Stauffer v. Trump
- Kimba Wood
- 1:24-cv-05698
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Stauffer v. Trump, Judge Wood dismissed the amended complaint after statutory screening and denied fee-free appeal status.
The judgment affected Howard Richard Staufier by dismissing his amended complaint and denying permission to proceed without prepaying fees for an appeal. Donald J. Trump was the defendant.
What happened
In Stauffer v. Trump, Howard Richard Staufier sued Donald J. Trump. The judgment states that Staufier filed an amended complaint without paying the filing fee under a statute allowing qualifying litigants to proceed without prepaying fees.
The court dismissed the amended complaint under the federal statute governing screening of complaints filed without prepaying fees. The judgment gives no details about the claims or the reasons for dismissal, referring instead to a July 2, 2025 order.
Judge Kimba Wood’s judgment also said that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for an appeal. The judgment was entered on July 8, 2025.
The detailed version
- Stauffer v. Trump · No. 1:24-cv-05698
- Kimba Wood
- July 8, 2025
What the judgment says
The plaintiff is identified in the caption as Howard Richard Staufier, and the defendant is Donald J. Trump. The judgment states that the plaintiff filed an amended complaint while proceeding under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(1), which allows a qualifying person to file without prepaying the filing fee.
Ruling
The court dismissed the amended complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B). The judgment refers to the court’s July 2, 2025 order for the reasons for dismissal, but that order is not included in the supplied text. Accordingly, the supplied judgment does not identify the claims, explain the screening grounds, or state whether the dismissal concerned the entire complaint or particular claims.
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith. It therefore denied the plaintiff permission to proceed without prepaying fees for an appeal. The judgment was dated July 8, 2025, and was entered by the clerk of court.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.