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Matthews v. Filson

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF NEVADA
Mar 20, 2020
Case No. 3:19-cv-00244-MMD-CLB (D. Nev. Mar. 20, 2020)

Opinion

Case No. 3:19-cv-00244-MMD-CLB

03-20-2020

IVAN MATTHEWS, II, Plaintiff, v. WILLIAM FILSON, et al., Defendants.


ORDER

I. DISCUSSION

Plaintiff Ivan Matthews, II, a pro se prisoner, previously filed an application to proceed in forma pauperis and submitted a civil rights complaint ("Complaint") pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. (ECF Nos. 1, 7.) The Court screened the Complaint, dismissed the entire Complaint, and gave Plaintiff leave to amend the Eighth Amendment claims for deliberate indifference to serious medical needs. (ECF No. 6.) However, the Court warned Plaintiff that duplicated claims that were in another one of his actions would be considered malicious. (Id. at 10.) The Court informed Plaintiff that if he had unintentionally duplicated claims and if he voluntarily moved to dismiss the action, the Court would dismiss the action, deny the application to proceed in forma pauperis and not require him to pay the filing fee—in this one instance. (Id.)

Plaintiff now has filed a motion for voluntary dismissal and states that claims in this action are unintentionally duplicative. (ECF No. 8.) Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1), a plaintiff may dismiss an action without a court order by filing "a notice of dismissal before the opposing party serves either an answer or a motion for summary judgment." Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(i). The Court grants Plaintiff's motion to voluntarily dismiss this action because no responsive pleading has been filed in this case. Therefore, the Court dismisses this action with prejudice.

As discussed in the screening order—in this one case—the Court will deny the application to proceed in forma pauperis and will not require Plaintiff to pay a fee. (See ECF No. 6 at 10.) However, Plaintiff is informed that the Court will not do this again in any of his other actions. Plaintiff is responsible for keeping track of his own cases and for not bringing duplicative claims. In the future, if the Court devotes scarce resources to screening a complaint in one of Plaintiff's cases and finds that Plaintiff has filed a duplicative claim, the Court will consider such claims to be malicious and will process the application to proceed in forma pauperis and require payment of the filing fee.

II. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, it is ordered that the motion for voluntary dismissal (ECF No. 8) is granted.

It is further ordered that this action is dismissed in its entirety with prejudice as Plaintiff's Complaint did not state any non-duplicative claims.

It is further ordered that the application to proceed in forma pauperis (ECF No. 4) is denied as moot.

It is further ordered that the Clerk of the Court will enter judgment accordingly and close this case.

DATED THIS 20th day of March 2020.

/s/_________

MIRANDA M. DU

CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE


Summaries of

Matthews v. Filson

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF NEVADA
Mar 20, 2020
Case No. 3:19-cv-00244-MMD-CLB (D. Nev. Mar. 20, 2020)
Case details for

Matthews v. Filson

Case Details

Full title:IVAN MATTHEWS, II, Plaintiff, v. WILLIAM FILSON, et al., Defendants.

Court:UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF NEVADA

Date published: Mar 20, 2020

Citations

Case No. 3:19-cv-00244-MMD-CLB (D. Nev. Mar. 20, 2020)