Warren v. Sparks Police Department

CourtDistrict Court, D. Nevada
DecidedAugust 20, 2024
Docket2:23-cv-00065
StatusUnknown

This text of Warren v. Sparks Police Department (Warren v. Sparks Police Department) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Nevada primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Warren v. Sparks Police Department, (D. Nev. 2024).

Opinion

2 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 3 DISTRICT OF NEVADA 4 * * * 5 Allanna Warren, Case No. 2:23-cv-00065-GMN-DJA 6 Plaintiff, 7 Order v. and 8 Report and Recommendation The City of Las Vegas, Nevada; the County of 9 Clark, Nevada; Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, et al. 10 Defendants. 11 12 In September of last year, the Court ordered Plaintiff Allanna Warren to show cause in 13 writing why she should not be declared a vexatious litigant and subject to a prefiling injunction 14 for future actions. (ECF No. 132). The show-cause order lays out the extensive history of 15 Plaintiff’s many frivolous suits and details why her perpetual regurgitation of similar legal claims 16 in multiple actions is a flagrant abuse of the judicial process that impedes the adjudication of 17 other pending matters. Though Plaintiff filed a response to the show-cause order, her response 18 does not offer a useful or meritorious argument. Having thoroughly reviewed the circumstances 19 of this case and the numerous others that Plaintiff has filed in this court, the Court finds that 20 Plaintiff has grossly abused the judicial process with her recycled and meritless filings, which put 21 an unnecessary burden on this court and its personnel. This unrelenting conduct warrants the 22 extreme remedy of a prefiling order that requires Plaintiff to obtain express permission from the 23 Chief Judge before filing any new action that contains recycled filings. The Court thus 24 recommends that Plaintiff be declared a vexatious litigant and recommends the conditions of a 25 prefiling order. 26 Also pending before the Court is Plaintiff’s motion for a settlement conference (ECF No. 27 276), her petition for an order to enforce a subpoena (ECF No. 278), and her motion for sanctions 1 not warranted here, it denies Plaintiff’s motion for a settlement conference. Because the Court 2 finds that Plaintiff has ignored its prior order regarding subpoenas being an improper method to 3 conduct discovery on a party, it denies Plaintiff’s motion for an order to enforce a subpoena and 4 her motion for sanctions related to that subpoena. 5 Discussion 6 I. The Court has the authority to impose a prefiling order on a vexatious litigant. 7 Federal district courts have the “ancient” inherent authority to issue writs—including a 8 prefiling order—to prevent litigants from continuing to file frivolous lawsuits and abuse the 9 judicial process. Moy v. United States, 906 F.2d 467, 469 (9th Cir. 1990) (quoting In re Hartford 10 Textile Corp., 681 F.2d 895, 897 (2d Cir. 1982)); Molski v. Evergreen Dynasty Corp., 500 F.3d 11 1047, 1057 (9th Cir. 2007) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 1651(a)). Prefiling orders are an extreme remedy 12 and should be granted only “after a cautious review of the pertinent circumstances.” Molski, 500 13 F.3d at 1057 (citation omitted). Before entering a prefiling order, the district court must provide 14 the party against whom the order is sought notice and an opportunity to be heard. Id. (citation 15 omitted). If the court imposes a prefiling order, it must set forth which cases and motions support 16 its conclusion that the party’s filings are so numerous or abusive that they should be enjoined, 17 make substantive findings as to the frivolous or harassing nature of the litigant’s actions, and 18 narrowly tailor the order to “fit the specific vice encountered.” Id. (quoting De Long v. 19 Hennessey, 912 F.2d 1144, 1148 (9th Cir. 1990)). The Ninth Circuit has adopted the Second 20 Circuit’s five-factor framework to determine “whether a party is a vexatious litigant and whether 21 a pre-filing order will stop the vexatious litigation”: 22 (1) the litigant’s history of litigation and in particular whether it entailed vexatious, harassing[,] or duplicative lawsuits; (2) the 23 litigant’s motive in pursuing the litigation, e.g., does the litigant 24 have an objective good[-]faith expectation of prevailing?; (3) whether the litigant is represented by counsel. (4) whether the 25 litigant has caused needless expense to other parties or has posed an unnecessary burden on the courts and their personnel; and 26 (5) whether other sanctions would be adequate to protect the courts and other parties. 