Ware Bey v. Adams

Background

Vicky Ware Bey, who represented herself, sued New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Department of Correction Commissioner Louis Molina, the New York City Employees Retirement System, its Executive Director Melanie Whinnery, and the City of New York. The opinion describes Bey as a former correctional officer with the New York City Department of Correction.

Bey alleged a broad conspiracy involving thousands of named and unnamed defendants. She claimed that the conspiracy harmed her through stalking, surveillance, distribution of surveillance, human trafficking, and involuntary servitude, allegedly in retaliation for her complaint to the Department of Correction about sexual harassment by another correctional officer. She also alleged that the Department of Correction owed her hazard pay, engaged in negligent hiring, training, and retention, and was responsible for her father’s wrongful death. The opinion does not provide the full complaint or the complete legal analysis underlying each claim.

Proceedings and objections

The defendants moved to dismiss all claims. On November 4, 2022, Magistrate Judge Robert W. Lehrburger issued a Report and Recommendation advising that the motion be granted.

Bey then filed numerous submissions, including more than 400 pages of legal-brief-like materials, requests for disqualification or reassignment, requests for judgments exceeding $100 million, requests for writs of execution, requests to lift a discovery stay, motions for judgment as a matter of law, and a request for a protective order. Judge Lehrburger denied filings at Docket 149 through Docket 160 as frivolous and contrary to earlier court orders, and instructed Bey that the proper filing at that stage was an objection to the Report and Recommendation. Chief Judge Laura T. Swain denied motions seeking Judge Lehrburger’s recusal or disqualification. Judge Lehrburger later directed the Clerk not to accept further filings from Bey until the court ruled on the Report and Recommendation.

The district court attempted to construe Bey’s filings as objections. It concluded that they did not coherently challenge the Report and Recommendation’s factual or legal conclusions. The court found that the filings were largely unintelligible or merely restated Bey’s claims and quoted legal authorities without addressing the magistrate judge’s analysis.

Bey did make an understandable objection based on alleged judicial misconduct. She argued that Judge Lehrburger’s earlier temporary work for the City of New York created a conflict of interest. The district court rejected that objection as baseless. It relied on Judge Lehrburger’s explanation that, approximately in 1994, he had spent four months on loan from his law firm to the New York City Corporation Counsel, where he defended the City in unrelated tort cases. The district court agreed that the temporary, remote, and unrelated nature of that work did not provide a basis for recusal.

Ruling

Because Bey did not make coherent objections to the Report and Recommendation, the district court reviewed its conclusions for clear error, meaning an obvious mistake visible from the record. The court found no facial error in the Report’s conclusions.

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer accepted and adopted the Report and Recommendation in its entirety. The court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. It directed the Clerk to terminate all pending motions, dismiss all defendants and all pending claims with prejudice, and close the case.

The court specifically noted that thousands of unnamed defendants had not been served. It nevertheless dismissed the claims against them with prejudice because, as the court stated, the claims were futile and had no likelihood of success against either the served or unserved defendants.