Brown v. Saintavil

Filing 10

ORDER OF DISMISSAL dismissing case without prejudice. Such dismissal counts as a strike for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). The Clerk shall enter judgment accordingly and close the file. Signed by Judge John E. Steele on 11/5/2014. (RKR)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
FORT MYERS DIVISION
ALEXANDER LEO BROWN,
Plaintiff,
v.

Case No: 2:14-cv-599-FtM-29DNF

FNU SAINTAVIL,
capacity,

individual

Defendant.

ORDER OF DISMISSAL
Plaintiff, an inmate serving a sentence in the custody of
Suwannee Correctional Institution in Live Oak, Florida

initiated

this case by filing a pro se civil rights complaint and a motion
for leave to proceed as a pauper (Doc. 1; Doc. 2).

After reviewing

the complaint, the Court ordered Plaintiff to show cause why this
case should not be dismissed for abuse of the judicial process
because he failed to disclose all of his prior federal cases, as
required on the complaint form (Doc. 6).

Plaintiff filed a

response to the order to show cause in which he argues that he
provided the cases he felt were relevant to the instant litigation
and asks for leave to file an amended complaint to list his
complete litigation history (Doc. 9).
For the reasons set forth in this Order, Plaintiff will not
be

granted

leave

to

file

an

amended

complaint.

Plaintiff's

complaint will be dismissed without prejudice to filing a new civil

action in which Plaintiff provides the Court with his complete
litigation history.
I.

Background
On October 13, 2014, Plaintiff executed the instant civil

rights complaint form under penalty of perjury (Doc. 1 at 10).
Section III of that form requires prisoners to disclose information
regarding previous lawsuits initiated by them.

Specifically,

Section III(C) required Plaintiff to disclose whether he had
“initiated other actions in federal court dealing with the same or
similar facts/issues involved in this action or otherwise relating
to

your

imprisonment

or

conditions

thereof?”

(Doc.

1

at

2).

Plaintiff listed only case number 2:13-cv-824-FtM-38DNF and stated
that the case had been voluntarily dismissed (Doc. 1 at 2).

In

Section III(D) of the complaint, Plaintiff was asked whether he
had “initiated lawsuits or appeals from lawsuits in federal court
that have been dismissed as frivolous, malicious, or for failure
to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.”

Plaintiff

wrote “n/a” in the space provided to describe such dismissals.
Id.
The Court, however, identified the following cases brought by
the Plaintiff that he failed to identify:

(1) Case No. 3:14-cv-

581-J-32JRK; (2) Case No. 2:14-cv-427-FtM-29DNF; (3) Case No.
2:14-cv-179-FtM-29CM; and (4) Case No. 2:13-cv-94-FtM-29DNF.

In

addition,

in

Plaintiff

filed

Case

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No.

3:14-cv-1258-TJC-JRK

Jacksonville the day before he filed the instant complaint.

Case

numbers 2:14-cv-427-FtM-29DNF and 2:14-cv-179-FtM-29CM involved
the same incident at issue in Plaintiff's instant complaint.

Case

No. 2:13-cv-94-FtM-29DNF was dismissed by this Court on February
19, 2014 for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be
granted and for failure to exhaust his administrative remedies
(Case No. 2:13-cv-94-FtM-29DNF at Doc. 7).
Plaintiff was ordered to show cause why he should not be
subject to sanctions, including, but not limited to, the dismissal
of the instant case without prejudice due to his failure to
honestly apprise the Court of his litigation history (Doc. 6).
II.

Discussion
Providing

false

information

to

the

court

itself, a valid ground for dismissing a complaint.

is,

in-and-of

See Redmon v.

Lake County Sheriff's Office, 414 F. App’x 221, 226 (11th Cir.
2011)(prisoner's failure to disclose previous lawsuit constituted
abuse of judicial process warranting sanction of dismissal of his
pro se § 1983 action); 1 see also Hood v. Tompkins, 197 F. App’x
818, 819 (11th Cir. 2006) (upholding dismissal based on abuse of
judicial process for failing to disclose prior litigation and
holding that “the district court was correct to conclude that to

1

Error! Main Document Only.Pursuant to 11th Cir. Rule 36-2,
unpublished opinions are not binding precedent but may be cited as
persuasive authority.

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allow [plaintiff] to then acknowledge what he should have disclosed
earlier

would

serve

to

overlook

his

abuse

of

the

judicial

process.”); Shelton v. Rohrs, 406 F. App’x 340, 341 (11th Cir.
2010) (upholding district court’s dismissal noting that “[e]ven if
[Plaintiff] did not have access to his materials, he would have
known

that

he

filed

multiple

previous

lawsuits.”);

Young

v.

Secretary Fla. for Dept. of Corr., 380 F. App’x 939 (11th Cir.
2010) (same).
In Redmon, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's
dismissal

of

a

complaint

based

upon

the

plaintiff's

misrepresentation of his litigation history, noting abuse of the
judicial process. 414 F. App’x at 225.

