Torress v. City of New York
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-01961
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Torress v. City of New York, Judge Swain dismissed a duplicate civil-rights lawsuit without prejudice and canceled its filing-fee charges.
Ricky Torress’s duplicate lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice, and he was not charged or subjected to deductions from his prison account for the $350 filing fee in this action. The pending earlier case was not dismissed by this order.
What happened
Ricky Torress, who was detained on Rikers Island, filed this lawsuit without a lawyer under a federal civil-rights law, claiming that the defendants violated his rights.
The court said Torress had already filed another lawsuit in the same court involving the same facts and claims. Because this case duplicated that pending case, the court found that continuing it would serve no useful purpose.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed the complaint without prejudice to Torress’s pending case, canceled the order allowing him to proceed without paying fees upfront, and directed that he not be charged or have money taken from his prison account for this lawsuit. The court also denied fee-free status for an appeal and directed the clerk to enter judgment.
The detailed version
- Torress v. City of New York · No. 1:23-cv-01961
- Laura Swain
- Apr. 6, 2023
Background
Ricky Torress, who was detained on Rikers Island, filed a complaint without a lawyer under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the defendants violated his rights. The opinion does not describe the underlying alleged violations in more detail.
Duplicate lawsuit
The court stated that Torress had previously submitted a duplicate complaint against the defendants based on the same set of facts. That earlier case was pending under docket number 23-CV-1674 (JPC) (KHP). Because the present complaint raised the same claims, the court concluded that litigating this separate action would serve no useful purpose.
Filing-fee ruling
Torress had asked to proceed without paying the filing fee upfront. On March 10, 2023, the court had granted that request and directed the agency holding him to send payments from his prison account when the account exceeded $10, until the $350 filing fee was paid. Because the court believed the duplicate complaint may have been submitted by mistake, it vacated that earlier order. It directed the clerk not to charge Torress the $350 filing fee for this action and directed the agency not to deduct or hold funds from his prison account for this lawsuit.
Ruling
Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed Torress’s complaint without prejudice to his pending case under docket number 23-CV-1674 (JPC) (KHP). The court also directed the clerk to send the order to the agency holding Torress, terminated all other pending matters in this case, and directed the clerk to enter judgment.
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying fees for purposes of an appeal.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.