Anderson v. GM Motor & Shareholders
- Laura Swain
- 1:21-cv-08038
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Anderson v. GM Motor & Shareholders, Judge Swain dismissed the duplicate complaint without prejudice and denied appeal fee-waiver status.
Larry A. Anderson’s duplicate complaint was dismissed without prejudice, while his earlier related case remained pending. The order also denied him permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
What happened
In Anderson v. GM Motor & Shareholders, Larry A. Anderson brought the action without a lawyer against GM Motor & Shareholders, Mary Barra, Mark Reuss, and Dan Ammam. The court said he had already filed a substantially similar complaint asserting the same claims against the same defendants, and that earlier case was still pending.
The court concluded that litigating this duplicate lawsuit would serve no useful purpose. It dismissed this complaint without prejudice to Anderson’s pending case under docket number 21-CV-1006 (JMF), and directed the Clerk of Court to terminate all other pending matters.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Anderson the ability to proceed without paying filing fees for an appeal. The dismissal was without prejudice as to the pending earlier case.
The detailed version
- Anderson v. GM Motor & Shareholders · No. 1:21-cv-08038
- Laura Swain
- Jan. 7, 2022
Background
Larry A. Anderson brought this action without a lawyer against GM Motor & Shareholders, Mary Barra, Mark Reuss, and Dan Ammam. The court stated that Anderson had previously filed a substantially similar complaint against the same defendants asserting the same claims. That earlier case, docket number 21-CV-1006 (JMF), was pending and had been assigned as related to multidistrict litigation.
Reason for Dismissal
The court determined that no useful purpose would be served by litigating a duplicate lawsuit while the earlier case remained pending. The court therefore dismissed the complaint as duplicative.
Ruling
The court dismissed the complaint without prejudice to Anderson’s pending case under docket number 21-CV-1006 (JMF). It directed the Clerk of Court to terminate all other pending matters. The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied Anderson permission to proceed without paying filing fees for an appeal.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.