The U.S. Supreme Court's three liberal justices on Monday disagreed with the court's denial of review in a petition by a trio of former California prisoners who challenged lower court rulings requiring each of them to pay a separate $350 filing fee to pursue a joint civil rights lawsuit.

The certiorari denial leaves in place a January 2025 Ninth Circuit ruling that the three former inmates — Topaz Johnson, Ian Henderson and Kevin Jones — could proceed together in a single lawsuit only if each paid "the full amount of a filing fee."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, said in a brief dissent that the high court missed an opportunity to resolve a circuit split over an issue that affects prisoners' access to federal courts. Justice Elena Kagan didn't join in the dissent, but a note in the opinion indicated that she would have granted the petition. 

"The ability to split fees matters because $350 is a significant amount of money, particularly to indigent prisoners," Justice Sotomayor wrote. "Requiring indigent prisoners each to pay the full $350 filing fee needlessly and unfairly makes it harder for them to vindicate their rights, challenge conditions of confinement, and (like petitioners) obtain redress for alleged mistreatment."

The dissent also emphasized the practical burden of the rule. Prisoners earn between 13 cents and $1.30 per hour on average, Justice Sotomayor wrote, and must use those wages to cover necessities such as food, phone calls, clothing, hygiene products and medical care.

Under federal law, a plaintiff who cannot afford court fees may seek to proceed "in forma pauperis," which allows a case to move forward without prepayment of filing costs. The IFP process dates to the American colonial era and was codified in federal law in 1892 to ensure that people facing financial hardship could access the courts.

Congress altered that framework in 1995 when it enacted the Prison Litigation Reform Act, which imposed additional financial obligations on incarcerated litigants in response to what lawmakers described as a surge in frivolous prisoner lawsuits.

A provision under U.S. Code Title 28, Section 1915(b)(1) provides that a prisoner proceeding IFP "shall be required to pay the full amount of a filing fee," though subsection (b)(2) allows payment in installments over time. Another provision, Section 1915(b)(3), states that "in no event shall the filing fee collected exceed the amount of fees permitted by statute."

Johnson and Henderson were incarcerated at High Desert State Prison when they filed suit in July 2022 in California federal court alleging that correctional officers forced them to stand handcuffed in "dirty, urine-smelling holding cages" measuring 2.5 feet by 2.5 feet for nearly nine hours, causing back pain, blistering and emotional distress. Jones later joined the litigation.

In November 2022, the district court concluded that the interaction of the PLRA's provisions required each plaintiff to file a separate lawsuit and pay a full $350 filing fee to proceed IFP. A divided Ninth Circuit panel reversed the severance ruling but affirmed the fee requirement, joining the Third, Seventh and Eleventh Circuits in holding that each prisoner proceeding IFP must pay the full filing fee.

Justice Sotomayor said on Monday that the Ninth Circuit's reading "produces unfair results" by allowing non-IFP prisoners to split a filing fee in a joint lawsuit while requiring each indigent prisoner to pay the full amount.

"If Congress meant to change civil procedure to make those with less pay more, it would have said so," she wrote. "Without such a command, it makes no sense to think that Congress intended for non-IFP prisoners to pay a fraction of what IFP prisoners must pay."

She said the Ninth Circuit's interpretation was likely incorrect and deepened an entrenched circuit split, noting that the Sixth Circuit permits IFP prisoners to share fees.

The justice also criticized what she characterized as the Ninth Circuit's endorsement of Congress' rationale for charging full fees, pointing to a dissenting opinion by U.S. Circuit Judge Susan P. Graber, who wrote that requiring each prisoner to pay the full fee amount removes an incentive to file jointly and may lead to prisoners filing additional, duplicate lawsuits.

Justice Sotomayor pointed out that appealing the initial filing costs an additional $600.

"That considerable sum makes it even harder for prisoners earning cents on the hour to obtain justice," she wrote. "I can only hope that the next time indigent prisoners facing this issue raise nearly $1,000 each just for the opportunity to knock on this court's door, my colleagues will choose to open it."

--Editing by Melissa Treolo.