Ou-Young v. County of Santa Clara
- Yvonne Rogers
- 4:21-cv-07922
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Ou-Young v. County of Santa Clara, Judge Rogers denied motions to vacate pre-filing orders, obtain show-cause orders, and vacate a stay.
Pro se plaintiff Kuang-Bao Paul Ou-Young, whose motions were denied, and the defendants, whose stay of the time to answer remained in place.
What happened
In Ou-Young v. County of Santa Clara, pro se plaintiff Kuang-Bao Paul Ou-Young asked the court to set aside pre-filing screening orders from two earlier cases and to issue orders requiring judges to explain those orders.
The court said Ou-Young had previously been told that one district judge could not vacate a judgment from a closed case before another judge, and that the law and facts had not changed. It also said criminal statutes cited by Ou-Young did not create a private lawsuit, and that judges are protected from civil liability for judicial acts.
The court denied the requests for show-cause orders, denied the requests to vacate the pre-filing screening orders, and denied the motion to vacate the stay of defendants’ time to answer. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers also vacated the scheduled hearings.
The detailed version
- Ou-Young v. County of Santa Clara · No. 4:21-cv-07922
- Yvonne Rogers
- Nov. 9, 2021
Background
Pro se plaintiff Kuang-Bao Paul Ou-Young filed two motions labeled motions for orders to show cause and to vacate orders. He sought to vacate a pre-filing review order issued by Judge Edward M. Chen in an earlier case and a pre-filing screening order issued by Judge Beth Labson Freeman in another earlier case. Those orders require pre-filing screening based on the court’s description of Ou-Young’s record of filing frivolous and vexatious lawsuits in the district.
The opinion states that Ou-Young had previously sought to vacate the screening orders before other district judges and that those requests had been denied. It also states that he had already been told that a district court could not vacate the judgment of a closed case before another district judge. The court found that the law and facts had not changed and that Ou-Young’s effort to relitigate the issues in this case was improper.
Show-Cause Requests
To the extent Ou-Young requested orders requiring the judges to explain themselves, the court held that there is no private right of action under criminal statutes such as 18 U.S.C. § 242. A private right of action is a person’s ability to bring a lawsuit under a statute. The court also held that 42 U.S.C. § 1987 does not provide a private right of action. In addition, it stated that judges are absolutely immune from civil liability for their judicial acts.
Stay of Defendants’ Answer Period
The court found no basis to disturb Judge Chen’s order staying the time for defendants to answer Ou-Young’s complaint while pre-filing review was pending. The court said that Ou-Young had filed dozens of lawsuits since the screening orders were imposed, and that the stay served judicial economy and reduced potential prejudice to defendants. It found good cause for the stay.
Disposition
The court denied Ou-Young’s requests to vacate the two pre-filing screening orders. It denied his requests for orders to show cause. It also denied his motion to vacate the stay of defendants’ time to answer. The order states that these rulings terminated Docket Nos. 23 and 25. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 78(b) and the court’s local rules, the court decided the motions without oral argument and vacated the hearings scheduled for December 7 and December 14, 2021.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers signed the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.