Danielle Johnson v. Graphite Solutions, Inc.
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-03184
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Danielle Johnson v. Graphite Solutions, Inc., Judge Swain denied Johnson’s motion to consolidate this closed action with another case.
Danielle Johnson’s request to combine this closed action with her separately docketed pending action was denied, and this action remains closed.
What happened
Danielle Johnson v. Graphite Solutions, Inc. concerns Johnson’s request to combine this case with a separately docketed case involving the same parties.
The court had previously dismissed this action because Johnson did not pay the filing fee or submit a fee-waiver application. The Clerk then entered judgment. Johnson later filed the complaint again, paid the filing fee, and received a new docket number for the new action, which remained pending before another judge.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied the motion to consolidate because this action was already closed and therefore could not be combined with the pending case. She stated that this action remains closed and denied fee-waiver status for any appeal.
The detailed version
- Danielle Johnson v. Graphite Solutions, Inc. · No. 1:25-cv-03184
- Laura Swain
- Oct. 8, 2025
Background
Danielle Johnson brought this action without a lawyer. The court previously dismissed her complaint because she did not pay the filing fee or submit an application to proceed without paying the fee. The Clerk of Court entered judgment, and the action was closed.
Johnson later filed the complaint again, paid the filing fee, and received a new docket number. That separate action was pending before another judge of the Southern District of New York. Johnson filed identical motions in both actions asking the court to consolidate, or combine, the cases.
Ruling
The court denied Johnson’s motion to consolidate. It relied on the conclusion in the separate, pending action that a closed case is no longer pending before the court and therefore cannot be consolidated with an open case. The court stated that this action remains closed.
The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith. As a result, it denied Johnson permission to appeal without paying the required fees.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.