Calvino v. Couleone
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:20-cv-00379
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Calvino v. Couleone, Judge McMahon dismissed the pro se complaint as frivolous and denied fee-free status for an appeal.
Ernest Calvino Jr.’s complaint was dismissed, and he was denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees. Julio Couleone was not required to respond to the claims in this order.
What happened
In Calvino v. Couleone, Ernest Calvino Jr. sued Julio Couleone after alleging that someone had used his identity to place his assets, money, businesses, and property under another name. He asked the court to transfer those things into his name.
Calvino filed the case without a lawyer and was allowed to proceed without paying filing fees in advance. The court said his allegations were irrational and did not identify a legal theory that could support his requested relief.
Judge Colleen McMahon dismissed the complaint as frivolous and denied Calvino permission to appeal without paying fees. The court also declined to let him amend the complaint because it found that the defects could not be fixed.
The detailed version
- Calvino v. Couleone · No. 1:20-cv-00379
- Colleen McMahon
- Jan. 22, 2020
Background
Ernest Calvino Jr. brought the action against Julio Couleone using the court’s general complaint form. Calvino proceeded without a lawyer. The court had granted his request to proceed without prepaying filing fees, commonly called proceeding in forma pauperis or IFP.
Calvino checked the form’s box for federal-question jurisdiction. In response to the question asking which federal constitutional or statutory rights had been violated, he wrote: “I.D. transfer because my [a]sset, money, [b]usiness, property are in that name.” He alleged that he was a victim of identity theft and that someone had created another name to protect his assets, money, businesses, and property. He asked the court to transfer all of those assets, money, property, and businesses to his name. He listed his injuries as lost money and lost time.
Court’s Analysis
The court explained that it must dismiss an IFP complaint that is frivolous, fails to state a claim for relief, seeks money from an immune defendant, or falls outside the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction. It also said that allegations from a person without a lawyer must be read liberally and interpreted to raise the strongest claims they suggest.
Even under that standard, the court concluded that Calvino’s claims were irrational and had no legal theory supporting them. The court determined that the complaint was frivolous under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i). It also found that amendment would be futile, meaning that changing the complaint would not cure its defects, so it declined to give Calvino permission to amend.
The opinion also noted that Calvino had filed 68 actions in the court between December 17, 2019, and January 17, 2020, and that more than 30 had been dismissed as frivolous. The court had previously warned him that further vexatious or frivolous litigation could lead to restrictions on filing new IFP actions without prior permission. The court’s discussion of those earlier matters did not impose a new filing restriction in this order.
Disposition
Judge Colleen McMahon dismissed Calvino’s complaint as frivolous under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i). The court certified that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied IFP status for purposes of an appeal. The opinion does not state that the dismissal was with or without prejudice.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.