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S.D.N.Y.Substantive rulingFiled Jan. 5, 2021

Debellis v. Massing

Docket
7:19-cv-07834
Court
U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
Pages
1
Civil RightsCivil Procedure
In one sentence

In Debellis v. Schmoke, the court dismissed Debellis’s amended complaint entirely and closed the case because amendment would be futile.

Who this affects

Anthony F. Debellis’s case was dismissed in its entirety, and the case was closed; the judgment also affected Stephen Schmoke and the other named defendants by ending the action.

What happened

Anthony F. Debellis v. Stephen Schmoke, et al. concerned an amended complaint filed by Debellis. The judgment states that Debellis had already received one opportunity to amend and had not requested permission to file another amended complaint.

The judgment says further amendment would be futile because Debellis could not establish a lack of probable cause and his remaining claims for relief were legally flawed. The court therefore dismissed the amended complaint in its entirety and closed the case.

The judgment was entered on January 5, 2021, by the court. The supplied text refers to a separate memorandum opinion and order for the full reasons, but that memorandum is not included here.

The detailed version

For law students, journalists, and other readers who want the full reasoning

Case
Debellis v. Massing · No. 7:19-cv-07834
Date
Jan. 5, 2021

Background

The opinion text is a judgment in a case brought by Anthony F. Debellis against Stephen Schmoke and other defendants. It refers to Debellis’s amended complaint and states that he had already had one opportunity to amend the complaint. The judgment also states that he had not requested permission to file a second amended complaint.

Reasoning stated in the judgment

The judgment explains that courts often allow a self-represented plaintiff to amend a complaint before dismissal, but that leave to amend is unnecessary when amendment would be futile. It states that amendment would be futile here because Debellis could not establish a lack of probable cause and his remaining claims for relief were legally flawed. The text does not identify the specific legal claims or the procedural rule involved.

Disposition

For the reasons given in the court’s separate Memorandum Opinion and Order dated January 5, 2021, the court dismissed Debellis’s amended complaint in its entirety and closed the case. The supplied text does not state that the dismissal was with or without prejudice.

The authoritative version

Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.

Open opinion PDF →
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