Nobile v. Windsor
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-10997
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Nobile v. Windsor, Judge Swain barred Natacha Nobile from future fee-free civil filings in this court without permission and ordered the case closed.
Natacha Nobile is barred from filing future civil actions in the Southern District of New York without paying the filing fee unless she first obtains the court’s permission and submits the required documents.
What happened
In Natacha Nobile v. Princess Kate Windsor, the court considered whether Nobile had shown a sufficient reason to avoid a filing restriction. The court had already dismissed the action as frivolous and had asked Nobile to explain why she should not be required to obtain permission before filing future fee-free civil cases in this court.
Nobile filed letters, a motion, and two declarations after the dismissal. The court said these submissions repeated frivolous allegations, offered the court part of her possible monetary winnings, or contained statements the court could not understand. The court found that they did not justify avoiding the restriction.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain barred Nobile from filing any future civil action in this court without paying the filing fee unless she first obtains the court’s permission. She must provide a proposed complaint and a copy of the order with any request for permission. The court closed the action, terminated pending motions, denied fee-free status for an appeal, and directed entry of a judgment dismissing the action for the reasons stated in the earlier order.
The detailed version
- Nobile v. Windsor · No. 1:23-cv-10997
- Laura Swain
- Feb. 21, 2024
Background
Natacha Nobile filed the action without a lawyer. In an order dated January 29, 2024, the Court had dismissed the action as frivolous. In that same order, the Court directed Nobile to explain by declaration why it should not bar her from filing future civil actions in this court without paying the filing fee unless she first obtained permission from the court.
After the January 29 dismissal, Nobile filed two letters, a motion, and two declarations. The letters appeared to ask that the already-dismissed action be transferred to Brooklyn and stated that she had been tormented by Princess Kate for years. Her motion asked the Court to give her a court date to win against Princess Kate for alleged warmongering and death threats. The Court said the later submissions repeated frivolous allegations from the complaint, offered the Court part of Nobile’s possible monetary winnings, or contained incomprehensible statements.
Court’s reasoning
The Court concluded that Nobile’s declarations and other later submissions did not provide a sufficient reason to avoid the proposed filing restriction. The order cites 28 U.S.C. § 1651 as authority for the restriction.
Ruling and effect
The Court barred Nobile from filing any future civil action in this court without paying the filing fee unless she first obtains the court’s permission. Any request for permission must include a copy of the proposed complaint and a copy of this order, and must be filed with the court’s Pro Se Intake Unit. If Nobile files a future civil action seeking to proceed without paying the filing fee without first requesting permission, the court will dismiss that action for violating this order.
The Court warned that additional frivolous filings could lead to further sanctions, including monetary penalties. It directed the Clerk of Court to close the action and terminate all pending motions. It also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for an appeal. Finally, the Court directed the Clerk to enter a judgment dismissing this action for the reasons given in the January 29 order. This opinion does not itself describe the factual or legal basis for that earlier dismissal beyond calling the action frivolous.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.