla named Judge Hamilton as a defendant in one of the cases, but the order states that he presented no basis for questioning her impartiality. Judge Hamilton declined to recuse herself, explaining that the repetitive and frivolous nature of the filings did not, by itself, create a reasonable question about her impartiality.
The clerk was ordered to terminate all pending motions and close the cases. The clerk was also ordered to return, without filing, any additional documents Bonilla submitted in the closed cases.
Disposition
The court dismissed the multiple cases with prejudice, declined to recuse Judge Hamilton, terminated the pending motions, and closed the cases.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.