Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_18-cv-01605/USCOURTS-casd-3_18-cv-01605-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 42:1983pr Prisoner Civil Rights

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

ERIC CHATMAN,

CDCR #BD-5474,

Plaintiff,

vs.

McLAREN in Beverly Hills, et al.,

Defendants.

Case No.: 3:18-cv-01605-CAB-JMA

ORDER:

1) DENYING MOTION TO 

PROCEED IN FORMA PAUPERIS 

AS BARRED BY 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g) 

[Doc. No. 2]

AND

(2) DISMISSING CIVIL ACTION 

WITHOUT PREJUDICE FOR 

FAILURE TO PAY FILING FEE 

REQUIRED BY 28 U.S.C. § 1914(a)

ERIC CHATMAN (“Plaintiff”), currently incarcerated at Salinas Valley State 

Prison in Soledad, California, and proceeding pro se, has filed a civil rights Complaint 

pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in which he claims to have been raped, fired, and 

discriminated against by thirteen separate car dealerships located in both San Diego and 

Los Angeles Counties on unspecified occasions in 1997 and 1998. See Compl., Doc. No. 

1. 

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Plaintiff did not pay the civil filing fee required by 28 U.S.C. § 1914(a) at the time 

he filed his Complaint; instead, he filed a Motion to Proceed In Forma Pauperis (“IFP”) 

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a) (Doc. No. 2). He has since filed two letters addressed to 

the Court which repeat the allegations in his Complaint and express his thanks. See Doc. 

Nos. 4, 6. Plaintiff’s letters were accepted for filing in light of his pro se status, and 

despite Local Civil Rule 83.9, which clearly prohibits such ex parte communications. See 

Doc. Nos. 3, 5.

I. Motion to Proceed IFP

A. Standard of Review

“All persons, not just prisoners, may seek IFP status.” Moore v. Maricopa County 

Sheriff’s Office, 657 F.3d 890, 892 (9th Cir. 2011). Prisoners like Plaintiff, however, 

“face an additional hurdle.” Id. In addition to requiring prisoners to “pay the full amount 

of a filing fee,” in “monthly installments” or “increments” as provided by 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1915(a)(3)(b), Bruce v. Samuels, __ U.S. __, 136 S. Ct. 627, 629 (2016); Williams v. 

Paramo, 775 F.3d 1182, 1185 (9th Cir. 2015), the Prison Litigation Reform Act 

(“PLRA”) amended section 1915 to preclude the privilege to proceed IFP:

. . . if [a] prisoner has, on 3 or more prior occasions, while 

incarcerated or detained in any facility, brought an action or 

appeal in a court of the United States that was dismissed on the 

grounds that it is frivolous, malicious, or fails to state a claim 

upon which relief can be granted, unless the prisoner is under 

imminent danger of serious physical injury.

28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). “This subdivision is commonly known as the ‘three strikes’ 

provision.” Andrews v. King, 398 F.3d 1113, 1116 n.1 (9th Cir. 2005).

“Pursuant to § 1915(g), a prisoner with three strikes or more cannot proceed IFP.” 

Id.; see also Andrews v. Cervantes, 493 F.3d 1047, 1052 (9th Cir. 2007) (hereafter 

“Cervantes”) (under the PLRA, “[p]risoners who have repeatedly brought unsuccessful 

suits may entirely be barred from IFP status under the three strikes rule[.]”). The 

objective of the PLRA is to further “the congressional goal of reducing frivolous prisoner 

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litigation in federal court.” Tierney v. Kupers, 128 F.3d 1310, 1312 (9th Cir. 1997). 

“[S]ection 1915(g)’s cap on prior dismissed claims applies to claims dismissed both 

before and after the statute’s effective date.” Id. at 1311.

