Jackson v. Schnell
- Patrick Schiltz
- 0:23-cv-00168
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 5
In Jackson v. Schnell, Judge Foster denied Jackson’s request to pay in installments, requiring the full filing fee by March 27, 2023.
Tony Dejuan Jackson must pay the full $402 filing fee by March 27, 2023, or the court will recommend dismissing his action without prejudice for failure to prosecute. The order does not decide his civil-rights claims against Paul Schnell and Guy Bosch.
What happened
Tony Dejuan Jackson sued Paul Schnell and Guy Bosch over alleged civil-rights violations in prison and asked to proceed without paying the filing fee upfront. Because Jackson is a prisoner with three prior qualifying dismissals, federal law generally required him to pay the full fee unless he showed an immediate risk of serious physical injury.
The court found that Jackson did not meet that exception. Although he reported a bloody nose, muscle aches, headaches, and eye-socket pain, he did not say that the condition continued, and the court did not address the underlying claims.
Judge Dulce J. Foster denied Jackson’s request to proceed without paying the full fee and ordered him to pay $402 by March 27, 2023. If he does not pay, the court will recommend dismissing the action without prejudice for failure to prosecute.
The detailed version
- Jackson v. Schnell · No. 0:23-cv-00168
- Patrick Schiltz
- Mar. 6, 2023
Background
Tony Dejuan Jackson, a prisoner, filed a civil-rights complaint against Paul Schnell and Guy Bosch. He later filed an amended complaint describing alleged discrimination, medical-care problems, administrative-segregation issues, property loss, disciplinary reports, work-assignment problems, quarantine, and unsafe prison conditions. Jackson also applied to proceed in forma pauperis, meaning he asked to proceed without paying the filing fee upfront.
Three-strikes rule
The court explained that the Prison Litigation Reform Act requires prisoners who qualify for this filing-fee procedure to pay the fee in installments rather than excusing the fee. It also found that Jackson had accumulated three qualifying “strikes” under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). That provision generally prevents a prisoner with three prior federal actions or appeals dismissed as frivolous, malicious, or legally insufficient from proceeding without paying the full fee, unless the prisoner faced an imminent danger of serious physical injury.
Imminent-danger exception
The court held that Jackson did not establish the required imminent danger. Jackson alleged that he experienced a bloody nose, aching muscles, headaches, and pain in his eye sockets on February 12, 2023, and had not seen a doctor by February 27, 2023. But he did not allege that the condition continued. The court explained that the exception concerns impending future harm, not harm that had already occurred. The court therefore did not address the merits or other problems it identified in Jackson’s claims.
Ruling
Judge Dulce J. Foster denied Jackson’s application to proceed in forma pauperis. The order required Jackson to pay the full $402 filing fee by March 27, 2023. If he failed to pay, the court stated that it would recommend dismissing the action without prejudice for failure to prosecute. The order did not itself dismiss the case. It also stated that, even if Jackson paid the fee, the amended complaint would remain subject to screening under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.