Drevaleva v. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
- Joseph Spero
- 4:18-cv-03748
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Drevaleva v. Glazer, Magistrate Judge Spero granted Tatyana Drevaleva’s fee-waiver request and referred the case to determine whether it relates to earlier cases.
Tatyana Drevaleva, the self-represented plaintiff, received permission to proceed without paying the filing fee. The case’s defendants and the parties in the potentially related cases could be affected by the referral and any later decision about whether the cases should be treated as related.
What happened
In Drevaleva v. Glazer, Tatyana Drevaleva, representing herself, asked to proceed without paying the filing fee. She said her claims were based on essentially the same facts as several other cases she had filed.
The court noted that the earlier cases had been assigned to Judge William Alsup as related cases. One earlier related proceeding had been sent back by the U.S. Court of Appeals for further proceedings, although the appeals court’s mandate had not yet issued.
The court granted Drevaleva’s request to proceed without paying the filing fee and referred this case to Judge Alsup to decide whether it was related to that earlier proceeding and the other related cases. Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero said the complaint’s sufficiency and service of process would be addressed after the related-case decision.
The detailed version
- Drevaleva v. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs · No. 4:18-cv-03748
- Joseph Spero
- Jan. 25, 2021
Background
Tatyana Drevaleva filed this case without a lawyer and applied to proceed without paying the filing fee. She acknowledged that her claims arose from essentially the same facts as several other cases she had filed. Those cases had been assigned to Judge William Alsup after he determined that they were related.
The court also noted that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had sent back one of the earlier related proceedings for further proceedings, but that the appellate mandate had not yet issued. The opinion refers to that earlier proceeding by case number 18-cv-03748-WHA and does not resolve the underlying claims here.
Rulings
The court granted Drevaleva’s application to proceed without paying the filing fee because good cause had been shown. It then referred this case under Civil Local Rule 3-12(c) to Judge Alsup to determine whether it was related to case number 18-cv-03748-WHA and the other cases related to that case. The parties could file responses supporting or opposing a finding that the cases were related by January 29, 2021.
The court expressly postponed deciding whether the complaint was sufficient under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B) and whether service of process was required until after the related-case determination. Judge Joseph C. Spero entered the order on January 25, 2021.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.