Opinion
21-cv-781-wmc
09-29-2022
KHOR CHIN LIM, Plaintiff, v. GOH CHOK TONG, PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, JP MORGAN CHASE BANK, N.A., JAMIE DIMON, JORGE LUIS ALONSO, MARK GRIFFITHS, JAMES TANSEY, MICHELE POPIELEWSKI, JASON SOLLIS, JOSE RODRIGUEZ, DARRELL MILLS, FIDEL ECHEVARRIA, FIDEL FINKLE, JASON MENARD, COOK COUNTY STATE'S ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, KIMBERLY M. FOXX, OFFICE OF THE STATE APPELLATE DEFENDER, JAMES E. CHADD, IAN JACKSON, CITY OF CHICAGO, COOK COUNTY OF ILLINOIS, CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, FORENSIC CLINICAL SERVICES, LAW OFFICE OF THE COOK COUNTY PUBLIC DEFENDER, and DOES 1 THROUGH 19, Defendants.
OPINION AND ORDER
WILLIAM M. CONLEY DISTRICT JUDGE
Pro se plaintiff Khor Chin Lim, a restricted filer in this court, filed a civil rights complaint against former President Barack Obama and twenty-five other defendants. Lim alleges that defendants conspired to harass him in many ways, ensured a wrongful conviction in 2012, and caused him financial harm. The court dismissed Lim's complaint as frivolous, explaining that “no reasonable person would believe that former President Barack Obama has conspired with . . . so many others over so many years and in so many places to cause Lim's criminal conviction in Illinois and to thwart his appeals, among other things.” (Dkt. #2 at 4.)
Lim has filed two motions for reconsideration and a motion for leave to amend his complaint, as well as about a hundred pages of exhibits. (Dkt. ##5, 8, 9.) These filings do not demonstrate any grounds for reconsidering the dismissal or show that the court erred. Lim provides greater detail concerning the lawsuit brought by Lim's former employer in Singapore in 1992. He would also drop Barack Obama as a defendant and add a conclusory allegation that he suffered a foot infection in 2012 as well as defendants and claims arising out of a 2011 civil lawsuit he litigated in Los Angeles Superior Court in California. Although Lim has attached exhibits that he claims relate to his proposed claims, and the court is sympathetic to the challenges Pro se litigants may face filing a lawsuit on their own, the court will not search those documents for relevant facts. See Foley v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 772 F.3d 63, 79-80 (1st Cir. 2014) (“[I]t is not [the court's] job, in an effort to ferret out the adequacy of a plaintiff's pleaded allegations, to haphazardly mine documents appended to a complaint”); Families of Spinal Muscular Atrophy v. Nationwide Children's Hosp., No. 16-cv-4262, 2016 WL 4987944, at *6 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 19, 2016) (“merely attaching documents to a complaint” does not satisfy Rule 8(a)(2)).
Even if Lim's claims could be brought in one lawsuit without violating Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20, they remain implausibly conspiratorial. The court not set aside judgment and grant leave to amend because the proposed amendments would not turn this frivolous case into a nonfrivolous case, and thus granting leave to amend would be futile. Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962). The court will deny Lim's motions and reminds him that as a restricted filer, the court will address only those submissions that seem to have any plausible merit and will summarily deny or dismiss those that do not. Lim v. Walker, No. 12-cv-552 (W.D. Wis. Aug. 8, 2012) (dkt. #22 at 3).
As the court noted in its dismissal order, Lim repeats many of the same allegations in this case that he raised in at least one other lawsuit dismissed as frivolous in another federal district court: Lim v. JP Morgan Chase Bank, N. A., No. 21-cv-01277 (E.D. Wis. Dec. 2, 2021). (Dkt. #2 at 4.)
ORDER
IT IS ORDERED that:
1) Plaintiff's motion to reconsider and for leave to amend (dkts. ##5, 7) and motion to reconsider (dkt. #8) are DENIED.
2) Plaintiff's motion to expedite (dkt. #9) is DENIED as moot.