Hines v. NHL
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-07972
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Hines v. NHL, Judge Swain dismissed the duplicative Title VII complaint without prejudice and granted limited fee-waiver status.
Dashon Hines’s duplicate Title VII action against the National Hockey League; his separately pending case under docket number 1:22-CV-7756 was not dismissed by this order.
What happened
In Hines v. NHL, Dashon Hines, representing himself, sued the National Hockey League under Title VII, alleging race discrimination and retaliation. The complaint did not include the required fees or a request to proceed without paying them in advance.
The court found that Hines had already filed a substantially similar case against the NHL, which was still pending under docket number 1:22-CV-7756. It concluded that continuing both lawsuits would serve no useful purpose.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed this complaint without prejudice to Hines’s pending case. She granted Hines fee-waiver status only for purposes of this dismissal, denied that status for any appeal, and directed the clerk to enter judgment.
The detailed version
- Hines v. NHL · No. 1:22-cv-07972
- Laura Swain
- Oct. 26, 2022
Background
Dashon Hines filed a self-represented lawsuit against the National Hockey League under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He alleged that the NHL discriminated and retaliated against him because of his race. The complaint was filed without the required $402 in filing and administrative fees and without a completed request to proceed without prepaying fees.
Court’s Analysis
The court stated that Hines had previously filed a substantially similar complaint asserting Title VII claims against the NHL. That earlier case remained pending under docket number 1:22-CV-7756. Because the new complaint raised the same claims, the court concluded that litigating the duplicate lawsuit would serve no useful purpose. The court did not decide whether the alleged discrimination or retaliation occurred.
Disposition
The court granted Hines status to proceed without prepaying fees for the limited purpose of dismissing this complaint. It dismissed the complaint as duplicative, without prejudice to Hines’s pending case under docket number 1:22-CV-7756. The court certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-waiver status for purposes of an appeal. The clerk was directed to enter judgment.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.