Daniels v. The City of New York
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-03658
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 6
In Daniels v. City of New York, Judge Swain denied Daniels’s Rule 60(b) motions challenging earlier orders.
Marilyn Daniels’s motions were denied, and her remaining claims continued in the Eastern District of New York. The order also warned Daniels about possible future filing restrictions in this court and denied fee-free appeal status for this order.
What happened
In United States ex rel. Marilyn Daniels v. The City of New York, the court considered several submissions from Daniels, who was representing herself, challenging earlier orders in this case. Those earlier orders addressed her False Claims Act claims, unsealed the case, and transferred her remaining claims to the Eastern District of New York.
Daniels had also appealed the earlier orders and asked this court to stop the transfer. The court treated her objection, July submissions, and requests to stay the transfer as motions for relief under Rule 60(b), which allows a court to reconsider an order for specified reasons.
Judge Swain denied all of those motions because Daniels did not show that any listed reason for relief applied, including the required extraordinary circumstances. The court warned that future frivolous submissions could lead to a request that Daniels show why a filing restriction should not be imposed, and denied fee-free status for any appeal from this order.
The detailed version
- Daniels v. The City of New York · No. 1:25-cv-03658
- Laura Swain
- Aug. 1, 2025
Background
The court had previously ruled that Marilyn Daniels, who was representing herself, could not pursue her claims under the False Claims Act on behalf of the government without a lawyer. The court gave her 30 days either to retain a lawyer or withdraw the action, and warned that it would dismiss those claims without prejudice if she did neither. The court also said that she could bring any non-False Claims Act claims arising from the same facts in a separate action while representing herself.
After reviewing the complaint privately, the court lifted the seal that normally applies to a False Claims Act action, including the seal covering Daniels’s identity and mailing address. In a June 5, 2025 order, the court denied Daniels’s request for reconsideration and other pending requests, dismissed her False Claims Act claims without prejudice, completely unsealed the action, and transferred her remaining claims—including claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985, and 1986 and state-law claims—to the Eastern District of New York. Those claims remained pending there. Daniels also appealed the May 9 and June 5 orders to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Rule 60(b) motions
After filing her appeal, Daniels filed a notice objecting to the transfer, several submissions apparently seeking relief under Rule 60(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and requests to stay the transfer. The court treated all of those filings as motions asking it to reconsider the May 9 and June 5 orders under Rule 60(b).
Although filing a notice of appeal generally transfers control over the appealed aspects of a case to the appeals court, the district court explained that it could still deny Rule 60(b) relief while the appeal was pending. Rule 60(b)(1) through (5) covers reasons such as mistake, newly discovered evidence, fraud, a void judgment, or satisfaction of a judgment. The court found that Daniels had not shown that any of those reasons applied.
Rule 60(b)(6) permits relief for another reason not covered by the first five provisions, but requires extraordinary circumstances and a motion filed within a reasonable time. The court found that Daniels had not shown extraordinary circumstances. It therefore denied relief under Rule 60(b)(1) through (5), denied relief under Rule 60(b)(6), and denied all of the motions identified in the conclusion.
Other directions and disposition
The court directed the Clerk of Court to terminate any motions pending on this court’s docket. It warned Daniels that, because the action was no longer pending in this court, future frivolous or otherwise nonmeritorious submissions could lead the court to require her to explain why she should not be barred from filing further submissions about this action without the court’s permission. The court did not impose that filing restriction in this order.
Judge Swain certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied Daniels permission to appeal without prepaying fees. The order addressed whether Daniels was entitled to relief from earlier orders; it did not decide the merits of the claims that remained pending in the Eastern District of New York.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.