Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Steven Wayne Bonilla, a condemned California state prisoner, filed pro se civil rights complaints under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 that were docketed in the Northern District of California as Case Nos. 26-cv-08799, 26-cv-10439, and 26-cv-10440. The court described the claims in the three actions as nearly identical. Bonilla named as defendants the presiding judge and various state courts, and he sought relief concerning his underlying conviction or the way state and federal courts had handled his other cases. The order notes that he separately has a pending federal habeas petition in the same court with appointed counsel and is represented by counsel in state habeas proceedings.
To the extent Bonilla sought to proceed in forma pauperis, the court explained that earlier orders in two prior cases had disqualified him under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g) unless he was under imminent danger of serious physical injury when he filed. A footnote records his litigation history: the presiding judge is the fourth judge assigned his cases, this was the 87th order that judge has issued since April 30, 2020 involving 1,345 cases, and he filed 962 other cases before three other judges since 2011. In one of the three actions he named the presiding judge as a defendant, but the court said he alleged nothing specific beyond disagreement with prior rulings.
The Court’s Holding
The court found that the allegations in the complaints did not show Bonilla was in imminent danger at the time of filing, so he may not proceed in forma pauperis. It then gave an alternative ground: even if an application to proceed in forma pauperis were granted, the lawsuits would be barred under Heck v. Humphrey, Younger v. Harris, Demos v. U.S. District Court, or Mullis v. U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The order cites these authorities in a single sentence and does not say which applies to which complaint, so it is best read as a short dismissal rather than a detailed analysis. The court dismissed the cases with prejudice and noted his extensive history of filing similar frivolous cases.
On recusal, the court said these were not cases in which its impartiality might reasonably be questioned because of the repetitive and frivolous nature of the filings. It cited United States v. Holland for the principle that a judge without legitimate reasons to recuse has a duty to sit in all assigned cases, and a footnote adds that Bonilla did not seek recusal and none was warranted. The clerk was directed to terminate all pending motions, close the cases, and return without filing any further documents Bonilla submits in these closed cases. The order is limited to these three actions. It does not purport to bar new lawsuits, and it does not address his pending federal habeas petition or his state habeas proceedings.
Key Takeaways
- A prisoner disqualified from proceeding in forma pauperis under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g) must show, through the complaint's allegations, imminent danger of serious physical injury at the time of filing, and this order found no such showing.
- The court stated alternative grounds, so even if fee-waiver status had been available the complaints would still have been dismissed as barred under the cited authorities.
- Naming the presiding judge as a defendant because of disagreement with earlier rulings did not lead to recusal, since the court stressed a judge's duty to sit absent legitimate grounds.
- The directive to return further submissions without filing applies only to these closed cases and is not a general pre-filing restriction on new actions.
- The dismissal is with prejudice and without leave to amend, so Bonilla was not offered a chance to replead these claims.
Why It Matters
This is a short, unpublished district court order, so it has no precedential weight. Its value is as an example of how a court handles a serial litigant who has long been barred from fee-free filing and who repeats the same claims against judges and courts. The dismissal with prejudice is a final disposition of these three actions rather than a dismissal with leave to amend.
What remains open matters. The order does not decide the merits of any challenge to Bonilla's conviction, which stays with his counsel in the pending habeas case and the state proceedings. Because the order cites Demos and Mullis without explaining them, practitioners should not treat it as authority for broader propositions about those cases.