Murray v. Fox
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-05604
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Murray v. Fox, Judge Swain dismissed the duplicate civil-rights lawsuit without prejudice and ordered that no filing fee be charged.
The order dismissed Daniel S. Murray’s duplicate lawsuit while leaving his pending case under docket number 25-CV-4880 (CS) unaffected. It also prevented collection of the filing fee and deductions from his prison trust account for this action.
What happened
Murray v. Fox was brought by Daniel S. Murray, who is incarcerated at Warren County Jail and represented himself. He claimed that events at Green Haven Correctional Facility violated his rights under a federal civil-rights law.
The court found that Murray had already filed a substantially similar case against the same defendants involving the same claims. That earlier case remains pending under docket number 25-CV-4880 (CS), so the court determined that this duplicate lawsuit served no useful purpose.
Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed this action without prejudice to Murray’s pending case. She also ordered that Murray not be charged the $350 filing fee and that no money be taken or held from his prison trust account for this case. The court denied permission to appeal without paying fees, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Murray v. Fox · No. 1:25-cv-05604
- Laura Swain
- July 11, 2025
Background
Daniel S. Murray, who is incarcerated at Warren County Jail and is representing himself, filed an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal law used to bring certain civil-rights claims. The claims arose at Green Haven Correctional Facility and were asserted against Sergeant Fox and other defendants.
Murray had already submitted a substantially similar complaint against the same defendants concerning the same claims in a pending case under docket number 25-CV-4880 (CS). The opinion does not describe the underlying claims in detail.
Ruling
The court dismissed this action as duplicative of the pending case. The dismissal was without prejudice to Murray’s pending case, meaning the order did not dismiss or resolve that other case. The court did not decide the merits of the underlying civil-rights claims.
Because the court believed Murray may have filed the duplicate complaint by mistake and had not yet ruled on his application to proceed without paying the filing fee, it directed the Clerk of Court not to charge the $350 filing fee. It also directed the person responsible for Murray’s custody not to deduct or hold funds from his prison trust account for this duplicate lawsuit.
The court certified that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying fees. The Clerk of Court was directed to enter judgment.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.