CHARLES J. SIRAGUSA, District Judge.
Pending before the Court is a motion to dismiss filed by the Honorable Richard Dollinger ("Defendant"), Notice of Motion, Oct. 23, 2012, ECF No. 2, concerning the complaint filed against him by Daniel J. Wik ("Plaintiff"). Plaintiff's complaint alleges that Defendant, a New York State Supreme Court Justice, allegedly rescinded a writ of habeas corpus that had been issued by another judge and thereby caused Plaintiff to be held longer in custody on a traffic arrest.
Plaintiff contends that by rescinding the writ of habeas corpus, Defendant is personally liable to him for damages. The Court determines that since Defendant acted in his capacity as a judicial officer, he is entitled to absolute immunity. Therefore, the Court grants his motion to dismiss and directs the Clerk to enter judgment for Defendant.
Plaintiff is a familiar litigant in this Court and brings his sovereign perspective to every case he has filed.
Plaintiff's complaint raises thirteen causes of action under just about every Amendment to the Constitution and seeks a declaratory judgment against Defendant as well as injunctive relief.
Plaintiff is unrepresented by counsel. Accordingly, this Court must follow the requirements of the Second Circuit, which held:
Weixel v. Bd. of Educ. of N.Y., 287 F.3d 138, 145-146 (2d Cir. 2002).
The U.S. Supreme Court, in Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), clarified the standard to be applied to a 12(b)(6) motion:
Id. at 555 (citations and internal quotations omitted). See also, Iqbal v. Hasty, 490 F.3d 143 (2d Cir. 2007) (Indicating that Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly adopted "a flexible `plausibility standard,' which obliges a pleader to amplify a claim with some factual allegations in those contexts where such amplification is needed to render the claim plausible[,]" as opposed to merely conceivable.).When applying this standard, a district court must accept the allegations contained in the complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party. Burnette v. Carothers, 192 F.3d 52, 56 (1999), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1052 (2000).
On the other hand, "[c]onclusory allegations of the legal status of the defendants' acts need not be accepted as true for the purposes of ruling on a motion to dismiss." Hirsch v. Arthur Andersen & Co., 72 F.3d 1085, 1092 (2d Cir. 1995) (citing In re American Express Co. Shareholder Litig., 39 F.3d 395, 400-01 n. 3 (2d Cir.1994)). As the Supreme Court clarified in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009):
Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678-79 (some citations omitted).
"In considering a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), a district court must limit itself to facts stated in the complaint or in documents attached to the complaint as exhibits or incorporated in the complaint by reference." Kramer v. Time Warner, Inc., 937 F.2d 767, 773 (2d Cir., 1991).
Plaintiff is suing a sitting State judge for "rescinding Plaintiff's Writ of Habeas Corpus...." Compl. ¶ 31. He relies heavily on a provision of New York civil procedure law pertaining to the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus. That law states in pertinent part as follows:
N.Y. C.P.L.R. 7003 (McKinney 2014). However, since the complaint alleges that a writ was issued, thus, this section is inapplicable to the situation about which Plaintiff is complaining. The complaint, therefore, does not raise a right of relief beyond a speculative level. Although Plaintiff alleges that Defendant "allegedly rescinded" the writ issued by another State judge, he does not allege any factual basis for this allegation, other than to speculate about a conspiracy among three judicial officers. Compl. ¶¶ 42, 55.
While Plaintiff argues that issuance of a writ under section 7003 is a ministerial act (which the Court neither endorses or disputes for the purpose of ruling on this motion), what he does not allege, and what is obvious from the complaint, is that recission of a writ duly issued by a Supreme Court Justice under section 7003 could only be done by a judicial officer acting in his judicial capacity. As this Court has instructed Plaintiff on two prior occasions, judicial officers acting in their judicial capacities are absolutely immune from suit. Mireles v. Waco, 502 U.S. 9, 11 (1991); Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349, 356, reh'g denied, 436 U.S. 951 (1978); Biven v. Hunt, 579 F.3d 204, 209-10 (2d Cir. 2009); Oliva v. Heller, 839 F.2d 37, 39 (2d Cir.1988); see also Wik v. Kunego, No. 11-CV-6205-CJS, 2012 WL 4801038 (W.D.N.Y. Oct. 9, 2012) (finding a town justice immune from suit); Wik v. Swapceinski, No. 11-CV-6220-CJS, 2012 WL 694754 (W.D.N.Y. Mar. 1, 2012) (finding a town justice immune from suit).
In Mireles, the Supreme Court held that judicial immunity "is immunity from suit, not just from ultimate assessment of damages" and "judicial immunity is not overcome by allegations of bad faith or malice, the existance of which ordinarily cannot be resolved without engaging in discovery and eventual trial." Id. at 288. Plaintiff's allegations in his complaint of a conspiracy among judicial officers to deny him the a personal appearance on the writ does not overcome judicial immunity. In Stump, the Surpeme Court determined that because the judicial officer being sued was presiding over a court of general jurisdiction, "neither the procedural errors he may have committed nor the lack of a specific state statute authorizing his approval of the petition in question rendered him liable in damages for the consequences of his actions." Id. at 359-60. Defendant also presides over a court of general jurisdiction. New York Constitution Art. 6, § 7. Therefore, any procedural errors Defendant may have committed in "allegedly recinding" the issued writ do not overcome judicial immunity.
Plaintiff has, once again, brought suit against a judicial officer, well knowing that judicial officers, acting in their judicial capacities, are immune from suit. Plaintiff's attempt to couch Defendant's act as ministerial is disingenious, especially since the face of his complaint acknowledges that another judge issued the writ, and issuance is what Plaintiff argues is the ministerial act. Defendant understandably has asked the Court to enjoin Plaintiff from filing further suits of this nature. However, such a request must comply with the procedure set out in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(c)(2). Consequently, the Court can not issue a filing sanction at this time. However, Plaintiff is cautioned that further suits similar in nature to this one, and the prior two, may result in a financial or injunctive sanction. See Wik v. Kunego, No. 11-CV-6205-CJS, 2013 WL 6073633 (W.D.N.Y. Jul. 15, 2013) (sanctioning Plaintiff for filing a frivilous motion for reconsideration).
Defendant's application, ECF No. 2, to dismiss is granted. The Clerk is directed to enter judgment for Defendant and close this case.