Nunez v. Fraser
- Laura Swain
- 1:24-cv-01388
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Nunez v. Fraser, Judge Swain dismissed this action without prejudice because Nunez violated a prior filing restriction.
Javier Nunez’s lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice because he filed it without the permission required by an earlier court order; the defendants were not reached on the merits.
What happened
In Nunez v. Fraser, Javier Nunez filed a new lawsuit without a lawyer and asked to proceed without paying the filing fee. The court had previously required him to obtain permission before filing new fee-free lawsuits about several earlier disputes.
The court found that this case repeated claims and included some defendants from the earlier action. Nunez had not asked for permission to file, so the court dismissed the action without prejudice for violating the earlier order.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ended all other pending matters, directed the clerk to enter judgment, and denied fee-free status for any appeal because the appeal would not be taken in good faith. The court warned that further frivolous and duplicative filings could lead to additional sanctions, including monetary penalties.
The detailed version
- Nunez v. Fraser · No. 1:24-cv-01388
- Laura Swain
- Feb. 28, 2024
Background
On October 31, 2023, the court had ordered that Javier Nunez could not file future civil actions in that court without paying the filing fee unless he first obtained the court’s permission. The restriction applied to new fee-free actions concerning his 2018 eviction from a Manhattan apartment and related Housing Part proceedings, an alleged failure by a New York City Human Resources Administration caseworker to provide services to his father, and an alleged failure by New York City Police Department members to investigate claims of fraud and identity theft.
Current Filing
Nunez filed this action on February 21, 2024, without a lawyer and asked to proceed without paying the filing fee. The court stated that the complaint named some defendants from the earlier action and asserted the same claims. Nunez did not seek permission to file the new action.
Ruling
The court dismissed the action without prejudice for failing to comply with its October 31, 2023 order. The court also terminated all other pending matters in the action and directed the clerk to enter judgment. It certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal. The court warned that continued frivolous, duplicative, and non-meritorious litigation could result in additional sanctions, including monetary penalties, under 28 U.S.C. § 1651.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.