Abulkhair v. The Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Laura Swain
- 1:24-cv-02151
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Abulkhair v. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Judge Swain denied a request to file a corrected complaint and kept the action closed.
The ruling directly affected Assem Abulkhair’s request to file a corrected complaint in the closed action. The opinion identifies the defendants as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and others but does not identify the additional defendants.
What happened
Assem Abulkhair filed this action without a lawyer. The court had dismissed his complaint as frivolous, and he later asked to file a 164-page corrected complaint so an appeals court could review it.
The court had already decided that amending the complaint would be futile because its problems could not be fixed. For that same reason, it denied Abulkhair’s request to file the corrected complaint in the closed action.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain kept the action closed and denied Abulkhair’s request. She also ruled that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying court fees for an appeal.
The detailed version
- Abulkhair v. The Federal Bureau of Investigation · No. 1:24-cv-02151
- Laura Swain
- Jan. 16, 2025
Background
Assem Abulkhair filed the action without a lawyer and under a procedure allowing a person to proceed without prepaying filing fees. On May 22, 2024, the court dismissed his complaint as frivolous under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i). Abulkhair moved for reconsideration on June 18, 2024, and filed a notice of appeal two days later. The court denied reconsideration on July 3, 2024.
On July 17, 2024, after the action had been closed, Abulkhair filed a motion titled “Notice of Motion to File Corrected Complaint.” He sought permission to file a corrected complaint for review by the appeals court and submitted a proposed 164-page amended complaint.
Court’s reasoning
The court stated that it had previously denied leave to amend because amendment would be futile, meaning that changing the complaint would not cure its defects. The court again relied on that reason and denied the request to file a corrected complaint in the closed action.
Ruling
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied Abulkhair’s request to file a “corrected complaint” and stated that the action remained closed. The court also certified that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without prepaying court fees for the appeal.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.