Janice Dunn v. Plano Housing Authority, et al.

CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Texas
DecidedMay 21, 2026
Docket4:25-cv-00093
StatusUnknown

This text of Janice Dunn v. Plano Housing Authority, et al. (Janice Dunn v. Plano Housing Authority, et al.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Janice Dunn v. Plano Housing Authority, et al., (E.D. Tex. 2026).

Opinion

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS SHERMAN DIVISION

JANICE DUNN § § v. § NO. 4:25-CV-00093-SDJ-BD § PLANO HOUSING AUTHORITY, et § al. §

MEMORDANDUM OPINION AND ORDER Late last year, the court explained in an order that pro se plaintiff Janice Dunn had violated multiple court orders and stated that, “[t]o secure Dunn’s compliance with the court’s orders, it appears necessary to impose sanctions against her.” Dkt. 145 at 2. It ordered Dunn to “appear at a hearing to show cause why she should not be sanctioned.” Id. (boldface removed). This sanctions order follows that hearing. BACKGROUND The same day Dunn filed her original complaint in this case, and before the court had taken any action on it, Dunn filed a motion to transfer the case from the venue she had chosen to another, unspecified venue, asserting that this court would be biased against her. Dkt. 4. Over the next eight months, Dunn filed 110 documents. Those documents often came in batches—as many as 21 in a single day. See, e.g., Dkts. 102–122. Several of them included second-person narration that suggested they were created en mass by generative artificial intelligence (“AI”). E.g., Dkts. 3, 44, 98; see Joshua D. Blank & Leigh Osofsky, Automated Legal Guidance, 106 Cornell L. Rev. 179, 218– 19 (2020) (explaining that legal guidance output from AI generally uses second-person pronouns). Many of Dunn’s filings were duplicative, premature, or sought relief that the court had already denied. For instance, Dunn moved for entry of a default judgment against defendant Dave Young—who, by that point, had appeared. Dkt. 64. The court denied that motion. Dkt. 73. Then she moved for entry of a default judgment against Young again, Dkt. 90, and then a third time, Dkt. 103. In another instance, Dunn moved five times in a single day for clarification of the employment status of one of the defendants. Dkts. 105, 106, 109, 110, 117. And after the court told her that discovery was premature, Dkt. 33 at 2, Dunn filed seven more discovery-related motions, Dkts. 77, 78, 87, 89, 108, 126, 127, and sent at least 31 discovery requests to the defendants, Dkt. 70. Dunn also sent letters to several members of the court’s staff and to executive-branch officials. Dkts. 58–60. She began sending “courtesy copies” of many of her filings to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. E.g., Dkts. 74-1, 75-1, 77-4, 78-2, 79-2. Some of what Dunn filed was personal, accusing several deputy clerks, by name, of colluding with Young to prevent her from filing a motion for a default judgment. Dkt. 98; see Dkts. 64–66, 69. According to Dunn, she spoke on the phone to a deputy clerk about filing her motion shortly before Young moved to dismiss. Dkt. 64 at 1. From that, she concluded that the clerks “tipp[ed] off” Young that she planned to file a motion for a default judgment. Dkt. 98. By October 2025, the quantity of Dunn’s frivolous filings had impaired the court’s ability to complete its work, and two motions to dismiss were pending that appeared likely to at least narrow the scope of issues in the case. The court entered a stay of new filings pending resolution of those motions, stating in its order: “The parties may file any response, reply, or sur-reply to the pending motions permitted by the court’s local rules and the federal rules of civil procedure. The parties must not file any other document unless and until the stay is lifted by subsequent court order.” Dkt. 137. Over the next two months, Dunn violated that order three times, filing documents notwithstanding the court’s clear language. Dkt. 139; Docket Entry for Nov. 24, 2025. A week after the court entered that order, it discovered that Dunn had emailed members of its staff 193 times. See Dkt. 140. Since then, the court has learned of more email messages that Dunn sent to another member of its staff during that period, raising the total to 204 messages. See App’x. Like her filings, those messages were often vexatious. For example, on May 23, 2025, Dunn emailed a member of the clerk’s office to say that she had mailed a motion to the court, then sent an almost identical email message to the same person three minutes later. App’x at 290. On July 7, 2025, she sent an email message to 51 recipients regarding her 31st premature discovery request. Id. at 826. On October 12, 2025, she emailed a list of 12 grievances to several members of the court’s staff, asserting that the deputy and assistant deputy clerks in charge of this division and two deputy clerks had engaged in “ongoing obstruction, misrepresentation, and denial of access” and “repeated[ly] interfere[d] with [her] ability to access filings, respond to motions, and exercise [her] rights as a pro se litigant and ADA-protected citizen.” Id. at 651–52. Dunn’s accusations include claims that those clerks lied to her, blocked her access to the electronic-filing system, and colluded with the defendants. Id. The court ordered Dunn to “refrain from contacting court staff unnecessarily or through inappropriate means,” advising that, “[i]f it is necessary to contact the clerk’s office, the parties may do so by calling (214) 872-4800,” the phone number of the clerk’s office in Plano. Dkt. 138. Dunn did not comply with that order. She unnecessarily emailed court staff nine more times. So the court entered a second, more specific order that she “not email members of court staff individually.” Dkt. 140 at 1. That order again advised that “violation of this or any other court order may lead to sanctions or an order dismissing the case.” Id. at 2. Three weeks later, Dunn filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in the Fifth Circuit (her third such petition, see Dkts. 21, 54, along with her two interlocutory appeals, Dkts. 125, 135) that, among other things, challenged the stay but did not request specific relief related to it. In re Dunn, No. 25- 40735 (5th Cir. Nov. 7, 2025), Dkt. 2 at 2, 4–5. The Fifth Circuit dismissed the petition for want of prosecution because Dunn failed to timely pay the filing fee. Id., Dkt. 6; Dkt. 143. After the court entered its order that Dunn not contact members of its staff individually, she violated it at least 20 times by emailing the court’s staff and also violated the order prohibiting new filings. Dkt. 141. The court recounted Dunn’s violations of its orders and ordered her to appear at a hearing to show cause why she should not be sanctioned. Dkt. 145. Before the hearing happened, Dunn sent one more email message that violated the court’s orders. The show-cause order described the basis for potential sanctions, informed Dunn that the hearing was her opportunity to show cause why she should not be sanctioned, and permitted her to file a written brief. Dkt. 145 at 2. Dunn chose not to file a brief. But through the court’s access coordinator, she requested that the hearing be conducted via Zoom. The court granted that request. Dkt. 146. Dunn then moved to cancel the hearing. Dkt. 148. The court denied that motion but permitted Dunn to appear in person, via Zoom, or via telephone. Dkt. 149. Dunn appeared telephonically, and the defendants’ counsel appeared via Zoom. Minute Entry for Jan. 5, 2026. At the hearing, the court advised Dunn that she could testify to present relevant facts beyond what the court’s records already reflected but warned her twice that, if she chose to testify, she would be subject to cross-examination by the defendants’ counsel. Dkt. 151 at 6–7. Dunn chose to testify. She stated that she violated the court’s orders because she was “blocked” from the docket and then “unblocked”—and that, when she was unblocked, she “was assuming [she] was unblocked from everything.” Id. at 10. But she stated that she could not recall emailing the court’s staff more than 100 times and “did not mean any harm at all.” Id. at 10, 13. When Dunn completed her testimony, the court allowed for cross-examination. Id. at 10.

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Bluebook (online)
Janice Dunn v. Plano Housing Authority, et al., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/janice-dunn-v-plano-housing-authority-et-al-txed-2026.