Rodriguez-Morales v. Joseph
- Laura Swain
- 1:24-cv-09767
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Rodriguez-Morales v. Joseph, Judge Swain denied three motions seeking a court date and arrest warrants, leaving the closed action unchanged.
Enki Rodriguez-Morales and the defendants; the action remains closed, and fee-free appeal status was denied for any appeal from this order.
What happened
In Rodriguez-Morales v. Joseph, the court had already dismissed Enki Rodriguez-Morales’s complaint for failure to state a claim and gave him 30 days to file an amended complaint. He did not do so, and judgment was entered.
Rodriguez-Morales later filed an amended complaint that the court treated as requests to change or obtain relief from the judgment, but the court denied those requests. He then filed three motions seeking a court date and the issuance of arrest warrants.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied the three motions because they offered no facts or arguments supporting reconsideration of the judgment. The action remains closed, and the court also denied permission to proceed without paying fees for any appeal because it certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Rodriguez-Morales v. Joseph · No. 1:24-cv-09767
- Laura Swain
- July 22, 2025
Background
On January 29, 2025, the court dismissed Enki Rodriguez-Morales’s complaint for failure to state a claim. The court gave him 30 days to file an amended complaint. He did not file one within that period, and the Clerk of Court entered judgment on March 26, 2025.
On April 3, 2025, Rodriguez-Morales filed an application to proceed without paying filing fees and an amended complaint. In an April 7 order, the court treated the amended complaint as including a request to alter or amend the judgment under Rule 59(e), a request for reconsideration under Local Civil Rule 6.3, and a request for relief from the judgment under Rule 60(b). The court denied those requests.
Motions at Issue
On May 9, 2025, Rodriguez-Morales filed three additional motions seeking a court date and the issuance of arrest warrants. The opinion does not describe any further factual basis for those requests.
Ruling
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied all three motions. The court stated that the motions contained no facts or arguments suggesting that the judgment should be reconsidered under Rule 60(b). The court directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the motions and stated that the action was closed.
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. As a result, permission to proceed without paying fees was denied for purposes of an appeal.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.