“Strikes are prior cases or appeals, brought while the plaintiff was a prisoner, 

which were dismissed on the ground that they were frivolous, malicious, or failed to state 

a claim,” Andrews, 398 F.3d at 1116 n.1 (internal quotations omitted), “even if the 

district court styles such dismissal as a denial of the prisoner’s application to file the 

action without prepayment of the full filing fee.” O’Neal v. Price, 531 F.3d 1146, 1153 

(9th Cir. 2008); see also El-Shaddai v. Zamora, 833 F.3d 1036, 1042 (9th Cir. 2016) 

(noting that when court “review[s] a dismissal to determine whether it counts as a strike, 

the style of the dismissal or the procedural posture is immaterial. Instead, the central 

question is whether the dismissal ‘rang the PLRA bells of frivolous, malicious, or failure 

to state a claim.’”) (quoting Blakely v. Wards, 738 F.3d 607, 615 (4th Cir. 2013)).

Once a prisoner has accumulated three strikes, he is prohibited by section 1915(g) 

from pursuing any other IFP civil action or appeal in federal court unless he alleges he is 

facing “imminent danger of serious physical injury.” See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g); Cervantes, 

493 F.3d at 1051-52 (noting § 1915(g)’s exception for IFP complaints which “make[] a 

plausible allegation that the prisoner faced ‘imminent danger of serious physical injury’ 

at the time of filing.”).

B. Application to Plaintiff

The Court has reviewed Plaintiff’s Complaint, his Motion to Appoint Counsel, and 

his letter, and concludes none of these pleadings contain any “plausible allegations” to 

suggest he “faced ‘imminent danger of serious physical injury’ at the time of filing.” 

Cervantes, 493 F.3d at 1055 (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g)). Instead, as described above, 

Plaintiff’s seeks to sue a host of car dealerships whose “terrorist and gay managers” 

allegedly raped and fired him twenty years ago. See Compl., Doc. No. 1 at 1, 3-5; In re 

Gonzalez, 2008 WL 666465 at *2-3 (N.D. Cal. March 6, 2008) (finding prisoner with a 

“delusional tale” of having a “special genetic structure,” and being “irradiated ... by 

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radioactive smoke” by “government scientists,” did not plausibly allege “imminent 

danger of serious physical injury.”); Holz v. McFadden, 2010 WL 3069745 at *3 (C.D. 

Cal. May 21, 2010) (finding “imminent danger” exception to § 1915(g) inapplicable 

where prisoner implausibly claimed the FBI and BOP were “going to kill him.”); Sierra 

v. Woodford, 2010 WL 1657493 at *3 (E.D. Cal. April 23, 2010) (finding “long, 

narrative, rambling statements regarding a cycle of violence, and vague references to 

motives to harm” insufficient to show Plaintiff faced an “ongoing danger” as required by 

Cervantes).

If this were not enough, Plaintiff’s claims are patently frivolous. See 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1915A(b)(1) (requiring sua sponte dismissal of prisoner complaints, or any portions of 

them, which are “frivolous, malicious, or fail[ ] to state a claim upon which relief may be 

granted.”); Coleman v. Tollefson, 135 S. Ct. 1759, 1764 (2015). “The purpose of § 1915A 

is to ‘ensure that the targets of frivolous or malicious suits need not bear the expense of 

responding.”’ Nordstrom v. Ryan, 762 F.3d 903, 907 n.1 (9th Cir. 2014) (internal citation 

omitted). O’Loughlin v. Doe, 920 F.2d 614, 617 (9th Cir. 1990) (a complaint “is frivolous 

if it has no arguable basis in fact or law.”).

And while Defendants typically carry the burden to show that a prisoner is not 

entitled to proceed IFP, Andrews, 398 F.3d at 1119, “in some instances, the district court 

docket may be sufficient to show that a prior dismissal satisfies at least one on the criteria 

under § 1915(g) and therefore counts as a strike.” Id. at 1120. That is the case here.

A court may take judicial notice of its own records, see Molus v. Swan, Civil Case 

No. 3:05-cv-00452–MMA-WMc, 2009 WL 160937, *2 (S.D. Cal. Jan. 22, 2009) (citing 

United States v. Author Services, 804 F.2d 1520, 1523 (9th Cir. 1986)); Gerritsen v. 

Warner Bros. Entm’t Inc., 112 F. Supp. 3d 1011, 1034 (C.D. Cal. 2015), and “‘may take 

notice of proceedings in other courts, both within and without the federal judicial system, 

if those proceedings have a direct relation to matters at issue.’” Bias v. Moynihan, 508 

F.3d 1212, 1225 (9th Cir. 2007) (quoting Bennett v. Medtronic, Inc., 285 F.3d 801, 803 

n.2 (9th Cir. 2002)). 

