Opinion
No. 15-2219
04-05-2016
LENA HARDAWAY, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. CHECKERS DRIVE-IN RESTAURANTS, INC., Defendant - Appellee, and CHECKERS/RALLY RESTAURANT; ADVENTURES THREE INC.; DOUGLAS S. GORDON INSURANCE SERVICES; JOHN DOE INSURANCE COMPANY; IMOGENE F. HOLMES; DOES 1-25, Defendants.
Lena Hardaway, Appellant Pro Se. Richard E. Schimel, BREGMAN, BERBERT, SCHWARTZ & GILDAY, LLC, Bethesda, Maryland, for Appellee.
UNPUBLISHED Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Greenbelt. Roger W. Titus, Senior District Judge. (8:11-cv-01575-RWT) Before KING, WYNN, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Lena Hardaway, Appellant Pro Se. Richard E. Schimel, BREGMAN, BERBERT, SCHWARTZ & GILDAY, LLC, Bethesda, Maryland, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM:
Lena Hardaway appeals from the district court's order dismissing her complaint without prejudice for want of prosecution. On appeal, Hardaway asserts that the district court did not properly update her address and that she did not timely receive the district court's order to show cause. We affirm.
Hardaway claims that she filed a complaint against a district court judge with the Justice Department on August 17, 2015, and filed an additional complaint with the Chief Judge of the District of Maryland on August 28, 2015. Hardaway asserts that she placed a change of address form in the envelope to the Chief Judge. Hardaway does not provide any documentary proof of these claims.
It appears that Hardaway's "complaints" were in a separate case or were an attempt to open an investigation or another case. These documents are not filed in the instant case. The United States District Court for the District of Maryland Rule 102(b)(iii) requires self-represented litigants to file change of address forms with the Clerk in every case in which they currently have an address where case-related papers may be served. Even assuming that the document Hardaway references was a change of address form for the instant case, Hardaway states that she sent it to the Chief Judge rather than the Clerk of the Court.
Moreover, on appeal, Hardaway presents no showing of good cause for her failure to pursue her case, so any error by the district court was merely harmless. The district court granted in part Hardaway's motion to compel on September 16, 2013, and Hardaway did not file another document in her case until her notice of appeal on October 9, 2015. While she claims there was much misconduct in her case, she does not allege that she specifically attempted to file documents after September 2013, nor does she explain her failure to prosecute her case during that time period. Finally, while Hardaway raises numerous other claims on appeal, we find that they are irrelevant to the basis for dismissal.
Accordingly, we affirm. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED