Crotts v. Robinson

Case: 21-20347 Document: 00516404152 Page: 1 Date Filed: 07/22/2022
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
July 22, 2022
No. 21-20347
Summary Calendar Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
Alan Nelson Crotts,
Petitioner—Appellee,
versus
Reginald Robinson, Director of the Fort Bend Community Supervision
and Corrections Department; Juli Mathew, Honorable Judge, Fort Bend
County Court of Law,
Respondents—Appellants.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Texas
USDC No. 4:20-CV-3126
Before Stewart, Dennis, and Duncan, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:*
The defendants (State) in this 28 U.S.C. § 2254 action brought by
Alan Nelson Crotts appeal the district court’s judgment dismissing the action
“without prejudice.” The State had filed a motion to dismiss for lack of
*
Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this
opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited
circumstances set forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4.
Case: 21-20347 Document: 00516404152 Page: 2 Date Filed: 07/22/2022
No. 21-20347
exhaustion and argued that the dismissal should have been “with prejudice”
under Horsley v. Johnson, 197 F.3d 134 (5th Cir. 1999), because Crotts’s
unexhausted claims would be—and, in fact, ultimately were—barred from
being exhausted in state court by the Texas rule against second or subsequent
state habeas petitions.
However, before the State filed “either an answer or a motion for
summary judgment,” Crotts invoked Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 41(a)(1)(A)(i), which triggered the automatic, absolute, and
unfettered right to obtain a dismissal without prejudice without the need of a
court order. Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(i); see In re Amerijet Int’l, Inc.,
785 F.3d 967, 973-74 (5th Cir. 2015); Carter v. United States, 547 F.2d 258,
259 (5th Cir. 1977); American Cyanamid Co. v. McGhee, 317 F.2d 295, 297 (5th
Cir. 1963).
The district court’s dismissal order was issued in the context of
denying, as moot, the State’s motion to dismiss. The order did not convert
the dismissal into any kind of dismissal that was required to be with prejudice.
Accordingly, the judgment is AFFIRMED. Crotts’s motion to file
a sur-reply brief is GRANTED; his withdrawn motion for a stay is
DENIED as moot; his motion for this court to take judicial notice is
DENIED as unnecessary; all outstanding motions are DENIED.
2