When determining whether a prisoner's petition to proceed as a poor person is barred under statute due to having already filed three complaints that did not state a valid claim, the procedural law of the present forum controls, not the law of the forum in which the previous claims were filed.
The number of previously filed complaints is determined by counting all claims resolved before the filing date of the present action.
Concur/dissent - the discretionary power of dismissal in the PLSRA is a more efficient mechanism, and the analysis mandated here seems to foreclose that flexibility.
http://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/171222p.pdf