# Robert Procup v. C. Strickland

> Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit · July 2, 1986 · 792 F.2d 1069

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9474961

## Case

- **Full name:** Robert PROCUP, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. C. STRICKLAND, Et Al., Defendants-Appellees
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
- **Decided:** July 2, 1986
- **Citations:** 792 F.2d 1069; 55 U.S.L.W. 2079; 1986 U.S. App. LEXIS 26744
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Kravitch
- **Judges:** Godbold, Roney, Tjoflat, Hill, Fay, Vance, Kravitch, Johnson, Hatchett, Anderson, Clark, Tuttle
- **Cited by:** 442 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9474961

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- recognizing that federal courts “have both the inherent power and the constitutional obligation to protect their jurisdiction from conduct which impairs their ability to carry out Article III functions” and that “[c]onsiderable discretion necessarily is reposed in the district…
- holding that the district court’s injunction, restricting a prisoner from filing any case unless submitted by an attorney admitted to practice before the court, was over-broad but acknowledging that the district court had a responsibility to prevent litigants from unnecessaril…
- holding that an abusive litigant may be “severely restricted as to what he 28 USCA11 Case: 19-14353 Date Filed: 08/17/2021 Page: 29 of 33 may file and how he must behave in his applications for judicial relief. He just cannot be completely foreclosed from any access to the court”
- finding that although a court may not completely foreclose a litigant from access to the courts, "[t]he court has a responsibility to prevent single litigants from unnecessarily encroaching on the judicial machinery needed by others"
- finding district courts are given “considerable discretion” in deciding how to impose restrictions, and the only limitation on this power is that the litigants cannot be “completely foreclosed from any access to the court.”

## Opinion text

KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Were this case properly before us, I would join Judge Johnson’s opinion. I agree with Judge Johnson that the majority’s opinion endorses disturbingly arbitrary guidelines for limiting access to the federal courts. I concur in Judge Tjoflat’s procedural analysis, however, that the case is not properly before us at this time; accordingly, I join in his dissent. If, in the future, the clerk of the Middle District of Florida, pursuant to that court’s injunction, should refuse to file another Procup pro se petition, Procup then could challenge the injunction by petitioning for a writ of mandamus pursuant to Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure 21(a). At such time, the case properly would be before this court for determination on the merits.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9474961. Public record. Not legal advice.