27 1 Molski, 500 F.3d at 1058 (quoting Safir v. U.S. Lines, Inc., 792 F.2d 19, 24 (2d Cir. 2 1986)). 3 II. Plaintiff’s repeated initiation of actions based on the same alleged facts and frivolous and recycled pages make her a vexatious litigant, and a prefiling order 4 is necessary to curb this abuse. 5 6 After the Court entered its show cause order, Plaintiff Allanna Warren did not respond, 7 but filed numerous appeals, motions, and miscellaneous supplements, affidavits, and exhibits. 8 One of Plaintiff’s motions asked the Court to stay the case pending one of her appeals to the 9 Ninth Circuit. (ECF No. 153). The Honorable District Judge Gloria M. Navarro granted that 10 motion and stayed the case. (ECF No. 166). Nonetheless, Plaintiff continued to file frivolous 11 exhibits, appeals, and supplements. The Ninth Circuit dismissed Plaintiff’s appeal of the Court’s 12 vexatious-litigant order on March 6, 2024. (ECF No. 225). Judge Navarro lifted the stay on 13 April 4, 2024. (ECF No. 226). 14 The Court sua sponte gave Plaintiff additional time to respond to the show cause order 15 after Judge Navarro lifted the stay, reasoning that “[i]t appears that Plaintiff may have believed 16 the time to respond to the Court’s show-cause order was tolled by her appeal and the subsequent 17 stay.” (ECF No. 277). The Court gave her until May 6, 2024 to respond. (Id.). Amidst more 18 appeals, Plaintiff timely filed a response to the show-cause order. (ECF No. 239). 19 Plaintiff’s response demonstrates that she is either unwilling or incapable of doing more 20 than bombarding the Court with the same frivolous allegations and photos of her neighbors. 21 Plaintiff has maintained throughout this lawsuit and her other lawsuits that nearly everyone she 22 encounters is part of a scheme initiated by LVMPD to stalk and inconvenience her. She believes 23 that her neighbors are part of the scheme and that anyone she can see from her house—including 24 children playing in the nearby park—are conspiring with LVMPD to watch her, ring her doorbell, 25 throw debris in her yard, and become “obsessed” with her. Plaintiff has papered this docket and 26 others with countless photos of her neighbors that she has captured on her home cameras and 27 continuous recounting of her neighbors’ and strangers’ “suspicious” behavior. Plaintiff’s 1 In her response, Plaintiff argues that LVMPD is really the “vexatious” party and claims 2 that her neighbors are under LVMPD’s “influence.” (ECF No. 239 at 4). As proof, she attaches a 3 blurry picture of people standing in front of a house across the street and claims “they are waving 4 their hands towards PLAINTIFF’S house, standing around talking about PLAINTIFF and staring 5 menacingly at her home and using intimidation. They are still obsessed with PLAINTIFF.” (Id.). 6 She also now claims that the mechanic shop into which she took her car is also part of the 7 conspiracy. (Id. at 6). She details her visit to the mechanic and asserts that the employees began 8 acting “very strange” and “put a listening/monitoring device in her car at law enforcement’s 9 behest.” (Id. at 7-8). Plaintiff even adds that she sued her mechanic in state court in March of 10 2023 over the work the shop did on her car and argues that the state court judges presiding over 11 her case had “clear bias” against her. (Id. at 8-10). She adds that she also sued the finance 12 company that she used to pay for her car. (Id.).

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Thomas v. Arn
474 U.S. 1111 (Supreme Court, 1986)

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Warren v. Sparks Police Department, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/warren-v-sparks-police-department-nvd-2024.