Court, Explained
U.S. Federal District Courts
←Back to docket
S.D.N.Y.Procedural orderFiled July 27, 2023

Kaus v. John/Jane Doe

Judge
Laura Swain
Docket
1:23-cv-05385
Court
U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
Pages
1
Civil Procedure
In one sentence

In Kaus v. John/Jane Doe, Judge Swain ordered the application refiled in a criminal case and closed this civil action as opened in error.

Who this affects

Tabitha Kaus and the civil action she opened concerning the potential forfeiture of real property.

What happened

Kaus v. John/Jane Doe concerns Tabitha Kaus’s application about the possible forfeiture of real property in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The property-forfeiture matter is pending in a separate criminal case. The court ordered the Clerk of Court to refile Kaus’s application in that criminal case and close this civil action because it had been opened in error.

Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ruled that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-waiver status for an appeal.

The detailed version

For law students, journalists, and other readers who want the full reasoning

Case
Kaus v. John/Jane Doe · No. 1:23-cv-05385
Judge
Laura Swain
Date
July 27, 2023

Background

Tabitha Kaus submitted an application concerning the potential forfeiture of real property in Las Vegas, Nevada. The forfeiture matter is pending in a separate criminal case, United States v. Dos Santos, No. 20-CR-0398-1 (GBD).

Court’s action

The court directed the Clerk of Court to refile Kaus’s application, then docketed as ECF 1 in this civil action, in the criminal matter. It ordered that this civil action be closed because it was opened in error.

Appeal ruling

The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith. It therefore denied Kaus’s ability to proceed without paying filing fees for purposes of an appeal. The opinion does not decide the merits of the potential property forfeiture.

The authoritative version

Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.

Open opinion PDF →
Summary written with AI assistance. See how summaries are made. Spot something wrong? Tell us.