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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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No. 13–1333
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ANDRE LEE COLEMAN, aka ANDRE LEE COLEMAN-BEY,
PETITIONER v. TODD TOLLEFSON, et al.
ANDRE LEE COLEMAN, aka ANDRE LEE COLEMAN-BEY,
PETITIONER v. BERTINA BOWERMAN, et al.
ANDRE LEE COLEMAN, aka ANDRE LEE COLEMAN-BEY,
PETITIONER v. STEVEN DYKEHOUSE, et al.
ANDRE LEE COLEMAN, aka ANDRE LEE COLEMAN-BEY,
PETITIONER v. AARON J. VROMAN, et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the sixth circuit
[May 18, 2015]
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the
Court.
Ordinarily, a federal litigant who is too poor
to pay court fees may proceed in forma pauperis. This means
that the litigant may commence a civil action without prepaying
fees or paying certain expenses. See 28 U. S. C. §1915.
But a special “three strikes” provision prevents a court from
affording in forma pauperis status where the litigant is a
prisoner and he or she “has, on 3 or more prior occasions, while
incarcerated . . . , brought an action or
appeal in a court of the United States that was dismissed on the
grounds that it is frivolous, malicious, or fails to state a claim
upon which relief may be granted.” §1915(g).
Prior to this litigation, a Federal District
Court had dismissed on those grounds three actions brought by a
state prisoner. While the third dismissal was pending on appeal,
the prisoner sought to bring several additional actions in the
federal courts. The question before us is whether the prisoner may
litigate his new actions in forma pauperis. Where an appeals
court has not yet decided whether a prior dismissal is legally
proper, should courts count, or should they ignore, that dismissal
when calcu-lating how many qualifying dismissals the litigant has
suffered?
We conclude that the courts must count the
dismissal even though it remains pending on appeal. The litigant
here has accumulated three prior dismissals on statutorily
enumerated grounds. Consequently, a court may not afford him in
forma pauperis status with respect to his additional civil
actions.
I
A
Congress first enacted an in forma
pauperis statute in 1892. See Act of July 20, ch. 209, 27Stat.
252. Congress recognized that “no citizen sh[ould] be denied an
opportunity to commence, prosecute, or defend an action, civil or
criminal, in any court of the United States, solely because his
poverty makes it impossible for him to pay or secure the costs.”
Adkins v. E. I. DuPont de Nemours &
Co., 335 U. S. 331, 342 (1948) (internal quotation marks
omitted). It therefore permitted a citizen to “commence and
prosecute to conclusion any such . . . action without
being required to prepay fees or costs, or give security therefor
before or after bringing suit.” §1, 27Stat. 252. The current
statute permits an individual to litigate a federal action in
forma pauperis if the individual files an affidavit stating,
among other things, that he or she is unable to prepay fees “or
give security therefor.” 28 U. S. C. §1915(a)(1).
Even in 1892, “Congress recognized
. . . that a litigant whose filing fees and court costs
are assumed by the public, unlike a paying litigant, lacks an
economic incentive to refrain from filing frivolous, malicious, or
repetitive lawsuits.” Neitzke v. Williams, 490
U. S. 319, 324 (1989) . And as the years passed, Congress came
to see that prisoner suits in particular represented a
disproportionate share of federal filings. Jones v.
Bock, 549 U. S. 199 –203 (2007). It responded by
“enact[ing] a variety of reforms designed to filter out the bad
claims [filed by prisoners] and facilitate consideration of the
good.” Id., at 204. Among those reforms was the “three
strikes” rule here at issue. The rule, which applies to in forma
pauperis status, reads in its entirety as follows:
“In no event shall a prisoner bring a
civil action or appeal a judgment in a civil action or proceeding
[in forma pauperis] if the prisoner has, on 3 or more prior
occasions, while incarcerated or detained in any facil-ity, brought
an action or appeal in a court of the United States that was
dismissed on the grounds that it is frivolous, malicious, or fails
to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, unless the
prisoner is under imminent danger of serious physical injury.”
§1915(g).
B
The petitioner, André Lee Coleman, is
incarcerated at the Baraga Correctional Facility in Michigan. By
2010, three federal lawsuits filed by Coleman during his
incarceration had been dismissed as frivolous (or on other grounds
enumerated in §1915(g)). Nonetheless, when Coleman filed four new
federal lawsuits between April 2010 and January 2011, he moved to
proceed in forma pauperis in each. He denied that his third
dismissed lawsuit counted as a strike under §1915(g). That is
because he had appealed the dismissal, and the appeals court had
not yet ruled. Thus, in Coleman’s view, he had fewer than three
qualifying dismissals, and was eligible for in forma
pauperis status under the statute.
