Civil plaintiffs have an absolute right to voluntarily withdraw their cases. Yet, when Edward Spencer, an incarcerated plaintiff, did so, a federal district court later punished him by deeming that withdrawal a “strike” under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). That was wrong.
Edward Spencer, an indigent person incarcerated in California’s prison system, brought several pro se lawsuits to challenge the conditions of his confinement. Because he lacked financial means to pay the court filing fees, he was granted “in forma pauperis” status, which allowed him to pay the fees over time rather than upfront.
While his cases were proceeding, however, a federal judge decided Mr. Spencer was a “three-strikes” litigant under the PLRA and thus no longer entitled to in forma pauperis status. Enacted in 1996, the PLRA generally prohibits incarcerated plaintiffs from filing lawsuits in forma pauperis if they have had three or more prior cases dismissed as frivolous, malicious, or failing to state a claim. Mr. Spencer had two prior cases that met that condition. However, the judge concluded that two other cases that Mr. Spencer had chosen to voluntarily dismiss also qualified as “strikes” because a screening judge, prior to Mr. Spencer’s voluntary dismissal, had concluded that his complaint was deficient. The judge reached this conclusion not based on the text of the PLRA but on his assessment of the PLRA’s “purposes.” Based on that decision, the judge revoked Mr. Spencer’s in forma pauperis status and ordered him to pay hundreds of dollars in filing fees up front or have his cases dismissed.
The district judge’s decision was wrong and contrary to the plain language of the PLRA, which defines strikes as only those cases that were “dismissed on the grounds that it is frivolous, malicious, or fails to state a claim.” Mr. Spencer’s voluntary dismissals were not “dismissed” on any of those “grounds”—they were dismissed because he elected not to proceed with his lawsuits, something the federal rules give him an absolute right to do. If Congress wanted to include voluntary dismissals in the definition of strikes, it could have done so; a judge’s intuitions about the PLRA’s unstated “purposes” cannot override the plain language of the statute Congress enacted.
The MacArthur Justice Center, along with our partners at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP, have taken up Mr. Spencer’s appeal to urge the Ninth Circuit to apply the PLRA as written and not permit district courts to expand its procedural hurdles beyond what Congress imposed.