UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
BRENT KIDECKEL, Plaintiff,
v. Civil Action No. 1:24-cv-02907 (CJN)
FOREIGN NATION OF CANADA et al., Defendants.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
On August 12, 2025, the Court dismissed Plaintiff Brent Kideckel’s lawsuit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. ECF No. 145 (Order). Noting that Kideckel is a serial plaintiff who has been deemed a vexatious litigant in multiple states and has filed 32 motions in this action in less than a year, the Court also ordered Kideckel to show cause as to why sanctions should not be imposed under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b). Order at 1.
Kideckel has responded by filing a “Combined Motion to Alter or Amend Judgment”
pursuant to Rules 59(e) and 60(b), ECF No. 146 (Mot.); a reply in support of that motion, ECF No. 151; a notice of supplemental authority, ECF No. 152; a motion for leave to file, ECF No. 153; a “Notice to the Court,” ECF No. 155; and a “Notice of Disclaimed Representation,” ECF No. 156. Kideckel’s motion to alter the judgment also seeks leave to amend his complaint under Rule 15(a) and responds to the Court’s show cause order. Mot. at 1, 7, 15–19.
Defendants oppose Kideckel’s request to alter the Court’s judgment or allow him to amend his complaint. See ECF Nos. 148, 149, 150. The Court agrees with Defendants and denies Kideckel’s motion to alter the judgment, denies his motion to amend his complaint, denies his motion for leave to file, and sanctions him for frivolous and vexatious conduct.
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I. Legal Standards
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide limited options for parties seeking relief from adverse judgments. Rule 59(e) allows a party to file a “motion to alter or amend a judgment,” which “must be filed no later than 28 days after the entry of the judgment.” Rule 60(b) provides that on a party’s “motion and just terms, the court may relieve a party or its legal representative from a final judgment, order, or proceeding” for reasons such as “mistake, inadvertence, surprise,” “newly discovered evidence,” “fraud,” and “any other reason that justifies relief.” But motions for reconsideration are “discretionary and need not be granted unless the district court finds that there is an intervening change of controlling law, the availability of new evidence, or the need to correct a clear error or prevent manifest injustice.” Messina v. Krakower, 439 F.3d 755, 758 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (citation omitted). Such motions are not an opportunity “to reargue facts and theories upon which a court has already ruled.” United States v. Hassanshahi, 145 F. Supp. 3d 75, 80–81 (D.D.C. 2015) (citation omitted).
Rule 15 governs the amendment of complaints. Outside of amendments as a matter of course, which must be filed no later than 21 days after serving a pleading, “a party may amend its pleading only with the opposing party’s written consent or the court’s leave.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). Although generally leave should be “freely given,” id., leave may be denied for “futility of amendment.” Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962).
Rule 11 allows courts to sanction a party for advancing an argument that is frivolous or presented for an improper purpose. Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b)(1)–(4), (c). “[S]uch sanctions may be imposed against pro se plaintiffs, [and] the district court is accorded wide discretion in determining whether sanctions are appropriate.” Gomez v. Aragon, 705 F. Supp. 2d 21, 23 n.2 (D.D.C. 2010) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
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II. Kideckel’s Motions Kideckel’s arguments for leave to amend his complaint and for relief from the Court’s August 2025 Order are meritless. The Court briefly addresses each in turn.
A. Proposed Amended Complaint In its August 2025 Order, the Court concluded that it lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over this action. Order at 3. Seeking to cure that jurisdictional defect, Kideckel’s motion to alter the judgment attaches a proposed amended complaint that “eliminates the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act defendants and asserts only federal claims—RICO, conspiracy under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(2), and related common-law causes of action—against private actors and their counsel.” Mot. at 1. In other words, Kideckel’s proposed amendment aims to create jurisdiction where none existed before. But “a plaintiff may not amend a complaint when a court has no subject matter jurisdiction over the case.” Adams v. Jud. Council of Sixth Cir., No. 17-cv-1894, 2020 WL 5409142, at *10 n.4 (D.D.C. Sept. 9, 2020).
