Winter v. Mid First Bank
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-00370
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Winter v. Mid-First Bank, Chief Judge Swain closed the case and dismissed its claims without prejudice after directing filing as a supplemental pleading.
Pamela Winter and the defendants named in this action, including Mid-First Bank and the six individual defendants. The claims were dismissed without prejudice so Winter could pursue them in the earlier pending action.
What happened
In Winter v. Mid-First Bank, Pamela Winter brought claims concerning the foreclosure of her property, alleging that the mortgage was fraudulent. She filed the case without a lawyer and invoked federal-question and diversity jurisdiction.
The court found that this case involved the same facts and some of the same defendants as Winter’s earlier pending case. It directed the Clerk of Court to file this complaint as a supplemental pleading in that earlier case rather than litigate the matters separately.
Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain ordered the Clerk to close this case and dismissed the claims against the defendants without prejudice to Winter pursuing them in the earlier case. The court also denied fee-free status for any appeal and directed the Clerk to enter judgment.
The detailed version
- Winter v. Mid First Bank · No. 1:25-cv-00370
- Laura Swain
- Jan. 17, 2025
Background
Pamela Winter, appearing without a lawyer, brought this action under federal-question and diversity-of-citizenship jurisdiction. She sued Mid-First Bank and six individuals. The claims concerned the foreclosure of property in Jefferson Valley, New York, and Winter alleged that the mortgage was fraudulent.
Winter had already filed a substantially similar action that remained pending. The earlier action involved the same set of facts and included some of the same individual defendants, although it did not include Mid-First Bank or several other defendants named in this case.
Court’s Action
The court determined that no useful purpose would be served by litigating the new action separately. It directed the Clerk of Court to file the complaint in this case as a supplemental pleading in the earlier action. The court ordered the Clerk to close this case and dismissed the claims against the named defendants without prejudice to Winter pursuing those claims in the earlier action.
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and therefore denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal. It also directed the Clerk to enter judgment. Judge Laura Taylor Swain signed the order.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.