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Thus, this Court takes judicial notice that Plaintiff, Eric Chatman, identified as 

CDCR Inmate #BD-5474, has had four prior prisoner civil actions dismissed in this 

district alone on the grounds that they were frivolous, malicious, or failed to state a claim 

upon which relief may be granted. They are: 

1) Chatman v. Toyota of Escondido, et al., Civil Case No. 3:17-cv-01853-BAS 

JLB (S.D. Cal. Nov. 8, 2017) (Order Granting Motion to Proceed IFP and Dismissing 

Civil Action for Failing to State a Claim pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) and 

without leave to amend) (Doc. No. 18) (“strike one”);

2) Chatman v. Cush Acura, et al., Civil Case No. 3:17-cv-01852-WQH-JLB

(S.D. Cal. Nov. 21, 2017) (Order Granting Motion to Proceed IFP and Dismissing Civil 

Action for Failing to State a Claim pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) and without 

leave to amend) (Doc. No. 20) (“strike two”);

3) Chatman v. Super 8 Motel, et al., Civil Case No. 3:17-cv-02517-DMS-JMA 

(S.D. Cal. Feb. 15, 2018) (Order Denying Motion to Proceed IFP and Dismissing Civil 

Action for Failing to State a Claim pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) and without 

leave to amend) (Doc. No. 6) (“strike three”); and 

4) Chatman v. Super 8 Motel Co., et al., Civil Case No. 3:18-cv-00213-BASNLS (S.D. Cal. Feb. 20, 2018) (Order Granting Motion to Proceed IFP and Dismissing 

Civil Action for Failing to State a Claim pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) and 

without leave to amend) (Doc. No. 6) (“strike four”).

Accordingly, because Plaintiff has, while incarcerated, accumulated more than 

three “strikes” pursuant to § 1915(g), and he fails to make a plausible allegation that he 

faced imminent danger of serious physical injury at the time he filed his Complaint, he is 

not entitled to the privilege of proceeding IFP in this action. See Cervantes, 493 F.3d at 

1055; Rodriguez v. Cook, 169 F.3d 1176, 1180 (9th Cir. 1999) (finding that 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1915(g) “does not prevent all prisoners from accessing the courts; it only precludes 

prisoners with a history of abusing the legal system from continuing to abuse it while 

///

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enjoying IFP status”); see also Franklin v. Murphy, 745 F.2d 1221, 1231 (9th Cir. 1984) 

(“[C]ourt permission to proceed IFP is itself a matter of privilege and not right.”).

II. Conclusion and Orders

 For the reasons set forth above, the Court:

1) DENIES Plaintiff’s Motion to Proceed IFP (Doc. No. 2) as barred by 28 

U.S.C. § 1915(g);

2) DISMISSES this action without prejudice based on Plaintiff’s failure to pay 

the full statutory and administrative $400 civil filing fee required by 28 U.S.C. § 1914(a);

3) CERTIFIES that an IFP appeal from this Order would be frivolous and 

therefore, would not be taken in good faith pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3). See 

Coppedge v. United States, 369 U.S. 438, 445 (1962); Gardner v. Pogue, 558 F.2d 548, 

550 (9th Cir. 1977) (indigent appellant is permitted to proceed IFP on appeal only if 

appeal would not be frivolous); and

4) DIRECTS the Clerk of Court to close the file.1

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: August 24, 2018

 

1

 While the Court has previously accepted Plaintiff’s letters for filing despite his failure to 

comply with the Court’s Local Rules, he is hereby cautioned that S.D. Cal. Local Civil 

Rule 83.9 provides that “attorneys or parties to any action must refrain from writing letters 

to the judge,” and that “[p]ro se litigants must follow the same rules of procedure that 

govern other litigants.” King v. Atiyeh, 814 F.2d 565, 567 (9th Cir. 1987). Therefore, any 

additional letter he attempts to file in this matter will be summarily rejected based on Local 

Rule 83.9, and because this Order terminates his case.

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