Weathers v. Carter
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-06501
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Weathers v. Carter, Judge Swain dismissed a duplicate civil-rights lawsuit without prejudice to a pending case and waived its filing fee.
Richard Bill Weathers, Jr.; the dismissal leaves his pending related proceeding under docket number 24-CV-9105 unaffected, and the court directed that he not be charged the filing fee for this action.
What happened
In Weathers v. Carter, Richard Bill Weathers, Jr., who is incarcerated and representing himself, sued Shawn Corey Carter under a federal civil-rights law, alleging that Carter was abusing him.
The court dismissed the lawsuit because Weathers had already filed a substantially similar case involving the same facts and claims. The dismissal was without prejudice to Weathers’s pending case, docket number 24-CV-9105.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain directed the Clerk not to charge the filing fee or take money from Weathers’s prison account for this lawsuit. She also denied fee-free status for any appeal and directed the Clerk to enter a civil judgment.
The detailed version
- Weathers v. Carter · No. 1:25-cv-06501
- Laura Swain
- Aug. 11, 2025
Background
Richard Bill Weathers, Jr., an incarcerated plaintiff representing himself, brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal law allowing certain civil-rights claims against state actors. He alleged that Defendant Shawn Corey Carter was abusing him. The court stated that Weathers had already submitted a substantially similar complaint against Carter based on the same facts and allegations in a prior related proceeding, docket number 24-CV-9105, which remained pending.
Ruling
The court dismissed the complaint as duplicative because filing and litigating another case raising the same claims would serve no useful purpose. The court stated that the dismissal was without prejudice to Weathers’s pending case under docket number 24-CV-9105. The opinion does not decide whether the abuse allegations are legally or factually valid.
Fees and Appeal
The court directed the Clerk of Court not to charge Weathers the $350 filing fee for this action. It also directed that the official responsible for his custody not deduct or encumber funds from his prison trust account for this lawsuit. The court certified that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for an appeal. The Clerk was directed to enter a civil judgment. Judge Laura Taylor Swain signed the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.