Mitchell v. Ms. Letitia James
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-07686
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
Elbert M. Mitchell v. Ms. Letitia James: Judge Swain dismissed this duplicate lawsuit without prejudice and waived its filing fee.
Elbert M. Mitchell’s duplicate lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice to his pending related case, and he was not charged the filing fee or subjected to deductions from his prison trust account for this action. The defendants were not required to litigate this duplicate case.
What happened
In Elbert M. Mitchell v. Ms. Letitia James, Elbert M. Mitchell, who is incarcerated, alleged that defendants lost his property during a transfer between correctional facilities. He filed the case without a lawyer under a federal civil-rights law.
The court found that he had already filed a substantially similar case involving the same facts and defendants. Because this lawsuit duplicated the pending case, the court dismissed it without prejudice to the earlier related case, identified by docket number 25-CV-6462 (LTS).
Judge Laura Taylor Swain directed the Clerk of Court not to charge the filing fee or permit deductions from Mitchell’s prison trust account for this lawsuit. She also denied fee-free status for any appeal, certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith, and directed entry of judgment.
The detailed version
- Mitchell v. Ms. Letitia James · No. 1:25-cv-07686
- Laura Swain
- Sept. 17, 2025
Background
Elbert M. Mitchell, who is incarcerated at Sing Sing Correctional Facility and is representing himself, brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He alleged that the defendants lost his property during a transfer from Green Haven Correctional Facility to Sing Sing.
Reason for dismissal
The court stated that Mitchell had previously submitted a substantially similar complaint involving the same facts and defendants. That earlier related case was pending under docket number 25-CV-6462 (LTS). Because the current complaint raised the same claims, the court concluded that filing and litigating this duplicate lawsuit would serve no useful purpose.
The court therefore dismissed the complaint without prejudice to Mitchell’s pending case under docket number 25-CV-6462 (LTS). The opinion does not decide whether the property-loss allegations are legally or factually valid.
Other orders
Because the court believed Mitchell may have submitted the duplicate complaint by mistake, it directed the Clerk of Court not to charge the $350 filing fee for this action. It also directed that the warden or superintendent with custody of Mitchell not deduct or encumber funds from his prison trust account for this lawsuit.
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal. It directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.