Opinion
Civ. 24-1320 (UNA)
06-20-2024
MICHAEL JAFFE, Plaintiff, v. KRIS “DOE,” U.S. SUPREME COURT CLERK, Defendant.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
TIMOTHY J. KELLY, United States District Judge.
This matter is before the Court on its initial review of plaintiff's application for leave to proceed in forma pauperis (ECF No. 2) and pro se complaint (ECF No. 1). The Court will grant the application and dismiss the complaint and this civil action without prejudice.
Plaintiff purports to have “invented Yahoo, Google, Amazon, Salesforce.com, Oracle, Tesla, Alibaba, BJ's Warehouse, Costco, Target and Enterprise Rent-A-Car.” Compl. at 4 (page numbers designated by CM/ECF). These inventions generate billions of dollars, see id. at 4, 6, which defendant allegedly collects and maintains in a personal bank account, see id. at 6. Defendant allegedly is “acting personally as the U.S. Supreme Court,” id., collects funds on plaintiff's behalf, id., and “distributes money to everyone . . . but [plaintiff],” id. at 4. Plaintiff demands “$740 billion dollars that Kris has misappropriated, claiming to be the U.S. Supreme Court but kept for her personal gain.” Id.
“A complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). A complaint that lacks “an arguable basis either in law or in fact” is frivolous, Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 325 (1989), and the Court cannot exercise subject matter jurisdiction over a frivolous complaint, Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 536-37 (1974) (“Over the years, this Court has repeatedly held that the federal courts are without power to entertain claims otherwise within their jurisdiction if they are ‘so attenuated and unsubstantial as to be absolutely devoid of merit.'”) (quoting Newburyport Water Co. v. Newburyport, 193 U.S. 561, 579 (1904)); Tooley v. Napolitano, 586 F.3d 1006, 1010 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (examining cases dismissed “for patent insubstantiality,” including where plaintiff allegedly “was subjected to a campaign of surveillance and harassment deriving from uncertain origins.”). Consequently, the Court is obligated to dismiss a complaint as frivolous “when the facts alleged rise to the level of the irrational or the wholly incredible,” Denton v. Hernandez, 504 U.S. 25, 33 (1992), or “postulat[e] events and circumstances of a wholly fanciful kind,” Crisafi v. Holland, 655 F.2d 1305, 1307-08 (D.C. Cir. 1981). The instant complaint satisfies this standard and, therefore, it will be dismissed.
A separate order will issue.