Opinion
No. 1:15 CV 270
09-25-2015
DEANTE TYRELL TAYLOR, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, et al., Defendants.
OPINION AND ORDER
Deante Tyrell Taylor, a pro se prisoner, filed a complaint seeking $7,000,000 from this court because two cases filed by him were both assigned to United States District Court Judge DeGuilio. Specifically, he states that because Taylor v. Allen County, 1:15-CV-130 (N.D. Ind. filed June 3, 2015) was assigned to Judge DeGuilio, that Taylor v. State of Indiana, 1:15-CV-216 (N.D. Ind. filed August 17, 2015) should not also have been assigned to him. This is nonsense.
"A document filed pro se is to be liberally construed, and a pro se complaint, however inartfully pleaded, must be held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers." Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (quotation marks and citations omitted). Nevertheless, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, the court must review the merits of a prisoner complaint and dismiss it if the action is frivolous or malicious, fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, or seeks monetary relief against a defendant who is immune from such relief. Here, the complaint is frivolous and malicious.
Cases in this district are assigned according to the general orders of the court. N.D. Ind. L.R. 40-1(a). Pursuant to General Order 2014-7, civil cases are randomly assigned on a district-wide basis to the active judges of this court. That is what happened in Taylor's two cases when Judge DeGuilio was randomly assigned to them. It is what happened in this case. There is no rule, law, or constitutional requirement that a judge only preside over one case filed by a plaintiff. To the contrary, N.D. Ind. L.R. 40-1(e) requires that related cases be assigned to the same judge and L.R. 40-1(f) permits cases to be reassigned without restriction based on what prior cases the judge may have heard.
For the foregoing reasons, this case is DISMISSED pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A because it is frivolous and malicious.
SO ORDERED.
Date: September 25, 2015
s/James T. Moody
JUDGE JAMES T. MOODY
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT