The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) three-strikes rule; 28 USC § 1515(g); Whether § 1915(g) allows a court that dismisses a prisoner’s lawsuit to bind a later court with its strike determination; Whether a district court may “recommend” that a future court treat the dismissed action as a strike; Hill v. Madison Cnty (7th Cir.); Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC)

[This appeal was from the WD-MI.] The court held that PLRA § 1915(g) does not permit a court that makes a three-strike determination in a prisoner’s lawsuit to bind a later court. But a district court may “recommend” that a future court treat the dismissed action as a strike, and such a recommendation does not run afoul of Article III of the U.S. Constitution. Under the three strikes rule, a prisoner is required to start paying litigation fees if he or she is found to have filed three frivolous lawsuits. Plaintiff-prisoner (Simons) filed suit claiming that the MDOC seized his property by removing money from his account to repair a window he had broken. The district court rejected his suit, and counted it as a strike. The court first considered whether § 1915(g) allows a court that makes a strike determination in a prisoner’s lawsuit to bind to bind a later court, and held that it does not. Under the statute, the “binding determination” whether the prisoner has previously brought three or more frivolous claims is “for the court in the fourth or later proceeding.” But the court also held that a district court may recommend that a future court treat the dismissed action as a strike, and that Article III does not “prohibit a court that dismisses a prisoner’s lawsuit from making a non-binding recommendation” as to whether a dismissal should be treated as a strike for § 1915(g) purposes. “Although the case-or-controversy requirement bars federal courts from issuing binding legal rulings without a live dispute, it does not prohibit including what amounts to dicta in district court orders. Such non-binding statements appear all the time. And district courts opine on matters that concern the consequences of a judgment no less frequently.” The district court rejected Simons’s federal claims on the merits, and it declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over his state-law claims. The court noted that it had “no basis . . . for assessing whether the district court’s non-binding strike call was right at this point[,]” and that Simons could file another “free lawsuit in the future.” It will be left “to a fourth or later court to decide whether the district court’s non-binding strike call should become a binding strike.” Affirmed.