Quinones v. DPA Landlouds
- Louis Stanton
- 1:25-cv-05306
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Quinones v. DPA Landlords, Judge Stanton dismissed Hilaria Quinones's complaint filed without paying filing fees as frivolous because it lacked plausible factual support.
Hilaria Quinones’s fee-waived complaint was dismissed, and the named defendants were no longer required to respond to this complaint in the district court. The warning also concerned Quinones’s possible future fee-waived filings.
What happened
In Quinones v. DPA Landlords, Hilaria Quinones sued several named defendants after the case was transferred from the Eastern District of New York. She was allowed to proceed without paying filing fees.
Quinones alleged violations involving privacy, identity, safety, and illegal entries, and sought a safety and protection plan. The court found that the complaint did not provide plausible factual support for those allegations.
Judge Louis L. Stanton dismissed the complaint as frivolous under the federal statute governing fee-waived cases. He declined to allow an amended complaint, directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment, and warned that continued frivolous filings could lead to restrictions on future fee-waived complaints.
The detailed version
- Quinones v. DPA Landlouds · No. 1:25-cv-05306
- Louis Stanton
- July 9, 2025
Background
The action was originally filed in the Eastern District of New York and transferred to the Southern District of New York. The court had granted Hilaria Quinones permission to proceed without prepaying filing fees. Her complaint invoked federal-question jurisdiction and alleged that the defendants had violated her constitutional, privacy, identity, personal, and safety rights. The complaint referred to alleged illegal entries and other conduct that Quinones described as threats to her safety and privacy. She sought a safety and protection plan involving her residence.
Court’s analysis
Because Quinones was proceeding without prepaying filing fees, the court was required to screen the complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B). That statute requires dismissal of an action that is frivolous, malicious, fails to state a claim for relief, or seeks money from an immune defendant. The court also noted that it must dismiss claims when it lacks authority to hear them.
The court said it was required to read a self-represented litigant’s pleadings generously and consider the strongest claims suggested by the filing. Even applying that standard, however, it found that the complaint did not plausibly support Quinones’s allegations that the defendants had dangerously breached her privacy or safety. The court concluded that the allegations were irrational and factually frivolous, meaning they lacked an arguable basis in fact or law. The court therefore dismissed the complaint under § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i).
Disposition and warning
Judge Louis L. Stanton declined to grant Quinones permission to amend the complaint because he found that its defects could not be cured by amendment. The court also discussed Quinones’s history of filing other self-represented complaints, several of which had been dismissed as frivolous or for failing to state a claim, without reproducing the names of those earlier proceedings. The court warned that continued filings that are frivolous or fail to state a claim could lead to an order requiring Quinones to explain why she should not be barred from filing new complaints without prepaying fees unless she first obtained permission. The court directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.