Opinion
Cause No. 3:16-CV-441 JD
07-11-2016
TRAVIS CUNNINGHAM, Plaintiff, v. INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS and WESTVILLE CORRECTIONAL FACILITY Defendants.
OPINION AND ORDER
Travis Cunningham, a pro se prisoner, sent the clerk a document captioned, "In 42 U.S.C. 1983 Act Civil Rights Complaint" with several other documents. This complaint names the Indiana Department of Corrections and the Westville Correctional Facility as defendants and alleges that they are "depriving plaintiff his due process of law in evidence proceedings and good time credit, plus credit class[, b]reaching plaintiffs court sentence order, and denying him medical treatment for mental illness[, c]ausing plaintiff mental anguish, duress, and pain, and suffering[, m]oney loss from not being allowed to work at work release." DE 1 at 1.
Because Cunningham did not put a case number on any of these papers, the clerk properly used them to open this new case. However, Cunningham is already suing these same defendants raising similar claims in 3:16-CV-397. It would be malicious to sue the same defendants for the same events in two cases. Though it is unclear what Cunningham intended when he filed these papers, it does not appear that he intended to bring a duplicate lawsuit.
For these reasons, this case is DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE as inadvertently opened and the clerk is DIRECTED to transfer Cunningham's filings in this case (DE 1, 2, 3, and 4) into 3:16-CV-397. Cunningham is ADMONISHED to put that cause number on everything he is filing in that case.
SO ORDERED.
ENTERED: July 11, 2016
/s/ JON E. DEGUILIO
Judge
United States District Judge