PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

MARCUS D. WOODSON, 

 Plaintiff - Appellant, 

v. 

TRACY McCOLLUM; BRUCE 

BORNHIEM, in their individual capacities; 

JOE ALLBAUGH, in his official and 

individual capacities; GREG WILLIAMS; 

BRENDA GOODSON; KERRY 

KENDALL; SHEILA PHILLIPS; AMBER 

SWIFT; SAM PRESTON; CARL BEAR; 

JASON BRYANT; KRISTIN TIMS; DR. 

TROUT; CASEY HAMILTON; HELEN 

BELL; MIKE ROGERS; LINDA MONK; 

FNU CALLINS; DENNIS HENDRIX; 

CHIEF TATE; SHERRY DECAMP; 

WARDEN DAVID PARKER; JENETTA 

ORR; DARREN GIPSON; LAWRENCE 

BELL; BRUCE KIETEL; WILLIAM 

WELDON; BARBIE ROUNDSVILLE, in 

their individual capacities, 

 Defendants - Appellees. 

No. 17-6064 

_________________________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Western District of Oklahoma 

(D.C. No. 5:17-CV-00094-D)

_________________________________ 

Submitted on the briefs:*

 *

 After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined 

unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

November 20, 2017

Elisabeth A. Shumaker 

Clerk of Court
2 

Amir H. Ali, Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center, Washington, D.C., for 

Plaintiff-Appellant. 

Stefanie E. Lawson, Assistant Attorney General, Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office, 

Litigation Division, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Defendants-Appellees. 

_________________________________ 

Before HARTZ, McKAY, and MATHESON, Circuit Judges. 

_________________________________ 

HARTZ, Circuit Judge. 

_________________________________ 

Plaintiff Marcus Woodson is a prisoner of the State of Oklahoma. He sued 

several prison officials in Oklahoma state court, proceeding in forma pauperis (IFP) 

under state law. The defendants removed the case to the United States District Court 

for the Western District of Oklahoma. As required by federal statute, they paid the 

filing fee. See 28 U.S.C. § 1914(a) (“The parties instituting any civil action . . . 

whether by original process, removal or otherwise” are required to pay the filing fee. 

(emphasis added)). The federal court, however, determined that Woodson, who had 

previously abused the federal courts by filing frivolous lawsuits, was not eligible to 

proceed IFP and dismissed his case because he failed to pay the filing fee. Woodson 

appeals. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §1291, we reverse. State-court 

plaintiffs whose cases are removed to federal court have no obligation to pay a filing 

fee; nothing in the federal IFP statute is to the contrary. 

I. The Federal IFP Statute

 

this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore 

ordered submitted without oral argument. 
3 

Congress enacted the federal IFP statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1915, to ensure that the 

poor could take legal action despite their inability to pay court fees. See Coleman v. 

Tollefson, 135 S. Ct. 1759, 1761 (2015). The statute allows courts to “authorize the 

commencement . . . of any suit . . . without prepayment of fees” if a person files an 

affidavit stating, among other things, that he “is unable to pay such fees.” 

§ 1915(a)(1). 

But litigants who do not prepay fees have less economic incentive to refrain 

from filing frivolous lawsuits. See Coleman, 135 S. Ct. at 1762. “Congress came to 

see that prisoner suits in particular represented a disproportionate share of federal 

filings.” Id. It therefore passed the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which 

included several measures “designed to prevent sportive filings in federal court.” 

Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521, 535 (2011). One such provision is the three-strikes 

rule in § 1915(g), which excludes prisoners who file frequent frivolous lawsuits from 

the benefits of IFP status. See id.; Childs v. Miller, 713 F.3d 1262, 1265 (10th Cir. 

2013). It states: 

In no event shall a prisoner bring a civil action or appeal a judgment in a 

civil action or proceeding under this section [§ 1915] if the prisoner has, 

on 3 or more 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 may be granted, unless the prisoner is under 

imminent danger of serious physical injury. 

§ 1915(g). A state court is not a “court of the United States” as defined for Title 28 

of the United States Code. See 28 U.S.C. § 451 (“The term ‘court of the United 

States’ includes the Supreme Court of the United States, courts of appeal, district 
4 

courts constituted by chapter 5 of this title, . . . and any court created by Act of 

Congress the judges of which are entitled to hold office during good behavior.”). 

