Court Opinion

ID: 9393969
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-11 19:00:58.384597+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:56.551983
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 23-10178   Document: 19-1    Date Filed: 05/11/2023   Page: 1 of 5

                                                          [PUBLISH]
                                 In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                         ____________________

                              No. 23-10178
                         Non-Argument Calendar
                         ____________________

       JASON ELLIOTT SMITH,
       a.k.a. Bonnie Lashay,
       a.k.a. Stacey,
                                                   Plaintiff-Appellant,
       versus
       DELWYN GERALD WILLIAMS,
       Pastor,

                                                 Defendant-Appellee.

                         ____________________
USCA11 Case: 23-10178      Document: 19-1       Date Filed: 05/11/2023     Page: 2 of 5

       2                       Opinion of the Court                  23-10178

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Northern District of Florida
                    D.C. Docket No. 4:22-cv-00171-WS-MJF
                           ____________________

       Before ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Jason Smith, a Florida prisoner proceeding pro se, brought a
       complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging sexual abuse by Delwyn
       Gerald Williams, a pastor at a church Smith attended more than
       thirty years ago, when he was eleven or twelve years old. The
       complaint was referred to a magistrate judge, who granted Smith
       leave to proceed in forma pauperis and then recommended that the
       case be dismissed for failure to state a claim, under the screening
       provisions of 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) and 1915A(b)(1), before
       service on the defendant. In response, Smith submitted a filing
       seeking to voluntarily dismiss the case and to receive a refund of
       his court fees. Smith said that he was unaware he could not sue a
       private party under § 1983 and would not have “waste[d]” the
       clerk’s or the court’s time had he known.
             The district court, rather than treating Smith’s filing as a self-
       executing notice of dismissal under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41, referred the
       matter to the magistrate judge, who issued a report recommending
       that Smith’s requests be denied. The magistrate judge made that
       recommendation in an attempt to further the purposes of the
       “three-strikes provision” of the Prison Litigation Reform Act
USCA11 Case: 23-10178      Document: 19-1       Date Filed: 05/11/2023     Page: 3 of 5

       23-10178                Opinion of the Court                          3

       (“PLRA”), which prevents prisoners from proceeding IFP if they
       have had three prior cases dismissed on the grounds that the alle-
       gations of the complaint were frivolous, malicious, or failed to state
       a claim upon which relief may be granted. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g).
       The magistrate judge reasoned that, because Rule 41(a) is “[s]ubject
       to . . . any applicable federal statute,” Fed. R. Civ. 41(a), prisoners
       cannot exercise their right to a voluntary dismissal after an adverse
       recommendation under § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) or § 1915A(b)(1); other-
       wise, they could avoid receiving a “strike” under the PLRA and
       thereby frustrate congressional intent. The district court adopted
       the magistrate judge’s recommendation, and this appeal followed.
               Smith, represented by counsel on appeal, contends that the
       district court erred by invoking the PLRA’s purposes to trump his
       clear right to voluntarily dismiss the action under Rule 41. We
       agree.
               As relevant here, Rule 41(a)(1) entitles a plaintiff to volun-
       tarily “dismiss an action without a court order by filing . . . a notice
       of dismissal before the opposing party serves either an answer or a
       motion for summary judgment.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(i) (em-
       phasis added). A notice of dismissal “is effective immediately upon
       filing,” Anago Franchising, Inc. v. Shaz, LLC, 677 F.3d 1272, 1277
       (11th Cir. 2012) (quotation marks omitted), and “the district court
       is immediately deprived of jurisdiction over the merits of the case,”
       Absolute Activist Value Master Fund Ltd. v. Devine, 998 F.3d 1258,
       1265 (11th Cir. 2021).
USCA11 Case: 23-10178      Document: 19-1       Date Filed: 05/11/2023     Page: 4 of 5

       4                       Opinion of the Court                  23-10178

               Nevertheless, Rule 41 is “[s]ubject to . . . any applicable fed-
       eral statute,” as the district court observed. Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1).
       The court discerned a conflict between the literal operation of Rule
       41(a)(1) and the PLRA’s purpose, which is to “deter frivolous suits,”
       Bruce v. Samuels, 577 U.S. 82, 88 (2016), and opted to enforce the
       PLRA policy.
              But “courts should generally not depart from the usual prac-
       tice under the Federal Rules on the basis of perceived policy con-
       cerns.” Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 212 (2007). And the district
       court’s reasoning in this case directly conflicts with our decision in
       Daker v. Commissioner, Georgia Department of Corrections, 820
       F.3d 1278, 1285–86 (11th Cir. 2016). In Daker, we refused to count
       as a “strike” the prisoner’s failure to prosecute an appeal, even
       though our decision meant that “a prisoner can file unlimited friv-
       olous appeals and avoid getting strikes by declining to prosecute
       the appeals after his petitions to proceed in forma pauperis are de-
       nied.” Id. at 1286. That policy concern, we explained, did not per-
       mit us to “rewrite the text to match our intuitions about unstated
       congressional purposes.” Id.
              That is also true here. We find no language in the PLRA
       purporting to limit or condition a plaintiff’s right to voluntarily dis-
       miss an action “without a court order” under Rule 41(a) in the pris-
       oner-litigation context. Smith acted within the bounds of Rule
       41(a) by filing a notice of dismissal before the defendant responded.
       That notice was effective immediately upon filing and deprived the
       court of jurisdiction over the case. Devine, 998 F.3d at 1265. And
USCA11 Case: 23-10178      Document: 19-1     Date Filed: 05/11/2023     Page: 5 of 5

       23-10178               Opinion of the Court                         5

       it follows that if failure to prosecute an appeal does not count as a
       PLRA “strike,” Daker, 820 F.3d at 1285–86, neither does voluntary
       dismissal of an action pursuant to Rule 41(a). Although this inter-
       pretation may permit a prisoner to evade a strike by voluntarily
       dismissing a case after a magistrate judge’s adverse screening rec-
       ommendation, we cannot “rewrite the text to match our intuitions
       about unstated congressional purposes,” just as we could not do so
       in the face of similar concerns in Daker. Id. at 1286; see Jones, 549
       U.S. at 212.
               The district court’s judgment is accordingly vacated, and the
       case is remanded with the instruction that the district court instruct
       the Clerk to note the vacatur of the judgment on the case docket
       sheet and substitute for the judgment a voluntary dismissal pursu-
       ant to Rule 41(a).
             VACATED AND REMANDED with instructions.