Steven Curry v. Travis Bantista

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted April 28, 2026*
Decided April 29, 2026
Before
THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge
JOSHUA P. KOLAR, Circuit Judge
REBECCA TAIBLESON, Circuit Judge
No. 24-3185
STEVEN CURRY,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
TRAVIS BANTISTA, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Central District of Illinois.
No. 22-cv-1088
Joe Billy McDade,
Judge.
O R D E R
Steven Curry appeals the dismissal of his lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 as a
sanction for barraging the court with numerous handwritten filings that the district
court considered “hieroglyphical” and “indecipherable.” Because the district court did
not abuse its discretion in dismissing after several warnings, and Curry was not entitled
to a lawyer in the absence of one willing to take the case, we affirm the judgment.
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 24-3185 Page 2
Curry is incarcerated at the Pontiac Correctional Center in Illinois. He filed a
lawsuit alleging that correctional staff and healthcare workers violated his rights under
the Eighth Amendment by, among other things, referring to him by homophobic slurs
and denying him mental healthcare.
At screening, 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, the district court dismissed Curry’s handwritten
complaint for failure state a claim, noting that his handwriting was very difficult to
read. The court allowed Curry to refile but cautioned him that it would not “spend an
inordinate amount of time trying to decipher” his handwriting. The court warned him
that an unreadable complaint would be dismissed with prejudice.
Curry filed two more handwritten complaints and, acknowledging the court’s
difficulty with his handwriting, requested an in-person hearing to explain the
allegations. The court dismissed the complaints and denied his request, noting that it
had previously instructed Curry to write clearly, and warned him that it could dismiss
“future pleadings of the same hieroglyphical nature.”
Curry filed his third and final amended complaint, seemingly handwritten by
another person, and requests for counsel. This time, the court determined that Curry
stated claims against three of the four defendants, but denied Curry’s request for
counsel, finding that he could litigate his case at this early stage.
As litigation went on, the court became increasingly frustrated by Curry’s many
handwritten submissions, issuing an order on May 22, 2024, at once disposing of over
twenty motions he had filed and emphasizing that most of his filings were illegible.
Defendants too had complained, requesting additional time because of the effort
required to interpret Curry’s handwriting, that the court granted over Curry’s objection.
The court again warned Curry that it would strike any pleading not plainly readable,
and, if he persisted, his case could be dismissed with prejudice. But the court also
agreed to try to recruit a volunteer lawyer to represent him, noting Curry’s handwriting
as its primary reason for doing so. In response to this order, Curry explained that he
tried to comply but could not control his handwriting.
Despite acknowledging the court’s warnings, Curry continued over the next four
months to file twenty more illegible motions, notices, and requests. Meanwhile, the
defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that Curry failed to exhaust his
administrative remedies regarding his claim of verbal harassment and that mental
health staff had appropriately responded to Curry’s requests for care.

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No. 24-3185 Page 3
The court then dismissed Curry’s case with prejudice as a sanction. Citing its
May 22 order, the court concluded that Curry continued to file “a barrage of
indecipherable pleadings” and that his ongoing misconduct amounted to willful abuse
of the judicial process. The court noted that Curry had apparently found someone with
legible handwriting to prepare three documents responding to the defendants’ motions
for summary judgment but had not endeavored to do the same for his other filings. The
court determined that lesser sanctions would have been ineffective because its repeated
warnings had not deterred Curry’s conduct.
On appeal, Curry spends most of his brief arguing that the district court abused
its discretion by denying his many requests for a lawyer. But this argument is entirely
misdirected; the court eventually granted his request. The record shows reasonable
efforts by the court to recruit a lawyer: the matter was referred to the court’s Pro Bono
Coordinator to search for volunteer counsel, but no one came forward to represent
Curry. The court’s ruling did not give Curry a right to a lawyer, nor was the court
obligated to search for a volunteer indefinitely. See Austin v. Hansen, 139 F.4th 604, 607
(7th Cir. 2025).
Curry next argues that the court abused its discretion by dismissing his case with
prejudice as a sanction. A court has broad authority to manage the proceedings before it
and may fashion appropriate sanctions to penalize parties that do not comply with its
orders. Fuery v. City of Chicago, 900 F.3d 450, 463–64 (7th Cir. 2018). To invoke its
inherent authority, a court must first find that the sanctioned party acted in bad faith to
violate a court order. Vega v. Chi. Bd. of Educ., 109 F.4th 948, 956 (7th Cir. 2024). We
review the court’s findings of fact for clear error and its choice of sanction for an abuse
of discretion. Martin v. Redden, 34 F.4th 564, 568 (7th Cir. 2022).
Curry maintains that he could not control the quality of his handwriting and that
it was unreasonable to demand he rely on another prisoner to write his documents. If
the problem were only Curry’s handwriting—which is difficult to read but decipherable
with sustained effort—sanctions might not have been warranted. But here, the record
supports the court’s finding that Curry willfully defied its orders by submitting
numerous and, at times, improper filings, made only worse by their inscrutability. The
court had warned Curry that if he continued submitting so many illegible papers, it
would impose other sanctions up to dismissing his case. Curry, nevertheless, persisted
in filing improper motions to compel, motions in limine, and requests to include certain
exhibits or to notify defendants of various matters, all in the same handwriting and all
while demanding that the court rule on his pending filings. On these facts, the court
reasonably found that Curry had willfully failed to comply with its orders in bad faith.

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No. 24-3185 Page 4
The choice of dismissal as a sanction was also reasonable. A sanction must be
proportionate to the circumstances, considering “the extent of the misconduct, the
ineffectiveness of lesser sanctions, the harm from the misconduct, and the weakness of
the case.” Donelson v. Hardy, 931 F.3d 565, 569 (7th Cir. 2019). Here, the court
acknowledged its duty to consider lesser sanctions. It had already stricken several of
Curry’s pleadings as illegible and recognized that this did not motivate Curry to change
his behavior. The court also considered monetary sanctions and concluded they would
not have been any more effective at stemming Curry’s frequent and illegible filings. See
Hoskins v. Dart, 633 F.3d 541, 544 (7th Cir. 2011). The time and effort the court would
have had to spend deciphering Curry’s numerous submissions also vastly outweighed
their potential merit. Curry moved to compel, for example, while defendants were still
responding to his handwritten discovery requests, and he generally demanded that the
district court rule promptly in his favor and deny the defendants more time to decipher
and respond to his arguments. The court did not abuse its discretion in finding that
Curry’s bad-faith actions justified dismissing his case as a sanction.
AFFIRMED

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