The District Court rejected Coleman’s argument.
It held that “a dismissal counts as a strike even if it is pending
on appeal at the time that the plaintiff files his new action.” No.
10–cv–337 (WD Mich., Apr. 12, 2011), App. to Pet. for Cert. 21a,
24a. It thus refused to permit Coleman to proceed in forma
pauperis in any of his four suits.
On appeal, a divided panel of the Sixth Circuit
agreed with the District Court. 733 F. 3d 175 (2013). It
resolved the four cases using slightly different procedures. In one
of the four cases, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s
judgment. In the remaining three cases, it denied Coleman’s request
to proceed in forma pauperis on appeal. It subsequently
dismissed the three cases for want of prosecution after Coleman
failed to pay the appellate filing fees.
In contrast to the Sixth Circuit, the vast
majority of the other Courts of Appeals have held that a prior
dismissal on a statutorily enumerated ground does not count as a
strike while an appeal of that dismissal remains pending. See
Henslee v. Keller, 681 F. 3d 538, 541 (CA4 2012)
(listing, and joining, courts that have adopted the majority view).
In light of the division of opinion among the Circuits, we granted
Coleman’s petition for certiorari.
II
A
In our view, the Sixth Circuit majority
correctly applied §1915(g). A prior dismissal on a statutorily
enumerated ground counts as a strike even if the dismissal is the
subject of an appeal. That, after all, is what the statute
literally says. The “three strikes” provision applies where a
prisoner “has, on 3 or more prior occasions . . . brought an action
or appeal . . . that was dismissed on” certain grounds.
§1915(g) (emphasis added). Coleman believes that we should read the
statute as if it referred to an “affirmed dismissal,” as if it
considered a trial court dismissal to be provisional, or as if it
meant that a dismissal falls within the statute’s scope only when
the litigant has no further chance to secure a reversal. But the
statute itself says none of these things.
Instead, the statute refers to whether an action
or appeal “was dismissed.” §1915(g). The linguistic term “dismiss,”
taken alone, does not normally include subsequent appellate
activity. See, e.g., Heintz v. Jenkins, 514
U. S. 291, 294 (1995) (“[T]he District Court dismissed [the]
lawsuit for failure to state a claim. . . . However,
the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed the District
Court’s judgment”); Gray v. Netherland, 518
U. S. 152, 158 (1996) (“The Suffolk Circuit Court dismissed
petitioner’s state petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The
Virginia Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal”). Indeed, §1915
itself describes dismissal as an action taken by a single court,
not as a sequence of events involving multiple courts. See
§1915(e)(2) (“[T]he court shall dismiss the case at any time
if the court determines that—(A) the allegation of poverty
is untrue; or (B) the action or appeal—(i) is frivolous or
malicious; [or] (ii) fails to state a claim on which relief may be
granted” (emphasis added)).
Coleman insists that §1915(g) is not so clear.
Even if the term “dismissed” is unambiguous, contends Coleman, the
phrase “prior occasions” creates ambiguity. Coleman observes that
the phrase “ ‘may refer to a single moment or to a continuing
event: to an appeal, independent of the underlying action, or to
the continuing claim, inclusive of both the action and its
appeal.’ ” Brief for Petitioner 17 (quoting Henslee,
supra, at 542). Coleman believes that a “prior occasion” in
the context of §1915(g) may therefore include both a dismissal on
an enumerated ground and any subsequent appeal.
We find it difficult to agree. Linguistically
speaking, we see nothing about the phrase “prior occasions” that
would transform a dismissal into a dismissal-plus-appellate-review.
An “occasion” is “a particular occurrence,” a “happening,” or an
“incident.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1560 (3d
ed. 1993). And the statute provides the content of that occurrence,
happening, or incident: It is an instance in which a “prisoner
has . . . brought an action or appeal in a court of
the United States that was dismissed on” statutorily enumerated
grounds. §1915(g). Under the plain language of the statute, when
Coleman filed the suits at issue here, he had already experienced
three such “prior occasions.”
Our literal reading of the phrases “prior
occasions” and “was dismissed” is consistent with the statute’s
discussion of actions and appeals. The in forma pauperis
statute repeatedly treats the trial and appellate stages of
litigation as distinct. See §§1915(a)(2), (a)(3), (b)(1), (e)(2),
(g). Related provisions reflect a congressional focus upon trial
court dismissal as an important separate element of the statutory
scheme. See §1915A (requiring a district court to screen certain
prisoner complaints “as soon as practicable” and to dismiss any
portion of the complaint that “is frivolous, malicious, or fails to
state a claim upon which relief may be granted”); 42
U. S. C. §1997e(c)(1) (similar). We have found nothing in
these provisions indicating that Congress considered a trial court
dismissal and an appellate court decision as if they were a single
entity—or that Congress intended the former to take effect only
when affirmed by the latter.
