Bartlett v. Tribeca Lending Corp.
- Laura Swain
- 1:21-cv-03564
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Bartlett v. Tribeca Lending Corp., Judge Swain denied permission and fee-waiver status and dismissed the foreclosure-related action under an earlier filing bar.
Gregory M. Bartlett’s ability to file another federal action concerning his 2007 state-court foreclosure proceedings was restricted; the action was dismissed, and the court denied his requests for permission to file and to proceed without paying filing fees. The defendants were not required to litigate the proposed claims in this action.
What happened
In Bartlett v. Tribeca Lending Corp., Gregory M. Bartlett filed a new case about his 2007 state-court foreclosure proceedings. An earlier order barred him from filing new civil actions about those proceedings without first obtaining permission. He asked for permission to file and to proceed without paying filing fees.
Bartlett argued that his new complaint was different because it relied on a New York service-of-process law rather than a provision he had cited before. The court found that the proposed action was not meaningfully different from his earlier filings and said the claims were barred because federal district courts generally cannot review or reject state-court judgments.
Judge Swain denied Bartlett’s request for permission to file and his request to proceed without paying filing fees. She dismissed the action under the earlier filing bar and warned that additional frivolous filings could lead to sanctions, including monetary penalties. The court also denied fee-waiver status for any appeal because it certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Bartlett v. Tribeca Lending Corp. · No. 1:21-cv-03564
- Laura Swain
- June 1, 2021
Background
On January 29, 2016, the court barred Gregory M. Bartlett from filing new civil actions in the Southern District of New York concerning his 2007 state-court foreclosure proceedings unless he first obtained the court’s permission. The opinion states that Bartlett later filed five related civil actions, which the court dismissed under that bar order or as frivolous.
Bartlett filed this new case without a lawyer. He requested permission to file the complaint and asked to proceed without paying the filing fee. In his application, he said the proposed complaint was the same as his last complaint except that it no longer relied on section 1303 of New York’s Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law. He instead relied on section 308(4) of New York’s Civil Practice Law and Rules, concerning service by mail, and argued that an alleged failure to comply with that provision deprived the state court of personal jurisdiction in the foreclosure proceedings.
Court’s Analysis
The court reviewed Bartlett’s application and proposed complaint and determined that the new action was not meaningfully different from his previous filings. The court explained that changing the state-law provision cited by Bartlett did not alter the nature of the claims.
The court also held that the claims were barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. That doctrine prevents federal district courts from deciding cases brought by people who lost in state court when they complain of injuries caused by state-court judgments and ask the federal court to review or reject those judgments. The court characterized this action as part of Bartlett’s continuing pattern of vexatious and frivolous filings concerning the 2007 foreclosure action.
Disposition
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied Bartlett’s application for permission to file the complaint and denied his application to proceed without paying the filing fee. The court dismissed the action under the January 29, 2016 bar order. It warned that continued frivolous filings could result in additional sanctions, including monetary penalties, under 28 U.S.C. § 1651.
The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and therefore denied Bartlett permission to proceed without paying filing fees for an appeal. The clerk was directed to mail Bartlett a copy of the order and record service on the docket.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.