His proposed amendment is futile in any event. To state a RICO claim, a plaintiff must allege a “pattern of racketeering activity.” 18 U.S.C. § 1961(5). Kideckel’s allegations, principally alleging that his family members sent fake texts and filed false affidavits in the context of a family dispute, “are simply not colorable and do not present a federal question for this Court’s decision.” Son Ly v. Solin, Inc., 910 F. Supp. 2d 22, 28 (D.D.C. 2012). As for his proposed conspiracy claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1985 and 1986, Kideckel fails to plead facts showing any agreement—let alone a conspiracy—to deter Kideckel from attending or testifying in U.S. federal court. See § 1985(2). It is well established that “[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice” to state a claim. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).
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In short, the new allegations in Kideckel’s proposed amended complaint “are simply the latest examples of [his] misguided efforts to sue virtually every public official he thinks has wronged him.” Nabaya v. Lauck, No. 23-cv-2650, 2024 WL 687967, at *4 (D.D.C. Feb. 16, 2024). Because the Court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over this action, and because it would be futile to allow such an amendment in any event, Kideckel’s request for leave to amend is denied.
B. Motion to Alter Judgment Kideckel’s motion to alter the judgment fares no better. As noted above, the Court dismissed this action for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Nothing in Kideckel’s motion calls that conclusion into question. Kideckel’s primary argument is that the Court “misapprehended the alignment of parties and the status of conflicted representation.” Mot. at 11. Even assuming that is true, such “misapprehension” has no impact on the Court’s jurisdictional conclusion. Neither does the “new evidence” Kideckel purports to have found or Defendants’ alleged “misconduct,” even if that misconduct “substantially interfered with Plaintiff’s ability to litigate.” Id. at 5, 19. Kideckel has thus not met the standards to obtain relief under either Rule 59(e) or 60(b).
III. Sanctions
Finally, the Court previously noted that Kideckel “has presented cartoonishly frivolous claims that have mired Defendants in pointless motions practice for nearly a year.” Order at 7. Accordingly, the Court ordered Kideckel “to show cause why the conduct at issue has not violated Rule 11(b),” which requires representations made to the Court to meet certain minimal standards. Id. at 8. Kideckel’s motion to alter the judgment responds to the show-cause order over several pages. See Mot. at 15–19. He argues that “[s]anctions cannot be predicated on the Court’s own misunderstanding of the parties and issue.” Id. at 19. The Court does not share Kideckel’s view that there is any misunderstanding here; rather, it is because the Court understands the nature of Kideckel’s lawsuit that the Court believes Rule 11 sanctions are appropriate.
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A. Kideckel Has Violated Rule 11 District courts have the authority to impose sanctions sua sponte after issuing a show-cause order to the offending party. Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c)(3); 11(c)(5)(B). This inherent power “guard[s] against abuses of the judicial process,” Shepherd v. Am. Broad. Cos., Inc., 62 F.3d 1469, 1472 (D.C. Cir. 1995), and serves the purpose of protecting the Court from “frivolous and baseless filings that are not well grounded, legally untenable, or brought with the purpose of vexatiously multiplying the proceedings.” Cobell v. Norton, 211 F.R.D. 7, 10 (D.D.C. 2002) (citation omitted). The court may impose an “appropriate sanction” on any party that violated Rule 11(b). Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c)(1).
