Bui v. Dinh
- Wilhelmina Wright
- 0:22-cv-01463
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 3
In Bui v. Dinh, Judge Wright dismissed Bui’s complaint without prejudice and denied his application to proceed without paying filing fees as moot.
Ky Van Bui’s complaint was dismissed without prejudice, including his Section 1983 claims and any implied state-law claims. His application to proceed without paying the filing fee was denied as moot. Khang Van Dinh was the defendant in the dismissed action.
What happened
In Ky Van Bui v. Khang Van Dinh, Bui alleged that Dinh gave an incorrect birth year on an immigration application in 1980. Bui said the mistake caused about $2,000 in losses while he tried to correct differences between his American passport and Vietnamese residence certificate.
Bui relied on the First, Seventh, and Ninth Amendments. The court treated the claims as an attempt to sue under a civil-rights law that applies to state actors, but Dinh was a private person. The court found no legal basis for those claims and also found no basis for federal jurisdiction over any possible state-law claims.
The complaint was dismissed without prejudice, and the application to proceed without paying filing fees was denied as moot. Judge Wilhelmina M. Wright explained that the civil-rights claims were dismissed without prejudice because it was not yet clear that amendment would be futile.
The detailed version
- Bui v. Dinh · No. 0:22-cv-01463
- Wilhelmina Wright
- June 10, 2022
Background
Ky Van Bui filed a complaint against Khang Van Dinh and applied to proceed without paying the filing fee. Bui alleged that he fled Vietnam by refugee boat in 1980 with Dinh, whom the opinion identifies as his uncle. After an American oil tanker rescued them, Dinh completed an immigration application for Bui that listed Bui’s birth year as 1964. Bui alleged that he was born in 1960 and that the resulting difference between his American passport and Vietnamese residence certificate caused about $2,000 in financial losses while he tried to correct the error.
Bui based his claims on the First, Seventh, and Ninth Amendments to the Constitution.
Analysis
The court explained that Bui appeared to be seeking relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal civil-rights law that generally permits claims against state actors. The court held that constitutional rights listed in the Bill of Rights do not generally restrict private people, and Dinh was a private party. Because the complaint had no arguable legal basis for a constitutional claim against Dinh, the court treated the Section 1983 claims as frivolous.
The court also considered whether the complaint suggested any state-law claims. Bui had not alleged a basis for original federal jurisdiction over those claims. In particular, the amount he alleged—approximately $2,000—did not meet the more-than-$75,000 amount required for diversity jurisdiction. The court stated that any state-law claims could be heard only through supplemental jurisdiction, which it declined to exercise after dismissing the federal claims.
Disposition
The court dismissed the complaint without prejudice. It also dismissed without prejudice Bui’s Section 1983 claims and dismissed without prejudice any state-law claims implied by the complaint. The court denied Bui’s application to proceed without paying the filing fee as moot because the complaint had been dismissed. The court stated that the Section 1983 claims were dismissed without prejudice because it was not yet apparent that amending the complaint would be futile.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.