Torres v. U.S. Department of Justice

Background

Wilfredo Torres represented himself and sued the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. He challenged events in his pending case, Torres I, alleging that the court had fabricated an order, attached a judge’s signature to it, used it to replace a legitimate order, and refused to place his initial interrogatories on the docket.

The court noted that Torres had previously filed a related lawsuit challenging the litigation in Torres I. That earlier case was dismissed as duplicative because it raised the same challenges that Torres had raised in Torres I. The court also determined that the issues in this case had already been raised in Torres I, including in a motion to stay those proceedings based on alleged crimes by the clerk and defense lawyers.

Ruling

The court dismissed the complaint as duplicative because Torres was already litigating the matter in the pending case before Judge Ramos. The dismissal was without prejudice to resolving those issues in Torres I. The court stated that the fact that the Department of Justice and the district court were not named as parties in Torres I did not justify allowing this separate duplicate action to proceed. In addition, the court stated that both defendants were immune from the suit.

The court warned Torres that if he continued filing new actions concerning the litigation in Torres I, it would order him to show cause—meaning require him to explain—why he should not be barred from filing future actions in that court raising claims arising from Torres I. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3), the court certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Torres permission to appeal without paying filing fees.