Here, Kideckel “has flooded the judicial system with duplicative, unduly voluminous, and hyperbolic filings.” McCreary v. Heath, No. 04-cv-00623, 2005 WL 975736, at *1 (D.D.C. Apr. 22, 2005). Worse, several of his filings appear to have been written using generative artificial intelligence, as he frequently “includes direct quotes from case law that do not appear anywhere in the cited decisions.” See ECF No. 111 at 3 n.4 (citing examples). Obviously, it “is not acceptable for parties to submit filings to the Court containing citations to legal authority that does not exist, whether drafted with the assistance of artificial intelligence or not.” Williams v. Cap. One Bank, N.A., No. 24-cv-2032, 2025 WL 843285, at *7 (D.D.C. Mar. 18, 2025). Kideckel’s latest filing, in which he responds to the Court’s show-cause order, repeat offends: He reports, for instance, that in Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., the Supreme Court wrote that federal courts “must have the means to sanction conduct which abuses the judicial process.” Mot. at 12 (citing 501 U.S. 32, 46 (1991)). That quote does not appear in Chambers. 1
1 Kideckel’s motion also bears other hallmarks of being largely unedited A.I. output. See Sam Kriss, Why Does A.I. Write Like . . . That? N.Y. TIMES MAG. (Dec. 3, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/magazine/chatbot-writing-style.html (noting that generative A.I. is “extremely fixated on the rule of threes” and “always says, ‘It’s not X, it’s Y.’”).
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Even setting his likely A.I. misuse aside, Kideckel’s response to the Court’s show-cause order is inadequate. He first offers “context” of his litigation history, seeking to explain why previous courts have deemed him a vexatious litigant. Mot. at 15. But he only discusses three lawsuits he’s previously brought, not the dozen-plus noted by the Court. See Order at 1 n.1 (stating that “Kideckel has filed at least 15 lawsuits in multiple states” and citing examples). Kideckel also does not contest California and Nevada’s designations of him as a vexatious litigant. Id.
Kideckel then argues that his FSIA claims were colorable and grounded in precedent. Mot.
at 16. But the precedents he cites—Letelier v. Republic of Chile, Liu v. Republic of China, and Republic of Argentina v. Weltover, Inc. 2—are simply hornbook examples of FSIA exceptions. See generally GEORGE A. BERMANN & DONALD E. CHILDRESS, TRANSNATIONAL LITIG. IN A NUTSHELL 135–75 (2d ed. 2021). Kideckel’s response does not come close to explaining why he could reasonably believe that his suit against a foreign sovereign could proceed. At most, Kideckel argues that Canada’s supposed hypocrisy regarding foreign sovereign immunity justifies stripping Canada of immunity in this case. Mot. at 17. That argument, of course, has no basis in law. 3 Kideckel also asserts that “procedural developments since filing underscore [his] good faith.” Mot. at 16 (capitalizations altered). Specifically, he asserts that Defendants “procured a default judgment in Ontario through falsified service and fabricated exhibits” and that multiple
Compare with Mot. at 12 (“This shift is significant for three reasons”) and id. at 3–4 (“This is not a trivial error. The distinction goes to the heart of Plaintiff’s ethics motions[.]”). 2 488 F. Supp. 665, 673 (D.D.C. 1980); 892 F.2d 1419 (9th Cir. 1989); 504 U.S. 607 (1992).
3 In Kideckel’s telling, the Canadian government “urged the Government of India to revoke diplomatic immunity for its agents accused of extrajudicial conduct” in Canada but refuses to waive its own sovereign immunity here. Mot. at 17. Even assuming arguendo that Canada’s conduct is somehow hypocritical, it provides no basis for piercing Canada’s sovereign immunity in this suit.
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law firms have “ratified [that] fraud.” Mot. at 16. The Court does not see how an Ontario court’s adverse judgment against Kideckel supports his claim that he has “been vindicated by subsequent events.” Id. Nor does the Court think that Kideckel’s “litigation conduct was in good faith.” Id. at 17 (capitalizations altered). Far from exhibiting “the opposite of vexatious behavior,” id., Kideckel’s filing of dozens of meritless motions in a matter of months demonstrates that he “has no regard for [the] judicial system or the drain on its resources caused by his actions.” Whitehead v. Paramount Pictures Corp., 145 F. Supp. 2d 3, 5 (D.D.C. 2001), aff’d No. 01-7062, 2001 WL 936260 (D.C. Cir. July 27, 2001).
