Coleman v. Giuliani

109 F. App'x 478

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• Decided: September 29, 2004
• Docket: No. 03-7933
• Status: Published

Opinion

SUMMARY ORDER

Familiarity by the parties is assumed as to the facts, the procedural context, and the specification of appellate issues. After undertaking de novo¹ review of the district court judgment dismissing plaintiffs complaint for failure, inter alia, to comply with Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, we now affirm. Plaintiffs initial and amended complaints are unintelligible, and thus fail to give “ ‘fair notice of what the plaintiffs claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.’ ” Swierkiewicz v. Sorema, N.A., 534 U.S. 506, 512, 122 S.Ct. 992, 152 L.Ed.2d 1 (2002) (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957)). For this and other reasons, the district court properly dismissed plaintiffs’s action without prejudice.

Accordingly, for the reasons set forth above, the judgment of the district court is hereby AFFIRMED.

1 . While it is clear that this Court reviews a dismissal under Rule 8 for abuse of discretion, see Kittay v. Kornstein, 230 F.3d 531, 541 (2d Cir.2000), the standard of review generally applied to a district court’s sua sponte dismissal of a fee-paid complaint remains unclear. See Fitzgerald v. First East Seventh St. Tenants Corp., 221 F.3d 362, 364 n. 2 (2d Cir.2000); cf. Giano v. Goord, 250 F.3d 146, 149-50 (2d Cir.2001) (employing de novo review of sua sponte dismissals under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e) (2001)). Given this uncertainty, and given the complete clarity of the result even under de novo review, we engage in de novo review.