Opinion
No. 09-3764-cv.
June 14, 2010.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Denny Chin, Judge).
UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment entered on August 4, 2009, is AFFIRMED.
Hector Vargas, pro se, New York, NY, for appellant.
Howard Rothschild (Robert A. Sparer, Daniel W. Morris, Clifton, Budd DeMaria, LLP, on the brief), New York, NY, for Tom Torres, Martin Blum, S.W. Management LLC, Stanley Wasserman, and 2727 Realty LLC.
Patrick J. Walsh, Assistant Solicitor General (Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General, on the brief), for Andrew M. Cuomo, Attorney General of the State of New York, New York, NY, for Judge Julia I. Rodriguez.
Kenneth D. Litwack, Bayside, NY, for City Marshal Thomas J. Bia.
PRESENT: JON O. NEWMAN, CHESTER J. STRAUB, REENA RAGGI, Circuit Judges.
SUMMARY ORDER
Pro se plaintiff Hector Vargas sued defendants for, inter alia, conspiring to deprive him of various constitutional and contractual rights. He now appeals from the dismissal of his complaint for failure to state a claim. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). We assume the parties' familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal.
We review the dismissal of a complaint de novo, "accepting all factual allegations as true, but giving no effect to legal conclusions couched as factual allegations." Starr v. Sony BMG Music Entm't, 592 F.3d 314, 321 (2d Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). Although we liberally construe Vargas's pro se complaint, see Triestman v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 470 F.3d 471, 474 (2d Cir. 2006), it "must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to `state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face,'" Ashcroft v. Iqbul, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Bell Ail. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)); see also Harris v. Mills, 572 F.3d 66, 72 (2d Cir. 2009) (applying Iqbal and Twombly to pro se complaint). Our de novo review of the record confirms that Vargas's complaint failed to meet this standard. We therefore affirm the judgment of the district court substantially for the reasons stated in its thorough and well-reasoned decision.
We have considered Vargas's other arguments on appeal and conclude that they are without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
We have also considered the motion by defendants 2727 Realty LLC, Stanley Wasserman, S.W. Management LLC, Martin Blum, and Tom Torres for an injunction precluding future litigation by Vargas without his first obtaining this court's approval. Although we DENY defendants' motion to impose a sanction today, we warn Vargas that filing future meritless appeals may lead to the imposition of monetary sanctions and/or leave-to-file requirements in this court. See In re Martin-Trigona, 9 F.3d 226, 229 (2d Cir. 1993).