Chen v. Vasan
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-02938
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 8
In Chen v. Vasan, Judge Swain dismissed Victor Chen’s fee-waiver complaint as frivolous and ordered him to explain why future fee-waiver filings should not require permission.
Victor Chen’s complaint was dismissed. He was given 30 days to oppose a possible bar on future fee-waiver filings in the Southern District of New York, and fee-waiver status was denied for an appeal. The defendants were not required to litigate the claims on the merits in this order.
What happened
In Chen v. Vasan, Victor Chen sued Commissioner Ashwin Vasan, the New York City Department of Health, Director Christopher Wray, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Chen, representing himself, connected his federal constitutional claims to his mother’s death in 1964 and events he said occurred from 1958 through 1964.
Chen asked the court to direct the New York City Department of Health to change his mother’s death certificate from “natural causes” to homicide and to direct the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate her death and related deaths. His filings described alleged experimentation, imprisonment, sabotage, and an international conspiracy, but the court found no plausible factual or legal basis for those claims.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed the complaint as frivolous under the law governing fee-waiver cases. She gave Chen 30 days to explain why he should not be barred from filing future fee-waiver actions in that court without prior permission; she did not impose that bar in this order. The court also denied fee-waiver status for an appeal, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Chen v. Vasan · No. 1:22-cv-02938
- Laura Swain
- Apr. 29, 2022
Background
Victor Chen filed the action without a lawyer and was allowed to proceed without paying the filing fee. He invoked federal-question and diversity jurisdiction and alleged that the defendants violated his federal constitutional rights, primarily in connection with his mother’s death in 1964. He stated that his claims arose in New York City between 1958 and 1964.
Chen attached or referenced a letter to then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, an excerpt from an earlier complaint, an excerpt from his self-published memoir, and his mother’s death certificate. The materials described Chen’s theories that his family had been imprisoned or experimented on, that his mother had been killed as part of a broad conspiracy, and that institutions and public figures were connected to those events. Chen asked the court to order the New York City Department of Health to change the cause of death on his mother’s death certificate from “natural causes” to homicide. He also asked the court to order the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate his mother’s death and related deaths, including John F. Kennedy’s death.
Court’s Analysis
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B), the court must dismiss a complaint filed without the filing fee if it is frivolous, malicious, fails to state a claim for relief, or seeks money from a defendant protected from such relief. A claim is frivolous when its factual allegations are clearly baseless or its legal theory has no arguable merit.
The court concluded that Chen’s allegations about experiments involving his family in the 1950s and 1960s and his mother’s alleged killing as part of an international conspiracy linked to John F. Kennedy’s death lacked plausible factual support and appeared irrational. The court also found no apparent legal theory supporting relief. It therefore dismissed the complaint as frivolous under § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i). The court stated that amendment would be futile because the defects could not be cured, so it did not give Chen permission to amend.
Order to Show Cause and Disposition
The court noted that Chen had filed five other cases that were dismissed as frivolous. Because of that litigation history, the court ordered Chen to show cause within 30 days, by declaration, why he should not be barred from filing future actions in that court without paying the filing fee unless he first obtained court permission. The order warned that the bar would be entered if Chen failed to submit the declaration or failed to show good cause. The court did not yet enter that filing bar.
The court directed the clerk to keep the matter open until a civil judgment was entered. It certified that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Chen permission to proceed without paying the filing fee for an appeal.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.