Buxbaum v. Clarkstown Police Department
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-00525
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Buxbaum v. Clarkstown Police Department, Judge Swain dismissed a duplicate arrest lawsuit without prejudice and denied a fee-free appeal.
Michael Buxbaum and the Clarkstown Police Department in this duplicate lawsuit; Buxbaum’s separate pending case under docket number 25-CV-0518 was not dismissed by this order.
What happened
Michael Buxbaum, who represented himself, sued the Clarkstown Police Department over his August 28, 2022 arrest in Rockland County. He had already filed a substantially similar case against the same defendant over the same arrest, and that earlier case was still pending.
The court dismissed this complaint as duplicative, without prejudice to Buxbaum’s pending case under docket number 25-CV-0518. The court also warned that repeatedly filing duplicate lawsuits could lead to an order requiring permission before filing new cases without paying fees or to other sanctions.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment. She also ruled that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Buxbaum permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
The detailed version
- Buxbaum v. Clarkstown Police Department · No. 1:25-cv-00525
- Laura Swain
- Jan. 21, 2025
Background
Michael Buxbaum, appearing without a lawyer, brought claims against the Clarkstown Police Department arising from his arrest on August 28, 2022, in Rockland County. The opinion does not describe the specific legal claims.
The court stated that Buxbaum had previously filed a substantially similar complaint against the same defendant based on the same arrest. That earlier case remained pending under docket number 25-CV-0518.
Ruling
The court dismissed the complaint as duplicative because litigating a second case involving the same claim would serve no useful purpose. The dismissal was without prejudice to Buxbaum’s pending case under docket number 25-CV-0518.
The court also noted that Buxbaum had filed dozens of cases since December 9, 2024, some of which had been dismissed as duplicative. It cautioned that additional repetitive or duplicative filings could result in a prefiling injunction—an order requiring a litigant to obtain permission before filing certain new actions without paying filing fees—or other sanctions. The court did not impose such an injunction in this order.
Appeal and Judgment
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees. It directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment in this action.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.