10-2353 Taylor v. Watkins

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Civil Procedure
PLRA; in forma pauperis; three-strikes rule

Where a prisoner subject to the three-strikes makes only conclusory allegations of imminent danger, he cannot proceed in forma pauperis.

“Under Ciarpaglini, a court considering a motion to proceed IFP should not attempt to evaluate the seriousness of a plaintiff’s claims. But it has never been the rule that courts must blindly accept a prisoner’s allegations of imminent danger. Courts routinely deny IFP requests where the imminent-danger allegations are ‘conclusory or ridiculous,’ or where they concern only past injuries. Id. at 330-31. In the same vein, we agree with the district court in this case and the Third Circuit in Gibbs that when a defendant contests a plaintiff’s claims of imminent danger, a court must act to resolve the conflict. A contrary conclusion would mean that a three-strikes plaintiff could proceed IFP whenever his allegations of imminent danger were facially plausible, even if the defendant had incontrovertible proof that rebutted those allegations. Such a rule would allow easy evasion of the three-strikes rule. We also agree that a hearing is one proper way to resolve the issue, though we caution courts to be conscious of such a hearing’s proper scope. As a general rule, we would expect that an IFP determination should not evolve into a full-scale merits review, though in many cases, including this one, the allegations of imminent danger are linked to the allegations underlying the suit.”

Affirmed.

10-2353 Taylor v. Watkins

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Murphy, J., Hamilton, J.

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