Frost v. NYC MTA
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:19-cv-10311
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Frost v. NYC MTA, Judge McMahon dismissed Yvonne Frost’s pro se complaint as frivolous and denied fee-free appeal status.
Yvonne Frost’s case was dismissed at the court’s screening stage; she was also denied fee-free status for an appeal.
What happened
In Frost v. NYC MTA, Yvonne Frost, representing herself, sued the NYC MTA, City of New York (HRA), and the U.S. District Court. She alleged that people at those entities interfered with her communication with “G” Frost and that an MTA worker took money from her through a phone. She requested court orders and money damages.
The court allowed Frost to proceed without paying filing fees but screened and dismissed her complaint as frivolous. It said the allegations were irrational and that the complaint did not rely on a legal theory. The court also declined to let her amend because it concluded that the defects could not be fixed.
Chief United States District Judge Colleen McMahon ordered the dismissal and certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith, denying Frost fee-free status for an appeal. The order also noted that Frost had previously been barred from proceeding without paying fees unless she obtained permission from the court.
The detailed version
- Frost v. NYC MTA · No. 1:19-cv-10311
- Colleen McMahon
- Nov. 12, 2019
Background
Yvonne Frost filed the action under the court’s federal-question jurisdiction and appeared without a lawyer. The defendants were listed as NYC MTA; City of New York (HRA); and US S.D. Court. Frost identified Brooklyn, New York, as the place of occurrence and described the date as “within the last month.”
Frost alleged that she needed to communicate with “G” Frost because they had children together, but that people connected with the NYC MTA, HRA, and the district court did not want them to communicate. She also alleged that an MTA worker was stealing money from her through the worker’s phone to distribute to other MTA workers. Frost sought declaratory relief, injunctive relief, and money damages.
Screening and analysis
The court granted Frost’s request to proceed without paying filing fees. It then screened the complaint under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2)(B) and 1915A(b), which require dismissal of certain complaints filed by people proceeding without prepaying fees, including complaints that are frivolous, fail to state a claim, or seek money from an immune defendant.
The court said that, even when it interpreted Frost’s self-represented complaint generously, the claims were irrational and had no legal theory supporting them. A claim is frivolous when it lacks an arguable basis in law or fact. Although courts generally give self-represented plaintiffs an opportunity to amend defective complaints, the court concluded that amendment would be futile here and declined to grant leave to amend.
Disposition
The court dismissed Frost’s complaint as frivolous under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B). It also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal.
The order noted that Frost had filed more than thirty cases in the court between September 16, 2019, and November 6, 2019. It stated that, because she had abused the privilege of proceeding without paying fees, the court had barred her from doing so unless she obtained leave of court in a prior related proceeding. The order directed the clerk to assign the matter to Judge McMahon’s docket, mail the order to Frost, and record service on the docket.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.