Brooks v. New York State Department of Parole
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:19-cv-11125
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Brooks v. New York State Department of Parole, Judge McMahon dismissed a duplicate civil-rights lawsuit without prejudice to another pending case.
Lesimeon L. Brooks, whose duplicate lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice; the defendants were not required to litigate the claims in this action.
What happened
In Brooks v. New York State Department of Parole, Lesimeon L. Brooks, representing himself, brought a civil-rights lawsuit against the New York State Department of Parole and two parole officers. He alleged that the defendants violated his federal rights.
The court found that Brooks had filed an identical complaint in another case, docket number 19-CV-11408, where he had submitted an application to proceed without paying filing fees and a prisoner authorization. The court dismissed this complaint as duplicative, without prejudice to the pending case, and vacated its earlier order requiring payment or those documents.
Judge Colleen McMahon also directed that Brooks not be charged the filing fee for this case and that no money be taken from his prison account for it. The court denied fee-free status for an appeal after certifying that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Brooks v. New York State Department of Parole · No. 1:19-cv-11125
- Colleen McMahon
- Dec. 20, 2019
Background
Lesimeon L. Brooks, who was detained at the Eric M. Taylor Center on Rikers Island and represented himself, filed an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. That law allows a person to seek relief for violations of federal rights by a state actor. The opinion says Brooks alleged that the defendants—the New York State Department of Parole, J. Robinson, Senior Parole Officer, and Parole Officer J. Bouck—violated his federal rights.
Duplicate filing
The court had directed Brooks to pay the filing fees or submit an application to proceed without prepaying them and a prisoner authorization. Brooks then filed an identical complaint with those documents, and that filing became a separate action under docket number 19-CV-11408. Because the other action raised identical claims and included the required documents, the court concluded that continuing this duplicate lawsuit would serve no useful purpose.
Ruling
The court vacated its earlier order directing Brooks to pay the fee or submit the application and authorization. It dismissed this complaint as duplicative, without prejudice to Brooks's pending case under docket number 19-CV-11408. The court also directed that Brooks not be charged the filing fee for this action and that funds not be deducted or encumbered from his prison trust account for it. Judge Colleen McMahon certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal. The opinion did not decide the substance of Brooks's alleged federal-rights violations.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.