Sixth Circuit: Dismissals of Mixed-Claim Complaints Not Strikes Under PLRA
Since the 1996 passage of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e, federal courts have struggled to interpret and apply its various provisions. That struggle continues today with a recent ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit related to the PLRA’s “three-strikes” rule, which prevents courts from waiving filing fees for indigent prisoners who have had three suits dismissed already.
Michigan state prisoner Horace W. Crump, Jr. filed suit in 2023, alleging that nurse Jane Blue and other Lakeland Correctional Facility employees withheld treatment for his multiple sclerosis. The federal court for the Western District of Michigan found that Crump had already accrued three strikes under the PLRA for previous lawsuits or appeals that were dismissed as frivolous, malicious or for failure to state a claim under which relief could be granted, per 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). The district court therefore denied his request to proceed in forma pauperis. But Crump appealed that ruling, and in an apparent finding of first impression, the Sixth Circuit vacated it and remanded the case on November 15, 2024.
The Court of Appeals first examined Crump’s three “strikes” for PLRA purposes. Two of those dismissed cases involved “mixed-claim actions”: one dismissed in part for failure to state a claim, while the district court “declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over his state-law claims”; and the other was dismissed partly for failure to state a claim while the same court also “declined to review the claims against one defendant due to the Eleventh Amendment.” In both cases the complaints had been dismissed “in part for grounds not expressly listed in the [PLRA’s] three-strikes rule,” the Court of Appeals noted.
To determine whether the dismissal of such mixed-claim cases constituted strikes under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), the Sixth Circuit looked to the wording of that statute. The three-strikes provision refers to “actions” or “appeals,” the Court of Appeals noted—not to individual claims. Thus, “this language suggests that all claims in a complaint, not just some of them, must be dismissed on grounds listed in the Act for the dismissal to count as a strike.”
Other provisions in the PLRA that used the same terms supported this interpretation, which “also comes with the comfort of common sense,” the Court of Appeals continued. “Imagine if some claims in an action were dismissed for failure to state a claim, and others proceeded to succeed on the merits,” the Court offered. “It would be strange to attribute a failure-to-state-a-claim strike to an inmate who won the action’s war if not its every battle.” Other appellate courts had also reached a similar conclusion—including the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth and D.C. circuits.
Accordingly, dismissals of two of Crump’s prior suits—in which district courts declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over state-law claims and dismissed a claim on Eleventh Amendment immunity grounds—did not count as strikes under the PLRA because the entire complaint was not frivolous, malicious or failed to state a claim. The Court of Appeals distinguished—and questioned—its prior ruling in Pointer v. Wilkinson, 502 F.3d 369 (6th Cir. 2007) with respect to mixed-claim actions and PLRA strikes.
Justice Chad Readier issued a separate opinion concurring in the outcome but expressing concern that a “crafty prisoner could well aim to strike-proof his complaint” by including state law claims or claims subject to Eleventh Amendment immunity in his lawsuit. See: Crump v. Blue, 121 F.4th 1108 (6th Cir. 2024).
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