Lewis v. Karas
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:20-cv-07618
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Lewis v. Karas, Judge McMahon dismissed Regina Lewis’s duplicative lawsuit without prejudice and denied fee-free status for any appeal.
Regina Lewis’s action against Kenneth M. Karas was dismissed without prejudice as duplicative; her separate pending action under docket number 1:20-CV-7532 (CM) was not dismissed by this order.
What happened
In Lewis v. Karas, Regina Lewis, representing herself, sued District Judge Kenneth M. Karas under a federal civil-rights law. Judge Colleen McMahon issued the order.
Lewis had already filed a substantially similar complaint against Judge Karas in a separate case that was still pending. The court said litigating this second lawsuit would serve no useful purpose because it raised the same claims.
Judge McMahon dismissed this action without prejudice as duplicative, leaving Lewis’s pending action unaffected. The court also ruled that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Lewis permission to appeal without paying the usual filing fees.
The detailed version
- Lewis v. Karas · No. 1:20-cv-07618
- Colleen McMahon
- Sept. 17, 2020
Background
Regina Lewis, proceeding without a lawyer, brought the action under 42 U.S.C. § 1981(a) against United States District Judge Kenneth M. Karas. The opinion states that Lewis had previously filed a substantially similar complaint against Judge Karas in a pending action, docket number 1:20-CV-7532 (CM).
Reason for Dismissal
The court determined that this action raised the same claims as the pending action. It concluded that no useful purpose would be served by litigating the duplicative lawsuit.
Ruling
Judge Colleen McMahon dismissed this action without prejudice as duplicative. The dismissal was without prejudice to Lewis’s pending action under docket number 1:20-CV-7532 (CM). The opinion does not decide the underlying claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1981(a).
The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal would not be taken in good faith. It therefore denied Lewis permission to proceed without paying filing fees for purposes of an appeal. The Clerk of Court was directed to mail Lewis a copy of the order and record service on the docket.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.