Finally, Kideckel’s stated intention to revive his claims if the Court does not grant his motions by launching a new action against Defendants and other parties, based solely on their involvement in defending their clients in this litigation, further evinces Kideckel’s bad faith. See Mot. at 2 (“If leave is denied, Plaintiff reserves the right to refile the same pleading as a new action[.]”). That is on top of the “cartoonishly frivolous” motions Kideckel has filed in an attempt to sanction Defendants in this case. See Order at 7; ECF Nos. 96, 107, 116, 117, 123, 124, 127, 128, 131, 144. It almost goes without saying that “[a]ny additional filings against these defendants and around this nucleus of facts would constitute harassment of the defendants and would amount to a waste of resources both for the defendants and for this Court.” Harbison v. U.S. Senate Comm. on Foreign Rels., 839 F. Supp. 2d 99, 111 (D.D.C. 2012).
The Court therefore finds that Kideckel has failed to meet the standards required by Rule 11(b). His countless motions and other filings have done little more than “harass, cause unnecessary delay, [and] needlessly increase the cost of litigation,” and his legal contentions are seldom “warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or
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reversing existing law or for establishing new law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b)(1), (2). The next step is to determine an “appropriate sanction” for Kideckel’s violation. Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c)(1).
B. Monetary and Injunctive Sanctions Are Appropriate Although the Court exercises “virtually untrammeled” discretion in fixing the amount of sanctions to be imposed on a plaintiff like Kideckel for Rule 11 violations, provided that the sanctions are “appropriate to the facts,” it should impose “the least severe sanction” adequate to effectuate the purposes of Rule 11. Hilton Hotels Corp. v. Banov, 899 F.2d 40, 46 (D.C. Cir. 1990) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Courts in this district have recognized that monetary sanctions under Rule 11 may be measured by the cost of defending against the frivolous action. See, e.g., John Akridge Co. v. Travelers Companies, 944 F. Supp. 33, 34 (D.D.C. 1996) (granting sanctions of the “full cost” of defending the plaintiff’s bad faith action); Washington Bancorp. v. Said, 812 F. Supp. 1256, 1275 (D.D.C.1993) (granting sanctions for defendant’s attorneys’ fees and costs in defending against baseless claims). Monetary sanctions are also appropriate under 28 U.S.C. § 1927.
Two of the Defendants ask the Court to declare Kideckel a vexatious litigant and order Kideckel to pay their attorneys’ fees. ECF No. 149 at 12–15. The Court agrees that such a response is reasonable and constitutes an “appropriate sanction” under Rule 11. Kideckel is thus “hereby barred from any future filings against these defendants, or arising from these claims, in this Court without leave of the Court.” Harbison, 839 F. Supp. 2d at 111; see also Wallace v. Saffa, No. 06-cv-402, 2007 WL 1020791, at *3 (D.D.C. Mar. 30, 2007) (enjoining litigant from filing lawsuits in this Court “concerning the actions, circumstances, transactions, or other events against the named defendants or any related parties”). Further, because Kideckel’s conduct has “so multiplie[d] the proceedings . . . unreasonably and vexatiously,” the Court will require him to “satisfy personally the excess costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees reasonably incurred because of
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such conduct.” 28 U.S.C. § 1927. The Court concludes that this sanction “suffices to deter repetition of the conduct or comparable conduct by others similarly situated.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c)(4). The Court will thus order Defendants to file statements of attorneys’ fees for final Court approval. See Robertson v. Cartinhour, 883 F. Supp. 2d 121, 132 (D.D.C. 2012), aff’d, 554 F. App’x 3 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (“Within 10 days of the date of this order, the attorneys shall file unredacted copies of the bills for which they are seeking compensation[.]”).
IV. Conclusion
Kideckel’s Motion to Alter or Amend Judgment, which includes his request to amend his Complaint, see ECF No. 146, is denied for the reasons stated above. His Motion for Leave to Submit Ontario Court Transcript for In-Camera Review Under Seal, ECF No. 153, is denied as moot. And his conduct merits both injunctive and monetary sanctions. A separate Order effectuating these decisions will issue contemporaneously.
DATE: January 16, 2026 CARL J. NICHOLS
United States District Judge