MATTHEW W. BRANN, District Judge.
Responding to this Plaintiff's lack of response, the Defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss Plaintiffs' Consolidated Action Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b) for Plaintiff's Failure to Prosecute (ECF No. 36). That Motion is now before this Court.
The Defendants submitted a Brief in Support of their Motion (ECF No. 37). The Plaintiff remains a silent enigma. For the reasons that follow, the Defendants' Motion is granted.
In October 2012, Plaintiff Joseph R. Reisinger ("Plaintiff" or "Reisinger") filed two lawsuits against more than twenty (20) defendants, including the City of Wilkes-Barre, Mayor Thomas Leighton, NOVA Bank, members of the news media, lawyers, law firms, and other individuals and corporations as the docket indicates. In a gargantuan three hundred twenty-six (326) page Complaint whose very existence incites mockery of Rule 8's mandate that a pleading "must contain ... a short and plain statement of the claim," Reisinger alleged a vast conspiracy among these many Defendants to defame him. FED. R. CIV. P. 8(a).
Consistent with federal statutory mandates, on December 17, 2012, this Court stayed those actions and ordered that Reisinger first pursue and exhaust his administrative claims against NOVA Bank through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ("FDIC"), NOVA Bank's receiver ("FDIC-Receiver"). There is no indication that Reisinger ever commenced the administrative process in the intervening two-year period since that stay was issued.
This Court scheduled a telephone status conference on October 8, 2014 in order to discern the Plaintiff's progress on his administrative action. Despite numerous attempts by Defense counsel to communicate with the Plaintiff, he was never successfully contacted and was not present on the telephone call. In addition to Reisinger's failure to respond to both the Defendants requests to contact him and multiple Court Orders, his last activity on the docket in this case was on November 29, 2012. Despite attempts to contact him, this Court has not heard from the Plaintiff in this case since the undersigned joined the bench. Accordingly, the Defendants' moved for the dismissal of this action for the Plaintiff's failure to prosecute his case.
"A District Court has the authority to dismiss a suit sua sponte for failure to prosecute by virtue of its inherent powers and pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b)."
FED. R. CIV. P. 41(b).
The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has articulated six factors for a court to consider when pondering dismissal under Rule 41(b):
Plaintiff is an attorney representing himself in this action. He received the Court's Order of December 17, 2012, which stayed the case until Reisinger pursued and exhausted his administrative remedies. There is no indication Reisinger ever began the administrative process. Moreover, he has failed to communicate with the parties or the Court regarding the status of his claims, and failed to respond to multiple Court Orders, while the Defendants have been compliant and attended the recent telephonic status conferece. Thus, this factor weighs heavily in favor of dismissal.
The Defendants have suffered prejudice in this case. Plaintiff's delays have impeded the normative aspiration for prompt resolution of litigation in which Plaintiff alleged defamation claims against Defendants, which include accusations that impugn their professional reputations. The Defendants suffer prejudice to those reputations while claims damaging their names remain unresolved.
Furthermore, discovery has not begun in the case. Therefore, the Defendants have also been prejudiced by the inevitable dimming of memories that comes with the passage of time.
Plaintiff's repeated lengthy delays in this action support its dismissal.
On May 24, 2013, after the case was reassigned to the undersigned, the Court issued an Order, inter alia, reasserting that the case remained stayed until a party in the action asserting a claim related to the FDIC-Receiver notified the Court that the administrative process was exhausted (ECF No. 31). Again, there is no indication Plaintiff took action.
Finally, the Plaintiff was entirely unresponsive to this Court's Order of September 30, 2014 scheduling a telephonic status conference for October 8, 2014 (ECF No. 32). The Plaintiff was not present at that conference in violation of the Order, and has not contacted the Court in the wake of his violation. Accordingly, the Plaintiff's history of dilatory conduct supports dismissal.
Based on the facts previously elucidated, Plaintiff was well aware of several Court Orders instructing him to exhaust his administrative remedies, which all indications suggest he failed to do. There is no justifiable explanation for the Plaintiff's failure that the Court is aware of, supporting the inference that his behavior is willful.
Plaintiff has been entirely unresponsive to multiple Court Orders in this case, and has neither conducted activity to advance the litigation or contacted the Court in more than a year. There are no alternative sanctions available to this unresponsive Plaintiff to which the court has provided ample opportunity to pursue his claims and comply with Court Orders. Accordingly, this factor supports dismissal.
Because the other factors overwhelmingly support dismissal of this case, and the Court does not have the benefit of extensive briefing and discovery, the Court declines to analyze the merits of Plaintiff's case. Nevertheless, when a plaintiff fails to pursue his own claims past filing the complaint, "[c]ommon sense dictates that [plaintiff's] action is of questionable merit."
The Plaintiff's claims are dismissed with prejudice pursuant to Rule 41(b), because he failed to prosecute his case and comply with multiple Court Orders.