Shabazz v. Grainge
- Laura Swain
- 1:24-cv-05806
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Shabazz v. Grainge, Judge Swain denied Shabazz’s motion to seal an already-public case and denied fee-waiver status for an appeal.
Danny Amen Valentine Shabazz, who sought to seal the proceedings and to appeal without paying the required fees.
What happened
In Shabazz v. Grainge, Danny Amen Valentine Shabazz, representing himself, asked the court to seal the proceedings. The court had already dismissed the action without prejudice after he failed to pay the required fees or submit a completed request to proceed without paying them.
Shabazz filed the sealing motion more than five months after the case was dismissed. He said that he did not file the action and that he wanted to protect sensitive information. The case and its filings had been publicly available for months.
The court denied the motion to seal because the information had already been public and Shabazz’s concerns therefore had no legal relevance at that point. Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ruled that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying the required fees.
The detailed version
- Shabazz v. Grainge · No. 1:24-cv-05806
- Laura Swain
- Apr. 8, 2025
Background
Danny Amen Valentine Shabazz brought this action without a lawyer. In an earlier order and judgment entered in October 2024, the court dismissed the action without prejudice because Shabazz had not complied with an order requiring him either to pay $405 in filing fees or to submit a completed request to proceed without paying those fees.
The action had been filed on July 25, 2024, entered on August 1, 2024, and remained a matter of public record. On April 5, 2025, more than five months after dismissal, Shabazz moved to seal the proceedings. He stated that he did not file the action and said he sought sealing to protect sensitive information.
Court’s Reasoning
The court reasoned that the action and its filings had already been available for public scrutiny for months. It therefore concluded that any concerns arising from the filing or the information in the filings had no legal relevance at that stage.
Ruling
The court denied Shabazz’s motion to seal the proceedings. It also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying the required fees. The order was signed by Chief United States District Judge Laura Taylor Swain.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.