Opinion
22-CV-10555 (LTS)
02-21-2023
RHONDA BOLDEN, Plaintiff, v. JOHN/JANE DOE, Defendant.
ORDER
LAURA TAYLOR SWAIN, Chief United States District Judge
Plaintiff brings this action pro se and in forma pauperis. On December 13, 2022, Plaintiff filed a 2,067-page complaint, along with an additional 472 pages of exhibits. (ECF 2.) The complaint did not include a caption and did not name any defendants.By order dated January 17, 2023, the Court held that Plaintiff's 2,539-page submission failed to comply with the requirements of Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure because it was unnecessarily lengthy and failed to include a short and plain statement showing that she was entitled to relief. (ECF 7.) The Court also held that, because Plaintiff had not named any defendants, the complaint did not comply the requirement of Rule 10(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that all pleadings must include a caption and that the title of a complaint must name the parties. Because it was unclear whether Plaintiff could state a viable claim for relief, the Court granted her 60 days' leave to file an amended complaint.
Because the Clerk's Office requires the name of a defendant to open an action, it listed “John/Jane Doe” as the defendant on the docket.
On February 3, 2023, one month and twenty-one days after filing the complaint, and more than two weeks after the Court issued its order to amend, Plaintiff filed a letter which she describes as a “confidential motion” in which she asks the Court to restrict public access to her case. (ECF 8, at 8) Specifically, Plaintiff requests “concealment of . . . [the] complaint from the public due to the intentional irreparable harms from these municipal governmental NY state agencies and bad actors.” (Id. at 1.) She also requests that the Court “remove [her] name from the complaint” and replace it with the initials “LH.”(Id.)
Plaintiff writes in all capital letters. For readability, the Court uses standard capitalization when quoting from Plaintiff's letter. All other spelling, punctuation, and grammar are as in the original, unless otherwise indicated.
Plaintiff states that “LH” is the first letter of her middle name and the first letter of her last name.
Plaintiff writes,
I am requesting that my case is concealed due to violent physical attacks and sexual assaults/abuse/stalking - where we are critically in need of anonymity, the stabbings of both my sons on two separate instances from unknown assailants while made homeless in the streets of Westchester County NY, the threats we receive concerning myself and my children being unlawfully removed from our home and all that it entails which is hard to articulate and express fully. The state created dangers, the Westchester County's strategic continual conspiracy against us is extraordinary circumstances, my plight is to present my clear and convincing evidence that every agency in this claim has deliberately violated their own internal and external fundamental operation established state procedures to harm an undeserving family which makes [us] targets of continued retaliatory acts.(Id.)
On March 29, 2019, Plaintiff attended a hearing in Westchester County and “proved unequivocally that the Department of Social Services created and caused our homelessness.” (Id.) The day after the hearing, “shelter staff and the agency unofficially kicked” Plaintiff and her daughter out of a shelter. (Id. at 2.) While Plaintiff was at that hearing, the Westchester Police “beat” and “hospitalized” Plaintiff's 17-year-old son “without merit and accused him of possession of a loaded gun he never possessed.” (Id. at 1.) Days later, Plaintiff's son was released, and the charges were dropped.
Plaintiff alleges that she and her children “all have invisible disabilities and if [their] case were to be made public, just the mere fact that potentially it will be public is exacerbating our minds bodies and spirits which is and will case a detriment to our health safety and welfare.” (Id. at 2)
Plaintiff describes other incidents regarding her family. In 2017, Plaintiff and her family were evicted from their apartment in Yonkers. In 2016 or 2017, Plaintiff's son was indefinitely suspended and then expelled from an unspecified school. Plaintiff's daughter was “irreparably harmed at school unjustly in Florida.” (Id.) In January 2018, when Plaintiff's daughter's SSI benefits “ceased without notice,” Plaintiff was placed “in a Tier II shelter based on the educational neglect conviction which [she] was unaware of at that time.” (Id.) In July 2019, while Plaintiff and her family were in a shelter, “tier II congregate care facility administration committed a break in and entered” Plaintiffs unit and “strangers” inappropriately touched Plaintiff's minor daughter while telling her to “get up, get dressed, and get out.” (Id. at 3.) Plaintiff alleges that she has “received threats from there individuals' supposed friends and family to date regarding their atrocities against us.” (Id.)
Plaintiff attaches to her motion a 2013 news article describing her daughter's experience with the Florida school. (See id. at 6-7.)
