Jones v. Westside Building and Restoration, Inc.
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-03339
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
Jones v. Westside, Judge Swain denied the plaintiffs’ request to halt their eviction after finding they had not shown likely success against a private company.
Shelly Jones and Warren Jones were denied an order stopping the scheduled eviction and were denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees. Westside Building and Restoration, Inc. was not ordered to stop the eviction by this federal order.
What happened
In Jones v. Westside Building and Restoration, Inc., Shelly Jones and Warren Jones, representing themselves, asked the court to stop an eviction scheduled for June 3, 2025. They argued that the eviction was based on an illegal foreclosure that violated constitutional rights.
Westside Building and Restoration, Inc., a private company, had started the eviction proceedings in Poughkeepsie City Court. The federal court said the plaintiffs had not shown that they were likely to succeed or that their claims presented serious questions deserving litigation with the hardships favoring them.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied the plaintiffs’ requests for preliminary injunctive relief and their requests for an order requiring the defendant to respond. She also denied permission to appeal without paying the filing fees, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Jones v. Westside Building and Restoration, Inc. · No. 1:25-cv-03339
- Laura Swain
- June 3, 2025
Background
Shelly Jones and Warren Jones, who were representing themselves, filed a petition and a letter seeking preliminary injunctive relief. They asked the court to stay, or stop, an eviction scheduled for June 3, 2025. The opinion states that Westside Building and Restoration, Inc., a private company, initiated eviction proceedings in Poughkeepsie City Court and obtained a warrant of eviction dated April 2, 2025.
The plaintiffs claimed that the eviction was based on an illegal foreclosure conducted in violation of due process and that it infringed their rights under the Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and Fourteenth Amendments.
Court’s analysis
A preliminary injunction is an extraordinary court order issued before final judgment. The court stated that the plaintiffs had to show irreparable harm and either a likelihood of success on the merits or sufficiently serious legal questions combined with a balance of hardships strongly favoring them.
The court concluded that the plaintiffs’ submissions did not make either required showing. It explained that they were asserting constitutional claims against a private entity. Citing the rule that constitutional claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 must be brought against a person acting under state law, the court found that the plaintiffs had not shown a likelihood of success or serious questions supporting preliminary relief. The court did not decide whether the alleged foreclosure was illegal.
Rulings
The court denied the plaintiffs’ requests for preliminary injunctive relief, identified as ECF Nos. 3 and 10. In the conclusion, it stated that the plaintiffs’ requests for an order to show cause were denied. An order to show cause would have required the defendant to respond to the requested relief.
The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying the filing fees. The court said it would issue an explanatory order later and referred the plaintiffs to a courthouse legal-assistance clinic.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.