Stevenson v. De Blasio

Background

Eric Stevenson filed the case without a lawyer under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal law allowing certain civil-rights claims against government officials. He alleged that New York State Attorney General Letitia James, former New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, the Commissioner of the Board of Elections of the City of New York, the City Council of New York, and the Speaker of the City Council violated his federal constitutional rights by removing his name from the ballot of an unspecified election for an unspecified elected office.

Before this order, the court had dismissed Stevenson’s requests for a declaration and an injunction for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. The court had also dismissed the claims against Letitia James because they were barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Stevenson then filed an amended complaint. The remaining defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, and Rule 12(b)(6), for failure to state a claim.

Report and recommendation and Stevenson’s motion

The court referred the dismissal motion to Magistrate Judge James L. Cott. After Stevenson opposed the motion, Judge Cott issued a report and recommendation recommending that the motion be granted and that the amended complaint be dismissed with prejudice. No objections to the recommendation were received. Stevenson instead filed a motion seeking more time to respond to the dismissal motion and permission to amend his complaint a second time.

The court did not treat Stevenson’s filing as an objection to the recommendation. The court stated that, even if it were treated as an objection, the recommendation would be reviewed only for clear error because the proposed objection was general. Clear-error review asks whether the court is left with a firm conviction that a mistake was made.

Ruling

Judge Analisa Torres stated that she had reviewed the thorough and well-reasoned recommendation and found no clear error. She adopted the recommendation in its entirety and granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the amended complaint. She dismissed the amended complaint with prejudice and denied Stevenson’s motion for an extension of time to file a second amended complaint. The clerk was directed to terminate all pending motions, close the case, and mail a copy of the order to Stevenson.

The supplied order does not repeat the recommendation’s detailed reasons for dismissal beyond identifying the defendants’ jurisdictional and failure-to-state-a-claim arguments.