Jason Elliott Smith v. Delwyn Gerald Williams

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.
____________________
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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
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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).
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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
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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.