D.C. Circuit Reverses Dismissal of Federal Prisoner’s Complaint Due to PLRA Three-Strikes Rule
In a ruling on October 18, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit revived a case filed by federal prisoner Michael S. Owlfeather-Gorbey. A “prolific litigator” housed at the U.S. Penitentiary in Thompson, Illinois, he sued federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) officials in 2022 alleging that they had “repeatedly denied him necessary medical treatment for his worsening glaucoma that threatens blindness”; he also accused them of “instructing other prisoners to physically assault him,” as the Court recalled.
The prisoner filed his suit in U.S. District Court for the District of D.C., where the BOP is headquartered. That court found that he ran afoul of the “three strikes” provision of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e; that is, because he had accumulated three previous cases that were dismissed as frivolous or malicious or that failed to state a claim, Owlfeather-Gorbey could not claim indigent status and proceed in forma pauperis (IFP). Rather, he must pay the full filing fee, absent a showing that he was “under imminent danger of serious physical injury,” per 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). The district court found he did not meet that requirement and dismissed the case.
Owlfeather-Gorbey appealed, and the D.C. Circuit Court reversed in part and dismissed in part. The Court of Appeals noted that the allegations in the complaint which were related to Owlfeather-Gorbey’s worsening glaucoma were “well-supported through multiple exhibits” included in the record. He had also presented evidence that his glaucoma medicine was denied in retaliation for prior lawsuits he had filed.
The government acknowledged that Owlfeather-Gorbey’s glaucoma put him “at serious risk of acquiring blindness”—an odd phrasing apparently intended to minimize that seriousness so as not keep him from qualifying for the “imminent danger” exception to the three-strikes rule. Defendants argued that he had previously rejected medical care for glaucoma, including eye surgery, and would accept only medical marijuana as treatment. They also disputed Owlfeather-Gorbey’s allegations that he had been subjected to multiple assaults by other prisoners which were arranged by prison staff, placing him in danger of future physical injuries.
The D.C. Circuit explained that the allegations in the complaint must be “sufficiently specific to infer the actual existence of an imminent threat of serious physical injury,” both when the complaint was filed and at the time Owlfeather-Gorbey appealed. Further, there must be a “nexus between the harms allege[d] and the claims [brought],” the Court said, citing Pinson v. United States, 964 F.3d 65 (D.C. Cir. 2020).
Turning to the merits, the Court of Appeals found that Owlfeather-Gorbey met the nexus requirement under either of the applicable standards: redressability or traceability. It was clear that his worsening glaucoma was traceable—to his lack of treatment—and that his lawsuit, if successful, would redress that issue. He had requested medical marijuana, relief which federal courts have “no authority” to grant, the Court said, but Owlfeather-Gorbey had requested other relief that was available, such as consultation with an ophthalmologist.
Nor was it relevant that he had previously refused certain treatments or eye surgery. “What matters,” the Court declared, is whether “his worsening glaucoma places him under an imminent danger of physical injury, and USP Thompson officials have not allowed him to visit an ophthalmologist.” Accordingly, he could proceed IFP on those claims. However, the Court dismissed as frivolous his other allegations that “federal judges, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the President and Vice President are all in cahoots to prevent him from filing lawsuits.” Left undecided, the D.C. Circuit noted, was whether courts are “free to revoke IFP status, initially granted on being placed under an imminent threat of serious physical injury, if circumstances change” later in the litigation.
One appellate judge issued a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. Owlfeather-Gorbey appealed pro se, with amicus support from student counsel Sonia Geba and Alexis R. Casanas, and their court-appointed Supervisory Attorney Eva Shell and Director Erica Hashimoto of the Georgetown Law Center Appellate Litigation Program. See: Owlfeather-Gorbey v. Avery, 119 F.4th 78 (D.C. Cir. 2024).
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