Plaintiff states that “[t]hese agencies have created and caused our destitution, created and caused us to develop health desparities, and food insecurities.” (Id.) Her “health, safety and welfare has been detrimentally critically compromised” and “these adverse actions have affected every aspect of our private human lives.” (Id.) Plaintiff asserts that because she and her children “have continually been made to suffer grievous harms in which we are extremely traumatized and fearful of the repercussions if our case is not permitted to be concealed from the public due to the magnitude of these comprehensible harms.” (Id.)
DISCUSSION
The Court construes Plaintiff's submission as a request to proceed under a pseudonym and a request that all documents in her case be placed under seal.
A. Motion to proceed under a pseudonym
Rule 10(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that “[t]he title of [a] complaint must name all the parties.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 10(a). “This requirement, though seemingly pedestrian, serves the vital purpose of facilitating public scrutiny of judicial proceedings and therefore cannot be set aside lightly.” Sealed Plaintiff v. Sealed Defendant, 537 F.3d 185, 188-89 (2d Cir. 2008). Courts have, however, permitted a party to proceed under a pseudonym in a limited number of circumstances. When a court is deciding whether to permit a party to proceed under a pseudonym, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has articulated the following nonexhaustive list of ten factors that a court should consider:
(1) whether the litigation involves matters that are highly sensitive and of a personal nature; (2) whether identification poses a risk of retaliatory physical or mental harm to the party seeking to proceed anonymously or even more critically, to innocent non-parties; (3) whether identification presents other harms and the likely severity of those harms, including whether the injury litigated against would be incurred as a result of the disclosure of plaintiff's identity; (4) whether the plaintiff is particularly vulnerable to the possible harms of disclosure, particularly in light of his age; (5) whether the suit is challenging the actions of the government or that of private parties; (6) whether the defendant is prejudiced by allowing the plaintiff to press his claims anonymously, whether the nature of that prejudice (if any) differs at any particular stage of the litigation, and whether any prejudice can be mitigated by the district court; (7) whether the plaintiff's identity has thus far been kept confidential; (8) whether the public's interest in the litigation is furthered by requiring the plaintiff to disclose his identity; (9) whether, because of the purely legal nature of the issues presented or otherwise, there is an atypically weak public interest in knowing the litigants' identities; and (10) whether there are any alternative mechanisms for protecting the confidentiality of the plaintiff.Id. at 189-90 (alterations, ellipses, quotation marks, and citations omitted). “[T]his factor-driven balancing inquiry requires a district court to exercise its discretion in the course of weighing competing interests....” Id. at 190. (citation omitted).
The Court has considered these factors and denies Plaintiff's motion to proceed under a pseudonym. As an initial matter, it is unclear to the Court what Plaintiff's action is about or who she is suing. The complaint was excessively long, did not include a short and plain statement of her claims, and did not name any defendants. The Court granted Plaintiff leave to amend, but she has not yet filed an amended complaint. Without knowing the nature of Plaintiff's claims or the identities of the defendants, the Court is unable to evaluate many of the factors, let alone balance them in Plaintiff's favor. However, to the extent she is alleging that government officials have violated her rights, such allegations are a matter of public concern and weigh against Plaintiff's proceeding under a pseudonym.
In her motion, Plaintiff asserts that proceeding in her own name will place her and her family in danger, but she alleges no facts explaining why she would be in danger from litigating this case or the nature of any danger she would face. She describes incidents that have happened to her and her family in the past - many of which appear to have occurred between 2017 and 2020 - but she does not explain the relevance of these events to her claims here or to her current request. Plaintiff alleges that receives “threats due to the predation” and “threats of harm due to the extreme need to borrow funds,” and she is “fearful of repercussions” should she publicly litigate her case. (ECF 8, at 3.) She alleges no facts or explanation for why she would be subject to repercussions, the nature of any such repercussion, or who would conceivably retaliate against her.
Because Plaintiff is an adult, and not a minor child, her age does not make her particularly vulnerable to the harms of disclosure.Plaintiff may be attempting to argue that, in light of the past difficulties that she and her family have faced, she is particularly vulnerable to the harms associated with disclosure. However, as discussed above, it is unclear based on Plaintiff's motion why any past difficulties she experienced would make her particularly vulnerable should her lawsuit be made public.
Moreover, because Plaintiff is proceeding pro se and is not an attorney, she is prohibited from asserting claims on behalf of another person, including a minor child. See Cheung v. Youth Orchestra Found. of Buffalo, Inc., 906 F.2d 59, 61 (2d Cir. 1990); Tindall v. Poultney High Sch. Dist., 414 F.3d 281, 284 (2d Cir. 2005) (holding that it is “a well-established general rule in this Circuit that a parent not admitted to the bar cannot bring an action pro se in federal court on behalf of his or her child”).
