Harris v. New York Post

Background

Tony Harris, who was proceeding without a lawyer and was being held at the Eric M. Taylor Center on Rikers Island, filed this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He named the New York Post and its reporters Tomas E. Gaston and Kevin C. Downs as defendants.

Harris alleged that, on or around February 17, 2025, the New York Post published an article by Gaston and Downs discussing his arrest record. He alleged that his record was closed to public view through a Certificate of Relief of Disability and that the article exposed confidential information and portrayed him as a career criminal, even though three decades had passed since his last arrest or conviction. He asserted claims described as defamation, libel, slander, and emotional distress, and sought $20 million in damages.

The court had previously granted Harris permission to proceed without prepaying the filing fee. Because Harris was incarcerated and had received that permission, the court screened his complaint under the Prison Litigation Reform Act and the federal rules governing subject-matter jurisdiction.

Federal civil-rights claims

The court construed Harris’s allegations that his constitutional rights were violated as claims under Section 1983. To state such a claim, a plaintiff must allege both a violation of a federal right and action taken under color of state law—that is, action attributable to a state or local government.

The court held that Harris did not allege that the New York Post or the two reporters were state actors or that their conduct could be attributed to the state. The court therefore dismissed the Section 1983 claims for failure to state a claim on which relief could be granted.

Jurisdiction over state-law claims

The court considered whether it could hear Harris’s defamation and other state-law claims through diversity jurisdiction. That form of jurisdiction requires complete diversity, meaning that no plaintiff and defendant are citizens of the same state, and requires an amount in controversy exceeding $75,000.

The court found that Harris did not identify his pre-incarceration domicile and did not provide facts about the citizenship of any defendant. It therefore could not determine that the parties were citizens of different states. The complaint consequently lacked the allegations required for diversity jurisdiction.

Because the court dismissed the claims over which it had original jurisdiction, it declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction—the court’s authority to hear related state-law claims—in this case.

Disposition

The court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim on which relief could be granted and for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. It granted Harris 60 days to amend his complaint to allege facts showing that the court has jurisdiction over his state-law claims. If he does not file an amended complaint within that period, the court stated that the Clerk will be directed to enter judgment dismissing the action.

The court also certified that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Harris permission to appeal without prepaying fees. The court directed the Clerk to keep the matter open on the docket until a civil judgment is entered.