Wade v. Gilliland
- 3:10-cv-00425
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
Wade v. Gilliland: the court denied Elroy K. Wade’s preliminary-injunction motion as frivolous, and the judge’s name is unclear in the opinion text.
Elroy K. Wade’s request for a preliminary injunction was denied; the defendants prevailed on that motion, and the scheduled hearing was vacated.
What happened
In Wade v. Gilliland, pro se plaintiff Elroy K. Wade challenged a 2010 order requiring him to obtain pre-filing review before bringing certain lawsuits involving the Department of Labor and related government officials. The court had previously declared him a vexatious litigant, meaning a person subject to restrictions because of repetitive litigation.
Wade filed a motion for a preliminary injunction, which is a temporary order meant to prevent harm while a case continues. He argued that the pre-filing order was unconstitutional and invalid. The defendants argued that the court had already rejected the same arguments in 2019 and that an appeal from that ruling had temporarily removed the court’s authority to act.
The court said the appeal had since been resolved and denied Wade’s motion for a preliminary injunction as frivolous. It also vacated the scheduled hearing. The opinion is signed by the court; the judge’s full name is unclear in the provided text.
The detailed version
- Wade v. Gilliland · No. 3:10-cv-00425
- July 28, 2020
Background
Elroy K. Wade, representing himself, filed another motion for a preliminary injunction challenging a 2010 pre-filing order. The opinion describes Wade as a vexatious litigant and says that the court had previously imposed restrictions after his repetitive litigation involving the Department of Labor.
The 2010 order requires Wade to submit for pre-filing review any self-represented civil complaint involving substantially the same allegations against the Department of Labor, its employees, the United States, or another government official in connection with his disputes with the Department of Labor arising from his prior employment in the Office of Federal Programs Contract Compliance. The opinion states that an appellate court affirmed the earlier ruling.
Wade’s Motion and the Defendants’ Response
In 2019, Wade filed a motion for a preliminary injunction arguing that the 2010 pre-filing order was invalid and unconstitutional. The court denied that motion in March 2019, reasoning that the pre-filing order was properly imposed under the district court’s inherent authority under Section 1651(a) of the All Writs Act. Wade appealed the 2019 order, and that appeal was pending when he filed the current motion.
The federal defendants argued that the current motion should be dismissed because the 2019 order had already rejected Wade’s identical arguments. They also argued that the pending appeal deprived the district court of jurisdiction over the matters being appealed. After the defendants filed their opposition, the appellate court affirmed the 2019 order. The district court therefore said the jurisdiction argument was moot because the appeal had ended and the court again had jurisdiction.
Ruling
The court agreed with the defendants’ argument that Wade’s current motion repeated arguments already rejected in 2019. It denied Wade’s motion for a preliminary injunction as frivolous. The court also vacated the August 6 hearing. The opinion does not state that the motion was denied with or without prejudice.
Disposition
The motion for a preliminary injunction was denied as frivolous, and the scheduled hearing was vacated.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.