Frost v. United States
- James Donato
- 3:19-cv-05365
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Frost v. United States, Judge Donato declined Frost’s request to proceed without prepaying fees, dismissed the amended complaint, and granted leave to file a restricted second amendment.
Vinton Frost and the United States, the parties to the case.
What happened
In Frost v. United States, Vinton Frost, representing himself, alleged that the Justice Department and the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California improperly withheld and misclassified documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act. He also asked to proceed without prepaying court fees.
The court said Frost’s request for an order intervening in or reconsidering earlier cases was not allowed because this court does not review other trial courts. The court also said the amended complaint appeared to repeat claims from those cases, although it was unclear what Frost was seeking.
Judge Donato declined the request to proceed without prepaying fees and dismissed the amended complaint. He granted Frost leave to file a second amended complaint by December 16, 2019, but barred new claims or parties and required facts explaining how the case differed from Frost’s other cases. The case-management conference was canceled, and the motion for leave was terminated.
The detailed version
- Frost v. United States · No. 3:19-cv-05365
- James Donato
- Nov. 25, 2019
Background
Vinton Frost, proceeding without a lawyer, filed an initial complaint and an amended complaint against the United States. He alleged that the United States Department of Justice and the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California improperly withheld and misclassified documents in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act, a federal law that generally provides public access to federal agency records. Frost also applied to proceed without prepaying court fees.
The opinion states that Frost had filed several other actions in the district and that those actions had been dismissed. It does not reproduce those earlier case captions here. The amended complaint discussed all of those cases. The court said it was unclear what Frost was seeking and understood his request for injunctive relief to suggest that he wanted the court to intervene in or reconsider the earlier cases.
Court’s reasoning
The court stated that it does not review decisions of other trial courts. It also said that, as the amended complaint stood, Frost appeared to be repeating claims addressed in his other actions. The court cited the statutory screening provision for fee-waiver cases, 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B), and described the complaint as having infirmities. The order did not decide whether the United States actually withheld or misclassified the requested documents.
Disposition
The court declined Frost’s application to proceed without prepaying fees and dismissed the amended complaint. Frost’s request for leave to file a second amended complaint was granted, but the next complaint could not add claims or parties and had to state facts explaining how the case was materially different from his other district-court cases. The deadline was December 16, 2019. The court warned that failing to file by that date, or filing a complaint inconsistent with the order, would result in dismissal with prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b).
The court vacated the December 5, 2019 case-management conference and terminated the motion in Docket No. 7 in all respects. This order is classified as procedural because it addressed the fee-waiver and complaint-screening issues rather than deciding the underlying Freedom of Information Act allegations.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.