Zappin v. Comfort

Background

The court considered defendants’ motions to dismiss Anthony Zappin’s Third Amended Complaint. Harriet Newman Cohen and Cohen Rabin Stine Schumann LLP—the Cohen Defendants—also sought an order restricting Zappin from filing certain future cases without court permission. Magistrate Judge Ona Wang recommended dismissing the complaint in full and issuing that filing restriction. Zappin objected to the recommendation, and the Cohen Defendants responded.

The district court noted that Zappin was representing himself but was a practicing lawyer with litigation experience. It therefore did not give him the special consideration generally provided to self-represented plaintiffs. The court also noted that Zappin had not filed an opposition brief to the motions to dismiss. It said the arguments in his objections were therefore new arguments that ordinarily need not be considered. Even when reviewing the objections independently, however, the court rejected them for the reasons stated in the report and recommendation.

Reasons for dismissal

The court held that the complaint was barred by the domestic-relations exception to federal jurisdiction. It agreed that the central subject of the complaint was the custody action and the disciplinary and fee proceedings that arose from it. The court stated that a plaintiff cannot create federal jurisdiction by presenting a domestic dispute as a tort claim for money damages.

The court also held that the claims were barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, a rule that generally prevents federal district courts from reviewing injuries allegedly caused by state-court judgments. The court found that Zappin’s claims arose from the state-court proceedings and rejected his argument that the doctrine did not apply to claims connected to the disciplinary action. According to the court, Zappin alleged that the disciplinary action directly followed the custody decision, which had been entered before this federal case began.

The court alternatively adopted the recommendation that the complaint be dismissed for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which concerns whether a complaint adequately alleges a legally viable claim. It also adopted the recommendation involving collateral estoppel, a rule that can prevent relitigation of an issue already decided. The court did not discuss those recommendations further because it had already determined that the action had to be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.

Pre-filing injunction and disposition

The court adopted the recommendation to issue a pre-filing injunction. The injunction prevents Zappin from filing further actions arising from the custody action and the disciplinary and fee proceedings, including actions that collaterally attack decisions entered in those proceedings, unless he first obtains court approval. The court found no clear error in the recommendation because Zappin’s objection to the injunction was conclusory and did not address the factors used to decide whether such an order is warranted.

The court dismissed the action for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and, alternatively, for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6). It also issued the pre-filing injunction, terminated the listed motions, and closed the case.