The court stated that

under 28 U.S.C. § 1915, “[a] finding that the plaintiff engaged in
bad

faith

litigiousness

or

manipulative

tactics

warrants

dismissal.” Id. (citing Attwood v. Singletary, 105 F.3d 610, 613
(11th Cir. 1997)).

The Eleventh Circuit explained that a district

court may impose sanctions pursuant to Rule 11(c) of the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure if a party knowingly files a pleading
that contains false contentions, and although pro se pleadings are
held to less stringent standards, “a plaintiff's pro se status
will not excuse mistakes regarding procedural rules.” Redmon, 414
F. App’x at 226 (citing McNeil v. United States, 508 U.S. 106, 113
(1993)).

Finding no abuse of discretion, the Eleventh Circuit

noted that the plaintiff failed to disclose a prior lawsuit, but

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had been afforded an opportunity to show cause, just as in the
present case, as to why his complaint should not be dismissed. The
Eleventh

Circuit

“concluding

that

affirmed

the

Plaintiff's

district

explanation

court's
for

his

decision

in

failure

to

disclose the [lawsuit] - that he misunderstood the form - did not
excuse the misrepresentation and that dismissal without prejudice
was a proper sanction.” Id. at 226.
In his response to the Court’s order to show cause (Doc. 9),
Plaintiff asserts that he was “well aware” that he had filed
numerous other complaints in federal court but he did not have the
case numbers available and “did not want to be sanctioned for
providing false information in which he signed under penalty of
perjury.” (Doc. 9 at 2).

Plaintiff further argues that he could

not have abused the judicial system because “abuse would be not
providing at all any prior litigation history” and he provided the
litigation that he felt was relevant – the case that he voluntarily
dismissed (Doc. 9 at 3).

Other than feeling that it was not

relevant, Plaintiff does not address why he failed to reveal Case
No. 2:13-cv-179-FtM-29DNF which was dismissed for failure to state
a claim upon which relief could be granted.
The inquiry concerning a prisoner’s prior lawsuits is not a
matter of idle curiosity, nor is it an effort to raise meaningless
obstacles to a prisoner’s access to the courts.

Rather, the

existence of prior litigation initiated by a prisoner is required

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in order for the Court to apply 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g) (the “three
strikes

rule”

pauperis).

applicable

to

prisoners

proceeding

in

forma

Additionally, it has been the Court’s experience that

a significant number of prisoner filings raise claims or issues
that have already been decided adversely to the prisoner in prior
litigation.

Indeed, on two occasions, Plaintiff has had complaints

dismissed by this Court because the allegations raised therein
were the same as those raised in an action pending before the
Court. See Case Nos. 2:14-cv-427-FtM-29DNF and 2:14-cv-179-FtM29CM.

Identification of prior litigation frequently enables the

Court to dispose of successive cases without further expenditure
of finite judicial resources.
Plaintiff’s assertions that he was “well aware” of the prior
litigation but believed that not revealing such to the Court would
allow him to avoid sanctions for not recalling the exact case
numbers of his prior cases is not credible.
clearly

instructs

a

plaintiff

to

The complaint form

describe

each

lawsuit.

Plaintiff does explain how providing false information to the Court
(through omission) is less worthy of sanction than providing honest
information to the Court with a notation that he could not remember
the exact case numbers of his prior litigation.

Any hindrance to

honestly filling out the complaint form described by Petitioner
does not absolve him of the requirement of disclosing, at a

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minimum, all of the information known to him. Young, 380 F. App’x
at 941.
Finally, Plaintiff has not provided the Court with any reason
for claiming that none of his prior cases had been dismissed for
failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted when
in fact, Case No. 2:13-cv-179-FtM-29DNF was dismissed for failure
to state a claim upon which relief could be granted only seven
months before he filed the instant suit. The Court’s eight-page
order of dismissal in that case provided detailed and explicit
reasons for the dismissal. Id.
Plaintiff has failed to truthfully disclose his prior cases
as required by the plain language instructions of the civil rights
complaint form and has failed to come forward with any persuasive
reason to excuse his lack of candor.

The Court finds that

Plaintiff's failure to fully disclose his previous lawsuits, under
penalty of perjury, constitutes an abuse of the judicial process.
See Rivera v. Allin, 144 F.3d 719, 731 (11th Cir. 1998).

An

appropriate sanction for such abuse of the judicial process is the
dismissal of the complaint.

Id.

ACCORDINGLY, it is hereby
ORDERED:
1.

This

case

is

DISMISSED

without

prejudice.

Such

dismissal counts as a “strike” for the purposes of 28 U.S.C. §
1915(g).

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2.

The

Clerk

of

Court

is

directed

to

enter

judgment

dismissing this case without prejudice, terminate any pending
motions, and close the file.
DONE and ORDERED in Fort Myers, Florida on this
of November, 2014.

SA: OrlP-4
Copies: All Parties of Record

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5th

day