Maxwell v. John Doe OBCC Correction Officers 1-4
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-06767
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
Charles Maxwell v. David Carr, et al.: Judge Swain dismissed this duplicate lawsuit without prejudice and denied fee-free appeal status.
Charles Maxwell’s duplicate lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice; his substantially similar pending action under docket number 25-CV-4016 (RA) was not dismissed by this order.
What happened
In Charles Maxwell v. David Carr, et al., Charles Maxwell, representing himself, brought a civil-rights lawsuit under a federal law allowing claims against state officials. The case concerned events at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center on April 4, 2025.
The court found that Maxwell had already filed a substantially similar amended complaint against the same defendants concerning the same events. Because the two cases raised the same claims, the court dismissed this lawsuit without prejudice to Maxwell’s pending case under docket number 25-CV-4016 (RA).
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ruled that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Maxwell permission to appeal without paying the filing costs. The court did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Maxwell v. John Doe OBCC Correction Officers 1-4 · No. 1:25-cv-06767
- Laura Swain
- Aug. 18, 2025
Background
Charles Maxwell, who was detained at the Robert N. Davoren Center, filed this action without a lawyer under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal civil-rights law. He asserted claims arising from events at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center on April 4, 2025. The action was first filed in the Eastern District of New York and was transferred to the Southern District of New York.
Reason for dismissal
The court stated that Maxwell had previously submitted a substantially similar amended complaint against the same defendants arising from the same events. That earlier case remained pending under docket number 25-CV-4016 (RA). Because the present complaint raised the same claims, the court concluded that filing and litigating this duplicate lawsuit would serve no useful purpose.
Disposition
The court dismissed this action without prejudice as duplicative of Maxwell’s pending action. This ruling left the pending action under docket number 25-CV-4016 (RA) unaffected. The court did not reach the merits of Maxwell’s claims.
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 and denied permission to appeal without paying the filing costs.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.