Nunez v. Silber
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-08462
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Nunez v. Silber, Judge Swain dismissed Javier Nunez’s duplicate lawsuit without prejudice to a pending related case and denied appeal fee-waiver status.
Javier Nunez’s duplicate lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice to the related case pending under docket number 23-CV-0625 (LTS). The court also denied him permission to proceed without paying filing fees on appeal.
What happened
In Nunez v. Silber, Javier Nunez, representing himself and receiving permission to proceed without paying filing fees, sued Mark Silber, Eli Silber, Nicole Fraser, and Gutman, Minte, Baker & Sonnenfeldt, LLC. He alleged that the defendants unlawfully evicted him and his father from a Manhattan apartment.
The court said Nunez had already filed a similar lawsuit involving the same claims, which was still pending under docket number 23-CV-625. Because this case duplicated that lawsuit, the court found that litigating it would serve no useful purpose.
Judge Swain dismissed this complaint without prejudice to the pending case and directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment. The court also denied Nunez permission to proceed without paying fees if he appealed, certifying that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Nunez v. Silber · No. 1:23-cv-08462
- Laura Swain
- Oct. 16, 2023
Background
Javier Nunez, who was representing himself and proceeding without paying court filing fees, brought this action under the court’s jurisdiction over disputes between citizens of different states. He sued Mark Silber, Eli Silber, Nicole Fraser, and Gutman, Minte, Baker & Sonnenfeldt, LLC, alleging that the defendants unlawfully evicted him and his father from a Manhattan apartment.
Duplicate lawsuit
The court stated that Nunez had previously filed a similar complaint concerning the same events and claims. That earlier case was still pending under docket number 23-CV-625. The court concluded that no useful purpose would be served by litigating this duplicate lawsuit.
Ruling
The court dismissed the complaint without prejudice to the case pending under docket number 23-CV-0625 (LTS). The order therefore did not state that Nunez’s claims were permanently barred in this case; it tied the dismissal to the already-pending related case. The Clerk of Court was directed to enter judgment.
The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith. It denied Nunez permission to proceed without paying filing fees for purposes of an appeal.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.