our final case of the day will be sanders against the invisible michael m mr sanders is a very sick man so sick in fact that he bit a chunk of flesh out of his wrist and twice tried to kill himself by swallowing lethal amounts of medication just so he could get help now the district court concluded that those allegations did not establish that mr sanders was in imminent danger of serious physical injury that judgment should be reversed and the case should be remanded for further proceedings mr beale let me tell you what worries me most about your vine of argument suppose a prisoner who is struck out files a lawsuit and says you know i don't like the fact that the prison has done  me and if you don't let me proceed in formal proper us i will harm myself does that just effectively abolish the three strikes rule because he's now follow if he can't litigate informal parkers it does not abolish the three strikes rule and the reason for that is the federal courts have recognized that the allegation of imminent danger must be plausible this court held in syrup to clean it versus seeing it cannot be conclusory or ridiculous so in an example that i think you might have in mind your honor if someone says i don't like the food here and if you don't give me better food if you don't give me two desserts after every meal i'm going to harm myself that a court could look at that and say that's not a plausible allegation of imminent danger why isn't it how do we know that it isn't plausible this may be somebody who always carries through on his threats and of course he may not kill himself but he may cut his finger and bleed and that of course would be physical injury it would be not much but song it would be physical injury and if the court did conclude that that was a plausible allegation that there were allegations o allegations demonstrating that this prisoner was likely to carry through on his threats then the three strike exception would apply and i'm well you see that that really i don't think you're going to persuade me of that because it makes the whole thing shows anybody who promises to prick his finger can get away with filing an infinite number of frivolous lawsuits without prepayment fees and we don't tend to make statutes go away that easily right well i don't think it would make the statute go away simply because i mean in this case if you if you held mr sanders favorite result i understand your argument that this case is your your client may be so mentally disturbed that it's not he's not in gauged in strategic behavior or making a pollution choice right so i can understand how you would distinguish sanders of situation from my hypothetical doesn't stop me from being worried about my daughter right but and in your hypothetical i would say that again when the court is reading a complaint and seen whether there's a nexus between actually what's being deprived or what the prisoners complain about and the actual harm so in the example i gave where if a prisoner says i don't like the food i'm going to harm myself i mean it's but it's possible that that does not give effect to the purpose of the three strikes exception the purpose of that is to allow prisoners to seek legal redress for conditions that are likely to cause them imminent harm and so in that example there's really no nexus between what the prisoner would be complaining about the thing that they want the court to give them and the actual harm that they're alleging here there is such a nexus where he's saying you know there's they're not getting mental health treatment they're keeping me in solitary confinement for the past eight years and so as a result of this it's driven me to the point where i'm going to harm myself so if there is this  looking at the me use three there's just no the thing good about solitary confinement in the talk about all the reasons we don't know here for whatever reason is which this guy is gay must be a huge threat to somebody well your honor i have to say i do not know what had led to specifically if there was a specific incident that led to his confinement in solitary control his rage and so because he hasn't received psychotherapy for that condition instead of providing him with mental health treatment they decided to do was just put him away and not give him the treatment that he needs to potentially get  better and get out of the solitary confinement and it seems like that is kind of the basis for this complaint this lack of medical treatment that he so desperately needs and can see that of course then what rises to the level where he needs it we had  case recently where there was a suicide and then the question is do or did the listening to him or did they just sort of who would offer somebody didn't you or he really didn't say he was going to commit suicide this is one of his threats or whatever you want to call it and it seems to me that that when we were but there isn't anybody on the other side you know arguing and except the bankers with talks about this sounds pretty logically that's not good for somebody to have to be in solitary confinement can't get outside you can't do anything except panama and then you say well the medical treatments going to help him basically  you got to do something else and they don't say what else for somebody whatever this guy is confined for this period of time and with those precautions he must be used inherently a threat to everybody  confined in solitary confinement is there necessarily because they present a serious threat to others i know a lot of reasons beyond that terry confinement and you know what they do this or that or sometimes it's for protection  them but this guy for eight years and ten more and i don't know what the answer is with you know we we going to do him in another hearing or they're going to what's your answer what would what are we supposed to do with this what we're asking the court to do in this case is fairly narrow and straightforward we're asking the court to do is to reverse the judgment of the court holding that he was not in imminent danger simply so his complaint the judge thought that this wasn't enough to override that yes that's all we're asking is that his complaint be allowed to proceed to screen without payment of the filing fee honor but in addition to the fact that mr sanders has alleged that he's not receiving the medical treatment as it as you and i just pointed out he's also alleged that there is a policy in place at pontiac where prisoners who are mentally ill can't obtain the treatment that they need until they harm themselves and apparently that's true no matter how mentally ill a prisoner is mr sanders has been designated as seriously mentally ill by the officials at the prison they've acknowledged that he's seriously mentally ill they've acknowledged that presumably that he does need mental health treatment i can only assume that's what that designation would mean but because of this policy he's unable to obtain that needed treatment unless he first engages in self injury so what they've done here is essentially they force his hand into judges or brooks point or determine whether this would swallow the exception if there's a policy in place where a prisoner can obtain a needed service at the rule is you don't get the service on less you harm yourself well that's different than somebody simply saying if you don't give me what i want i'm going to harm myself but the rule is you don't get this treatment that we frankly seem to acknowledge that you need we're not going to give it to you unless you harm yourself that's the rule here then that does a stablish in imminent danger of serious physical injury before would you do but he said these ar off what he did was he twice he tried to commit suicide by swallowing a lethal amounts of medication couldn't we ibuprofen and his cycle as you know a psychotic medication was diagnosed oh written how can they treat him well would you have them do what he what he's requested here is to be released it's my understanding that there are different places where prisoners are held as a mental health unit at pontiac and prisoners confinement whether it's because there's been a determination that he presents a danger if he's released somewhere else like a mental health setting or if there is some other reason underline it and you know to the extent that that's probative of this case that's something that a district court could examine on reman