Canders v. Capellan
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-00456
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Canders v. Capellan, Judge Swain dismissed a duplicate lawsuit without prejudice to Canders’s pending case.
Tijuana L. Canders’s duplicate lawsuit against Robbin Capellan, Tera Carissa Hodges, and Jelenny Vasquez was dismissed; her separately pending case was not dismissed by this order.
What happened
In Canders v. Capellan, Tijuana L. Canders, representing herself, sued Robbin Capellan, Tera Carissa Hodges, and Jelenny Vasquez. She alleged copyright infringement, “social abuse,” and “spiritual abuse” involving her children’s book and a trademark.
The court found that Canders had already filed a substantially similar case against the same defendants, which was still pending. It dismissed this lawsuit as duplicative, without prejudice to the pending case, and directed the clerk to enter judgment.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ruled that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying the appeal filing fees.
The detailed version
- Canders v. Capellan · No. 1:23-cv-00456
- Laura Swain
- Jan. 30, 2023
Background
Tijuana L. Canders brought this action without a lawyer against Robbin Capellan, Tera Carissa Hodges, and Jelenny Vasquez. She asserted claims for copyright infringement, “social abuse,” and “spiritual abuse.” Her allegations concerned her children’s book, “We See Differently,” and the trademark “You are loved in Christ.”
Reason for dismissal
The court stated that Canders had previously submitted a substantially similar complaint against the same defendants, asserting the same claims. That earlier case remained pending under docket number 1:22-CV-10090. Because this action duplicated the pending case, the court concluded that no useful purpose would be served by litigating it separately.
Ruling
The court dismissed the complaint as duplicative, without prejudice to Canders’s pending case. It directed the clerk to enter judgment in this action. The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying the filing fees for an appeal.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.