The three-strikes rule does not totally bar prisoners with three strikes from filing 

lawsuits; it just makes them pay the filing fee as any other plaintiff. See White v. 

Colorado, 157 F.3d 1226, 1233 (10th Cir. 1988). 

In this case the defendants paid the federal filing fee, so Woodson did not seek 

to proceed IFP.1

 Nevertheless, the district court ruled that § 1915(g) required him to 

pay a filing fee because he has had three prior lawsuits dismissed on the grounds that 

they were frivolous, malicious, or failed to state a claim, and he did not qualify for 

the exception for prisoners who are in “imminent danger of serious physical injury.” 

28 U.S.C. § 1915(g).2

 It therefore dismissed his case. 

II. Analysis 

We review de novo the district court’s interpretation of § 1915(g). 

See Scanlon White, Inc. v. C.I.R., 472 F.3d 1173, 1175 (10th Cir. 2006) (“The 

interpretation of a federal statute is a question of law which this court reviews de 

novo.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). We begin by observing that nothing in 

the statutory language authorizes the district court’s dismissal. See Coleman, 135 S. 

Ct. at 1763 (focusing on “the plain language of the statute” when interpreting 

§ 1915(g)). Section 1915(g) applies to prisoners with three strikes who “bring a civil 

 1

 Woodson paid this court’s filing fee, so he does not seek to proceed IFP on 

appeal either. 

2

 Woodson does not challenge the district court’s findings that he has three 

strikes and failed to meet the imminent-danger exception. 
5 

action . . . under this section.” § 1915(g) (emphasis added). We doubt a prisoner 

could “bring” an action by filing a case in state court only to have it removed to 

federal court. See Harris v. Mangum, 863 F.3d 1133, 1141 (9th Cir. 2017) (“When a 

defendant removes a case from state to federal court, it cannot be said that a prisonerplaintiff was the one who brought the case in federal court.”). But regardless, a 

prisoner certainly does not bring an action “under this section” when he does not seek 

to proceed IFP under § 1915. 

We agree with the only circuit-court opinion we have found that discusses the 

matter. In Harris v. Mangum, 863 F.3d at 1140–41, the Ninth Circuit considered 

whether a prisoner could be charged with a strike after the district court dismissed an 

action the defendants removed from state court. In holding that the dismissal did not 

count as a strike, the court said: 

Section 1915(g) prevents a prisoner with three strikes from filing a case 

in federal court without prepaying the filing fee, but [the plaintiff] did 

not file this case in federal court, and he was not required to pay a 

federal court filing fee. Defendants were the parties who brought this 

case to federal court when they removed it from state court, and it was 

their responsibility to pay the federal filing fee, as they did in this case. 

The statute does not prevent an indigent prisoner-plaintiff with three 

strikes from proceeding in a case that someone else filed in federal 

court. 

Id. 

Nor is the policy purpose of § 1915(g) subverted by allowing this suit to 

proceed without Woodson’s paying a filing fee. The three-strikes rule is to deter 

prisoners from filing meritless lawsuits in federal court. See Skinner, 562 U.S. at 

535. It was not offended by Woodson’s pursuing a claim IFP in the Oklahoma 
6 

courts. That state is free to set less stringent constraints on prisoner litigation. See 

Abdul-Akbar v. McKelvie, 239 F.3d 307, 314-15 (3d Cir. 2001) (recognizing that 

prisoners ineligible to proceed IFP under § 1915(g) “may seek relief in state court, 

where limitations on filing I.F.P. may not be as strict” and stating that “[p]otentially 

negative consequences in federal courts, as distinguished from state courts, are 

precisely the consequences intended by Congress”); Wilson v. Yaklich, 148 F.3d 596, 

605 (6th Cir. 1998) (noting that while § 1915(g) barred the plaintiff from proceeding 

IFP in federal court, he could still “litigate his federal constitutional causes of action 

in forma pauperis in state court”). And it was not Woodson who sought the federal 

forum. He did not choose to burden the federal courts; the defendants did. 

III. Conclusion 

 We reverse the district court’s order dismissing Woodson’s claims under 

§ 1915(g) and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.