Trujillo Cruz v. Thompson
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:23-cv-05759
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 11
In Guillermo Trujillo Cruz v. Thompson, Judge Gilliam required a response before potentially denying fee-waiver status and denied two other requests.
Guillermo Trujillo Cruz, an incarcerated plaintiff representing himself, must respond within 28 days to preserve consideration of his request to proceed without paying the filing fee. The case could be dismissed if he does not respond as ordered; the named correctional-officer defendants are affected because the action remains pending at this stage.
What happened
Guillermo Trujillo Cruz, an incarcerated person representing himself, filed a civil-rights lawsuit against correctional officers and asked to proceed without paying the filing fee upfront. He also requested a copy of his complaint and blank forms, plus 90 more days to amend the complaint.
The court identified at least three earlier cases that counted as strikes under the prisoner three-strikes rule. It found that the complaint did not plausibly show that Cruz faced imminent danger of serious physical injury when he filed it, but it did not yet deny his request to proceed without paying the fee.
Judge Haywood Gilliam ordered Cruz to explain within 28 days why that request should not be denied. The court denied his request for a copy and blank forms and denied his request for a 90-day extension; failure to respond could lead to dismissal of the action under the court’s order.
The detailed version
- Trujillo Cruz v. Thompson · No. 4:23-cv-05759
- Haywood Gilliam
- Feb. 16, 2024
Background
Guillermo Trujillo Cruz, an inmate at Pelican Bay State Prison proceeding without a lawyer, filed a civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He requested permission to proceed without paying the filing fee upfront. He also asked the court to provide a copy of the complaint he had mailed, along with blank civil-rights and fee-waiver forms, so he could comply with the court’s electronic-filing requirement. Finally, he requested a 90-day extension to file an amended complaint adding defendants.
The complaint named Pelican Bay correctional officers Thompson, Etzel, C. Ochoa, and M. Ochoa. Cruz alleged that officials ordered or failed to prevent assaults, threatened further beatings, retaliated against him for grievances and civil-rights litigation, interfered with an internal-affairs interview, and made false accusations against him.
Three-strikes analysis
The Prison Litigation Reform Act generally prevents a prisoner from proceeding without paying the filing fee when the prisoner has had three or more earlier cases dismissed as frivolous, malicious, or for failure to state a claim. An exception applies if the prisoner plausibly alleges that he faced imminent danger of serious physical injury when the complaint was filed.
The court found that at least four earlier proceedings qualified as strikes under this rule. It then evaluated the allegations as of October 31, 2023, when Cruz provided the complaint to prison authorities for mailing. The court concluded that the allegations about the August 2023 assaults and continuing threats did not support an inference of imminent danger from the named defendants at that time. It described the claim that those defendants would act on the threats as speculative, particularly because their responsibility for the August assaults was questionable.
Because the court had to give Cruz notice and an opportunity to respond before denying his fee-waiver request under the three-strikes rule, it ordered him to show cause within 28 days why the request should not be denied. The order states that failure to respond as required would result in dismissal of the action under Rule 41(b) for failure to comply with a court order.
Other requests and disposition
The court denied as moot Cruz’s request for a copy of the mailed complaint and blank forms because he had already complied with the electronic-filing requirement.
The discussion states that the court denied as moot Cruz’s request for a 90-day extension because he could amend once as a matter of course within the applicable 21-day period, and because the court had not yet ordered service. The order’s opening paragraph instead describes that request as denied without prejudice, while the conclusion simply says it was denied. The order did not yet rule on the request to proceed without paying the filing fee; it ordered Cruz to explain why that request should not be denied.
Read the full 11-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.