Our literal reading of the “three strikes”
provision also is supported by the way in which the law ordinarily
treats trial court judgments. Unless a court issues a stay, a trial
court’s judgment (say, dismissing a case) normally takes effect
despite a pending appeal. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 62; Fed. Rule
App. Proc. 8(a). And a judgment’s preclusive effect is generally
immediate, notwithstanding any appeal. See Clay v. United
States, 537 U. S. 522, 527 (2003) (“Typically, a federal
judgment becomes final for . . . claim preclusion purposes when the
district court disassociates itself from the case, leaving nothing
to be done at the court of first instance save execution of the
judgment”). The ordinary rules of civil procedure thus provide
additional support for our interpretation of the statute. See
Jones, 549 U. S., at 211–216 (applying the ordinary
rules of civil procedure where the procedural requirements for
prison litigation do not call for an alternative).
Finally, the statute’s purpose favors our
interpretation. The “three strikes” provision was “designed to
filter out the bad claims and facilitate consideration of the
good.” Id., at 204. To refuse to count a prior dismissal
because of a pending appeal would produce a leaky filter. Appeals
take time. During that time, a prisoner could file many lawsuits,
including additional lawsuits that are frivolous, malicious, or
fail to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. Indeed,
Coleman filed these four cases after he suffered his third
qualifying dismissal, in October 2009, and before the affirmance of
that order, in March 2011.
We recognize that our interpretation of the
statute may create a different risk: An erroneous trial court
dismissal might wrongly deprive a prisoner of in forma
pauperis status with respect to lawsuits filed after a
dismissal but before its reversal on appeal. But that risk does not
seem great. For one thing, the Solicitor General informs us that he
has been able to identify only two instances in which a Court of
Appeals has reversed a District Court’s issuance of a third strike.
Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 22, n. 5. For
another, where a court of appeals reverses a third strike, in some
instances the prisoner will be able to refile his or her lawsuit
after the reversal, seeking in forma pauperis status at that
time. Further, if the statute of limitations governing that lawsuit
has run out before the court of appeals reverses the third strike,
the Solicitor General assures us that prisoners will find relief in
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b). According to the Solicitor
General, a prisoner may move to reopen his or her interim lawsuits
(reinstating the cases as of the dates originally filed) and may
then seek in forma pauperis status anew. In any event, we
believe our interpretation of the statute hews more closely to its
meaning and objective than does Coleman’s alternative.
B
Coleman makes an additional argument. He poses
a hypothetical: What if this case had involved an attempt to appeal
from the trial court’s dismissal of his third complaint instead of
an attempt to file several additional complaints? If the dismissal
were counted as his third strike, Coleman asserts, he would lose
the ability to appeal in forma pauperis from that strike
itself. He believes that this result, which potentially could
deprive him of appellate review, would be unfair. He further
believes that it would be such a departure from the federal courts’
normal appellate practice that Congress could not possibly have
intended it.
The Solicitor General, while subscribing to our
interpretation of the statute, supports Coleman on this point. The
Solicitor General says that we can and should read the statute to
afford a prisoner in forma pauperis status with respect to
an appeal from a third qualifying dismissal—even if it does
not allow a prisoner to file a fourth case during that time.
He believes that the statute, in referring to dismissals “on 3 or
more prior occasions,” 28 U. S. C. §1915(g)
(emphasis added), means that a trial court dismissal qualifies as a
strike only if it occurred in a prior, different,
lawsuit.
We need not, and do not, now decide whether the
Solicitor General’s interpretation (or some other interpretation
with the same result) is correct. That is because Coleman is not
here appealing from a third-strike trial-court dismissal. He is
appealing from the denial of in forma pauperis status with
respect to several separate suits filed after the trial court
dismissed his earlier third-strike suit. With respect to those
suits, the earlier dismissals certainly took place on “prior
occasions.” If and when the situation that Coleman hypothesizes
does arise, the courts can consider the problem in context.
* * *
For the reasons stated, we hold that a
prisoner who has accumulated three prior qualifying dismissals
under §1915(g) may not file an additional suit in forma
pauperis while his appeal of one such dismissal is pending. The
judgments of the Court of Appeals are
Affirmed.
