Williams Steele v. Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company
- Laura Swain
- 1:24-cv-04516
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Beatrice Shirley Williams Steele v. Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company, Chief Judge Swain dismissed a duplicate action opened in error without prejudice to the pending action.
The dismissal affects Beatrice Shirley Williams Steele’s duplicate action, docket number 24-CV-4516 (LTS), but leaves her pending action under docket number 24-CV-4419 (LTS) unaffected according to the order. Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company, Robert Crane, and Diane M. White are defendants named in the dismissed action.
What happened
Beatrice Shirley Williams Steele v. Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company involved a complaint filed by Beatrice Shirley Williams Steele without a lawyer against Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company, Robert Crane, and Diane M. White. The court identified this case as an identical duplicate of an earlier-filed action under docket number 24-CV-4419.
The court said the two complaints appeared to have been filed on June 5, 2024, but opened as separate cases. It assumed that the plaintiff did not intentionally file multiple copies and that this case was opened in error.
The court dismissed this action without prejudice to the plaintiff’s pending action under docket number 24-CV-4419. Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain also denied permission to proceed without paying fees on any appeal, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith, and directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment.
The detailed version
- Williams Steele v. Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company · No. 1:24-cv-04516
- Laura Swain
- July 2, 2024
Background
Beatrice Shirley Williams Steele brought this civil action without a lawyer against Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company, Robert Crane, and Diane M. White. The complaint was first opened on June 10, 2024, as a new civil action under docket number 24-CV-4419 (LTS). On June 12, 2024, an identical complaint was opened under docket number 24-CV-4516 (LTS), the case addressed in this order. The docket sheets indicated that both complaints were filed on June 5, 2024.
Court’s reasoning
The court assumed that the plaintiff had not intentionally filed multiple copies of the same complaint and that this action had been opened in error. It concluded that filing and litigating the duplicate lawsuit would serve no useful purpose. The opinion does not decide the underlying claims against the defendants.
Ruling
The court dismissed this action without prejudice to the plaintiff’s pending action under docket number 24-CV-4419 (LTS). The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and therefore denied permission to proceed without paying fees for purposes of an appeal. The Clerk of Court was directed to enter judgment in this action. The order was signed by Chief United States District Judge Laura Taylor Swain.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.