Mickles v. Gates
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-04890
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Mickles v. Gates, Judge Swain denied permission to proceed without fees and dismissed the action without prejudice under the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s three-strikes rule.
Terrell Mickles’s action was dismissed without prejudice, and he was denied permission to proceed without paying filing fees. While he remains incarcerated, he remains barred from filing future federal civil actions without paying fees unless he faces imminent danger of serious physical injury.
What happened
In Mickles v. Gates, Terrell Mickles, who was incarcerated and representing himself, did not pay the filing fees or submit the paperwork required to ask to proceed without paying them. The court therefore treated the complaint as requesting that permission.
The court said Mickles was barred from filing a new federal civil action without paying fees while incarcerated because of the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s three-strikes rule. That rule has an exception when a prisoner faces an imminent danger of serious physical injury, but the court found that the complaint did not show such a danger when it was filed.
Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied Mickles permission to proceed without paying the fees and dismissed the action without prejudice under the three-strikes rule. Mickles may start a new federal civil action by paying the required fees, and the court also denied permission to appeal without paying fees.
The detailed version
- Mickles v. Gates · No. 1:22-cv-04890
- Laura Swain
- June 13, 2022
Background
Terrell Mickles, who was incarcerated at the time and represented himself, filed this action against Bill Gates and other defendants. The opinion says that the complaint named, among others, “Bill Gates (2015) Wired,” “Kim Kardasian – Kanye (2015) Wired,” Barrack Obama, and Microsoft. The court stated that it could not comprehend the allegations sufficiently to identify a claim suggesting that Mickles faced imminent danger of serious physical injury.
Mickles did not pay the filing fees, file a request to proceed without paying them, or submit a prisoner authorization. Because he had not paid the fees, the court treated the complaint as requesting permission to proceed without paying them.
Three-Strikes Rule
The Prison Litigation Reform Act generally prevents a prisoner from filing a federal civil action without paying the fees if the prisoner previously brought three or more federal actions or appeals that were dismissed as frivolous, malicious, or for failing to state a claim. The exception applies when the prisoner is under imminent danger of serious physical injury. The court relied on a prior related proceeding, No. 1:21-CV-0463 (S.D. Ala.), in stating that Mickles was barred by this rule while he remained incarcerated.
The court explained that imminent danger must exist when the complaint is filed. It found that Mickles’s complaint did not show that he faced that kind of danger at the relevant time.
Ruling
Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied Mickles permission to proceed without paying the filing fees and dismissed the action without prejudice under the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s three-strikes rule. “Without prejudice” means the dismissal did not itself bar Mickles from starting a new federal civil action by paying the required fees. Any new complaint would still be subject to the screening process required for certain prisoner civil-rights actions.
The court also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying the appellate fees. The opinion states that Mickles remains barred from filing future federal civil actions without paying fees while incarcerated unless he is under imminent danger of serious physical injury.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.