Nunez v. Barker
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-02619
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Nunez v. Barker, Judge Swain dismissed the action without prejudice because it violated an earlier filing bar.
Javier Nunez’s action was dismissed without prejudice, and his ability to file certain future fee-free civil actions remains subject to the earlier permission requirement. The order also warns him that further frivolous, duplicative, or non-meritorious filings may lead to additional sanctions.
What happened
Nunez v. Barker involved Javier Nunez’s new lawsuit against Jesse Barker. The court said the complaint repeated claims about Nunez’s 2018 eviction, related housing proceedings, a caseworker’s failure to provide services to his father, and police failures to investigate alleged fraud and identity theft.
An earlier court order barred Nunez from filing new lawsuits without first obtaining permission if he sought to proceed without paying filing fees. Nunez filed this case without paying the fees or requesting permission, so the court treated him as seeking that fee-free status and found that the earlier bar applied.
Judge Swain dismissed the action without prejudice for violating the earlier order. She terminated the other pending matters, warned that continued frivolous filings could lead to additional sanctions, denied fee-free status for an appeal, and directed the clerk to enter judgment.
The detailed version
- Nunez v. Barker · No. 1:25-cv-02619
- Laura Swain
- Apr. 1, 2025
Background
Javier Nunez filed this action against Jesse Barker without a lawyer. The opinion states that Nunez filed the complaint on January 31, 2025. He did not submit an application to proceed without paying filing fees, but he also did not pay the $405 filing fee, so the court assumed that he sought to proceed without paying the fee.
The court had previously ordered that Nunez could not file future civil actions without first obtaining permission if the actions arose from certain events. Those events included his 2018 eviction from a Manhattan apartment and related Housing Part proceedings; a New York City Human Resources Administration caseworker’s alleged failure to provide services to Nunez’s father; and New York City police officers’ alleged failure to investigate claims of fraud and identity theft. The opinion states that this was the seventh complaint Nunez had filed that was dismissed under the bar order.
Reason for Dismissal
The court found that Nunez’s complaint asserted the same claims arising from the same events as his earlier case and therefore fell within the earlier filing bar. Nunez did not ask for permission to file the new action. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1651, the court dismissed this action without prejudice for failing to comply with the earlier order.
Rulings and Effect
The court terminated all other pending matters in the action and directed the clerk to enter judgment. It warned Nunez that continuing to file frivolous, duplicative, and non-meritorious litigation could result in additional sanctions, including monetary penalties. The court also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying appeal-related fees. The opinion does not decide the underlying allegations against Jesse Barker.
Classification
This is a procedural order because the court dismissed the action for violating a filing restriction without deciding the merits of Nunez’s claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.