Even if Plaintiff were able to assert arguments under some of the factors, she does not account for why she publicly filed a complaint under her real name and allowed it to remain public for over six weeks before asking that she be permitted to proceed under a pseudonym. By initiating this action in a United States District Court, Plaintiff has made her name a matter of public record. Moreover, at least some of the events discussed by Plaintiff in her motion have been in the public sphere for years. For example, she attaches a 2013 news article describing the difficulties faced by her daughter in the Florida schools. (See id. at 6-7.) Notably, both Plaintiff and her then-minor daughter were quoted by name in the article.
For these reasons, the Court concludes that the circumstances here are not sufficiently extraordinary to outweigh the presumption of public access. The Court therefore denies Plaintiff's motion to proceed anonymously without prejudice to renewal at a later time.
B. Motion to proceed under seal
The Court can also construe Plaintiff's motion as requesting to seal the documents filed in her case. Both the common law and the First Amendment protect the public's right of access to court documents. See Nixon v. Warner Comms., Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 597-99 (1978); Hartford Courant Co. v. Pellegrino, 380 F.3d 83, 91-92 (2d Cir. 2004). This right of access is not absolute, and “the decision as to access [to judicial records] is one best left to the sound discretion of the trial court, a discretion to be exercised in light of the relevant facts and circumstances of the particular case.” Nixon, 435 U.S. at 598-99.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has set forth a three-part analysis to determine whether a document relating to a lawsuit should be made available to the public. See Lugosch v. Pyramid Co., 435 F.3d 110, 119-20 (2d Cir. 2006). First, the Court must determine whether the document is indeed a “judicial document,” to which the public has a presumptive right of access. Id. at 119. Judicial documents are those that are “relevant to the performance of the judicial function and useful in the judicial process.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Second, if the Court determines that the materials to be sealed are judicial documents, then the Court must determine the weight of the presumption of access. Id. “[T]he weight to be given the presumption of access must be governed by the role of the material at issue in the exercise of Article III judicial power and the resultant value of such information to those monitoring the federal courts.” United States v. Amodeo, 71 F.3d 1044, 1049 (2d Cir. 1995). Finally, “the court must balance competing considerations against it.” Lugosch, 435 F.3d at 120 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “Such countervailing factors include but are not limited to the danger of impairing law enforcement or judicial efficiency and the privacy interests of those resisting disclosure.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The fact that documents have been publicly available for some time weighs against sealing them. See United States v. Basciano, Nos. 03-CR-0929. 05-CR-0060, 2010 WL 1685810, at *3-4 (E.D.N.Y. Apr. 23, 2010) (privacy interest in sealing documents was weakened by the fact that the public was already aware of the relevant information). “The burden of demonstrating that a document submitted to a court should be sealed rests on the party seeking such an action.” DiRussa v. Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc., 121 F.3d 818, 826 (2d Cir. 1997).
Here, the documents Plaintiff seeks to seal - her complaint and presumably her amended complaint - are clearly “judicial documents.” As discussed above, Plaintiff has not demonstrated that any privacy risks she may experience as a result of publicly litigating this action outweigh the presumed public access to the judicial process. The Court therefore denies Plaintiff's motion to seal without prejudice to renewal at a later time.
If, during the course of the litigation, Plaintiff believes that a specific document or court filing may include sensitive information, she may request to file the document under seal.
C. Rule 5.2
Under Rule 5.2(a)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, court submissions that refer to the name of a minor child must do so by using only the child's name's initials. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 5.2(a)(3). Plaintiff's motion appears to include the name of her minor child. Therefore, in an abundance of caution and in light of Plaintiff's description of the motion as “confidential,” the Clerk of Court has restricted electronic access to Plaintiff's motion to a “case participant-only” basis. If Plaintiff's future submissions include reference to minor child, she must refer to the child by using only the child's initials.
CONCLUSION
The Court denies Plaintiff's motion to proceed under a pseudonym and her motion to seal the proceedings without prejudice to renewal at a later time.
The Court certifies under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith, and therefore in forma pauperis status is denied for the purpose of an appeal. Cf. Coppedge v. United States, 369 U.S. 438, 444-45 (1962) (holding that an appellant demonstrates good faith when he seeks review of a nonfrivolous issue).
SO ORDERED.