Despite Jason Smith voluntarily dismissing his lawsuit, the district court still erroneously ensured Mr. Smith would receive a strike under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), leading him closer to being unable to file a lawsuit in forma pauperis – the ability given to someone of low income to file without paying hundreds of dollars in fees up front. The MacArthur Justice Center joins Mr. Smith’s fight to ensure the PLRA is not unduly used to snuff out prisoners’ future rights to access the courts because they are unable to afford it.
Mr. Smith was incarcerated in Florida when he attempted to bring a civil action pro se – meaning without an attorney – against a pastor who sexually assaulted him when he was a child. He filed a lawsuit using the district court’s complaint form for actions for the deprivation of rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. A magistrate judge reviewed his case under the PLRA screening provisions and recommended dismissal for failure to state a claim. While the report and recommendation was pending, Mr. Smith filed a motion to voluntarily dismiss the case, explaining that he never would have “waste[d]” the court’s time had he known that a § 1983 action was not meant for private parties.
Even though a plaintiff has the right to voluntarily dismiss their action under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the district court denied Mr. Smith’s motion to voluntarily dismiss and instead dismissed the action for failure to state a claim, to ensure that Mr. Smith incurred a strike under the PLRA’s three-strike’s provision. Under that provision, each lawsuit or appeal an incarcerated person files that is dismissed because a judge decides that it is frivolous, malicious, or does not state a proper claim counts as a “strike.” After that incarcerated person gets three strikes, they lose their ability to file other lawsuits in forma pauperis – meaning you cannot file unless you pay the entire court filing fee (hundreds of dollars) upfront. The district court made this decision based on its erroneous belief that the PLRA trumps a plaintiff’s right to voluntarily dismiss without a court order.
The MacArthur Justice Center represents Mr. Smith on appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, along with attorneys at King & Spalding.
UPDATE
The Eleventh Circuit issued a published, precedential decision ruling in favor of Mr. Smith, finding “no language in the PLRA purporting to limit or condition a plaintiff’s right to voluntarily dismiss an action ‘without a court order’ under Rule 41(a) in the prisoner litigation context,” and concluding that courts cannot impute this rule to the PLRA based on perceived policy concerns.