Grimsley v. Nike Corp.
- Laura Swain
- 1:21-cv-10745
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Grimsley v. Nike, Judge Swain denied Grimsley’s second reconsideration motion, leaving the case closed and denying fee-waiver status for an appeal.
Robert Grimsley’s second motion for reconsideration was denied; the case remains closed, and permission to appeal without prepaying fees was denied.
What happened
In Grimsley v. Nike Corp., the court had dismissed Robert Grimsley’s case without prejudice in 2022 because he did not submit the required fee-waiver and prisoner forms or pay the filing fees.
Grimsley later asked the court to reconsider and disqualify the judge, but those requests were denied. His second request for reconsideration, filed in February 2025, was also denied for the same reasons. The case remains closed.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ruled that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Grimsley permission to appeal without paying the required fees.
The detailed version
- Grimsley v. Nike Corp. · No. 1:21-cv-10745
- Laura Swain
- May 12, 2025
Background
On February 3, 2022, the court dismissed this action without prejudice under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1914 and 1915. The opinion states that Robert Grimsley had failed either to submit a completed application to proceed without prepaying filing fees, along with a required prisoner authorization, or to pay the fees required to file a civil action.
Grimsley then moved for reconsideration and for the court’s recusal, meaning that he asked the judge to step aside. The court denied those motions on June 6, 2022. More than two years later, Grimsley filed a motion seeking to “disqualify and vacate,” which the court denied for the same reasons. He filed a second motion for reconsideration on February 11, 2025.
Ruling
The court denied the second motion for reconsideration for the same reasons stated in its earlier orders. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate the motion, and the matter remains closed.
The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith. It therefore denied Grimsley permission to proceed without prepaying fees for an appeal. Judge Laura Taylor Swain signed the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.