Nunez v. Guzman
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-00975
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Nunez v. Guzman, Judge Swain dismissed Javier Nunez’s repeat lawsuit without prejudice because he did not obtain required permission to file it.
Javier Nunez’s action was dismissed without prejudice, all other pending matters in the action were terminated, and fee-free status was denied for an appeal. The court also warned Nunez that additional sanctions could follow continued frivolous, duplicative, and non-meritorious filings.
What happened
In Nunez v. Guzman, Javier Nunez filed the case without a lawyer and asked to proceed without paying the filing fee. The complaint named defendants from an earlier related case and raised the same claims about the same events.
The court had previously barred Nunez from filing certain new cases without first getting permission. Those cases involved his eviction, services allegedly not provided to his father, and police handling of his fraud and identity-theft complaints. Nunez did not request permission before filing this case.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed the action without prejudice for violating the earlier order. She terminated all other pending matters, warned that continued frivolous litigation could lead to sanctions, and denied fee-free status for any appeal.
The detailed version
- Nunez v. Guzman · No. 1:25-cv-00975
- Laura Swain
- Feb. 7, 2025
Background
On October 31, 2023, the court barred Javier Nunez from filing future civil actions in that court without paying the filing fee—or, if he sought to proceed without paying it, without first obtaining permission from the court—when the actions concerned specified events. The specified matters were: Nunez’s 2018 eviction from a Manhattan apartment and related Housing Part proceedings; a New York City Human Resources Administration caseworker’s alleged failure to provide Nunez’s father with services; and New York City Police Department members’ alleged failure to investigate claims of fraud and identity theft.
This Action
Nunez filed this action without a lawyer on January 31, 2025, and sought permission to proceed without paying the filing fee. The complaint named defendants from the earlier related proceeding and asserted the same claims arising from the same events. The opinion states that this was the sixth complaint Nunez had filed that was dismissed under the bar order. Nunez did not seek permission to file this new action.
Ruling
The court held that the complaint fell within the earlier bar order and dismissed the action without prejudice for failure to comply with that order. The court terminated all other pending matters and directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment.
The court warned that continued filing of frivolous, duplicative, and non-meritorious litigation could result in additional sanctions, including monetary penalties. It also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Nunez permission to proceed without paying the filing fee for purposes of an appeal.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.