Rosenberg v. City of New York
- Louis Stanton
- 1:20-cv-03911
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 8
In Rosenberg v. City of New York, Judge Stanton dismissed two plaintiffs’ claims without prejudice and denied anonymity and other requests, leaving Rudy Rosenberg.
Rudy Rosenberg’s case continues as the sole-plaintiff action under his real name unless he withdraws within 30 days. Jacqueline Rosenberg’s and Eltha Jordan’s claims were dismissed without prejudice, allowing them to be brought again. The pending recusal, pseudonym, reconsideration, appeal-related, temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction, and other requests were denied or otherwise resolved as stated in the order.
What happened
Rosenberg v. City of New York began when Rudy Rosenberg, Jacqueline Rosenberg, and Eltha Jordan filed a complaint without lawyers. They did not pay the filing fee, and only Rudy Rosenberg applied to proceed without paying it. After Jacqueline Rosenberg and Eltha Jordan did not submit the required applications, the court dismissed their claims without prejudice.
The court also rejected Rudy Rosenberg’s request to use a false name. It found that the case concerned misdemeanor arrests and that his claimed risks of embarrassment, public humiliation, or other harm were speculative. The court also declined to treat his filings as an appeal, denied reconsideration, and denied his requests for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction.
Judge Stanton ruled that the case would proceed with Rudy Rosenberg as the only plaintiff, using his real name, unless he told the court within 30 days that he wanted to withdraw. The court denied the recusal request as moot, denied the other requested relief, and directed the clerk to unseal the documents and terminate the pending motions.
The detailed version
- Rosenberg v. City of New York · No. 1:20-cv-03911
- Louis Stanton
- July 20, 2020
Background
Rudy Rosenberg, Jacqueline Rosenberg, and Eltha Jordan filed a complaint without lawyers and moved to proceed under pseudonyms. The plaintiffs did not pay the filing fee, and only Rudy Rosenberg applied for permission to proceed without paying it. An earlier order directed the plaintiffs to correct these issues within 30 days or face dismissal without prejudice. The complaint and related submissions were temporarily designated “court-view only.”
Rudy Rosenberg then sought the recusal of Chief Judge McMahon, clarification or reconsideration of the earlier order, and other relief. After the case was reassigned to Judge Louis L. Stanton, the court decided the pending requests.
Claims of Jacqueline Rosenberg and Eltha Jordan
The court stated that the earlier order required Jacqueline Rosenberg and Eltha Jordan each to submit an application to proceed without paying the filing fee. Neither submitted an application or requested more time. The court therefore dismissed their claims without prejudice.
Request to Proceed Under a Pseudonym
The court denied Rudy Rosenberg’s motion to proceed under a pseudonym. It explained that court filings generally must identify the parties because public access allows scrutiny of judicial proceedings. The court considered factors including the sensitivity of the information, possible harm from disclosure, the plaintiff’s vulnerability, prejudice to the defendants, whether the identity had remained confidential, the public interest, and possible alternatives to anonymity.
The court found that the claims arose from Rudy Rosenberg’s 2016 and 2017 arrests on misdemeanor charges and did not involve highly personal or sensitive information. Rosenberg alleged that defendants had stalked the plaintiffs, staged legal controversies, and defamed him and, by implication, the other plaintiffs. He also asserted that public disclosure of sealed trial records would expose him and the other plaintiffs to public scorn. The court found that embarrassment and public humiliation alone did not justify anonymity and that the alleged risk of harm was speculative. It also found that the fact that the case was a civil damages action weighed against pseudonym use.
Other Motions
The court denied Chief Judge McMahon’s recusal request as moot because the case had been reassigned. It also stated that nothing in Rosenberg’s application would cause an objective observer to infer bias.
The court directed the clerk to send Rosenberg a docket sheet concerning his requests for information about filings and mailing dates. It denied reconsideration because Rosenberg had not shown that the court overlooked controlling law or factual matters.
The court declined to treat Rosenberg’s filings as a notice of appeal from the earlier order. It stated that the earlier order was nonfinal and had not been certified for an immediate appeal.
The court denied Rosenberg’s application for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunctive relief. It found that his submissions did not show either a likelihood of success on the merits or sufficiently serious questions about the merits combined with a balance of hardships strongly favoring him.
Disposition
Judge Stanton ordered that the case proceed with Rudy Rosenberg as the sole plaintiff. The court denied the motion to proceed by pseudonym and stated that the documents, then designated “court-view only,” would be unsealed and the case would proceed under Rosenberg’s real name within 30 days unless he notified the court that he wished to withdraw the action. The court dismissed without prejudice the claims of Jacqueline Rosenberg and Eltha Jordan, denied the other requested relief, declined to recharacterize the filings as a notice of appeal, and directed the clerk to terminate all outstanding motions.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.