Ou-Young v. Leavy
- Edward Davila
- 5:19-cv-07232
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Ou-Young v. Leavy, Judge Davila denied Ou-Young’s request to vacate two pre-filing orders, ruling the request belonged in the original cases and the federal rule invoked did not apply.
Kuang-Bao Paul Ou-Young, whose motion to vacate the two pre-filing screening orders was denied; the orders were not vacated in this case.
What happened
In Ou-Young v. Leavy, Kuang-Bao Paul Ou-Young asked the court to cancel two orders requiring court review before he could file certain complaints. Judge Davila denied the request.
One order, issued by Judge Edward M. Chen in an earlier case, declared Ou-Young a vexatious litigant and required review of certain future complaints. A second order, issued by Judge Beth Labson Freeman in another case, required Ou-Young to obtain permission before suing federal judges. Ou-Young filed an amended complaint in this case that added more than 100 defendants and then sought to vacate both orders.
Judge Edward J. Davila ruled that the request had to be filed in the cases where the orders were issued, not in this case. He also ruled that the federal rule Ou-Young relied on applies only to final, appealable orders, while these screening orders were not final or immediately appealable. The court therefore denied the motion.
The detailed version
- Ou-Young v. Leavy · No. 5:19-cv-07232
- Edward Davila
- Apr. 2, 2020
Background
Kuang-Bao Paul Ou-Young moved under Rule 60(b)(4) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to vacate two pre-filing screening orders. A pre-filing screening order requires a litigant to obtain court review or permission before filing certain complaints.
On December 20, 2013, Judge Edward M. Chen issued an order declaring Ou-Young a vexatious litigant and requiring pre-filing screening for complaints involving certain statutes and parties. On December 5, 2019, Judge Beth Labson Freeman issued an order requiring Ou-Young to obtain leave of court before filing a complaint against federal judges. After Ou-Young filed a first amended complaint in this case, adding more than 100 defendants—including federal judges and court personnel, federal agency personnel, members of Congress, members of current and former White House administrations, local law-enforcement offices, and corporations—he moved to vacate both screening orders.
Court’s analysis
The court held that a district court could not vacate an order from a closed case before another district judge. Any motion seeking to vacate the first screening order had to be filed in Case No. 13-cv-04442-EMC, where Judge Chen issued it. Any motion seeking to vacate the second screening order had to be filed in Case No. 19-cv-07000-BLF, where Judge Freeman issued it. The court concluded that neither request belonged in Ou-Young’s present case.
The court also held that Rule 60(b) did not apply because that rule concerns final, appealable orders, and the screening orders were not final or immediately appealable. In addition, the court explained that an order is void under Rule 60(b)(4) only in the rare circumstance involving a qualifying jurisdictional error or a due-process violation that denied notice or an opportunity to be heard. The court found that Ou-Young had identified no such error or violation.
Disposition
Judge Edward J. Davila denied Ou-Young’s motion to vacate the pre-filing screening orders.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.