Dismissal with prejudice
Court adopted the R&R and dismissed the complaint with prejudice. The short final order does not reproduce the complete reasoning from the R&R.
March 20, 2026 ruling source — govinfo.gov ↗Tufano v. Saladino, MD et al
3:25-cv-01400 · U.S. District Court, Middle District of Pennsylvania
ClosedDismissedPennsylvania
CourtU.S. District Court, Middle District of Pennsylvania
FiledJuly 29, 2025
StatusClosed
OutcomeDismissed
Final dispositionWith prejudice; appeal pending at the Third Circuit (No. 26-1737)
JurisdictionPennsylvania
Pro seYes
Current / transferee court—
Transferred case—
Last researchedAugust 25, 2026
About this case
Evidentiary treatment: This summarizes the plaintiff's own allegations as stated in the complaint or docket record cited below. It reflects what was filed, not a court finding, and is not a determination that the allegations are true.
Proceeding pro se, Tufano filed a complaint on July 29, 2025 against Paul Saladino, M.D., attorney Jeffrey Davis, Esq., White Plains Lodge #473, and “the Illuminati,” asserting five causes of action: fraud, tortious interference, fraudulent concealment, civil conspiracy, and “conspiracy against rights” under 18 U.S.C. § 241. He alleges Saladino, a fellow social-media health/diet personality, plagiarized his Carnivore Diet research without attribution and profited from it, and that Saladino, Davis, and other associates conspired to procure an adverse default judgment and injunction against him in an earlier suit Saladino brought in the Southern District of New York (Saladino v. Tufano, No. 7:20-cv-9346), including by naming his business, Frankie's Free Range Meat, as a defendant there. He further alleges Davis, who represented him in that earlier case, committed malpractice by not notifying him of a default filing.
He seeks damages for the alleged fraud and conspiracy; the allegations largely repeat those in an earlier, separately dismissed suit against the same defendants (C048 / 3:25-cv-262).
Defendants
Source record
This page separates court/ruling records, party filings, research classifications, secondary sources and public statements. Unknown or unresolved fields remain labelled as such.
Outcome and research status
Outcome reason: After screening, the magistrate judge described this as the second of a trilogy raising essentially the same claims against the same defendants, found its core factual allegations identical to C048, noted Tufano did not amend after being advised of deficiencies, and recommended dismissal with prejudice; the district court adopted the R&R. Update 2026-08-25: The report and recommendation (Doc. 6, Feb. 3, 2026, Magistrate Judge Leo A. Latella) was read in full. It recommends "that this case be dismissed, with prejudice," and frames the matter as "one in a trilogy of cases brought in this Court by pro se Plaintiff Frank Tufano, a frequent pro se litigator, raising essentially the same claims against the same defendants" -- identifying C048, this case, and C059. It records that this complaint "makes the identical factual allegations made in the previously dismissed action" and adds David D. Lin as a defendant. The adopting order (Doc. 9) was read as docket-entry text: the complaint was dismissed with prejudice by Judge Robert D. Mariani on Mar. 20, 2026. CourtListener reports no termination date for this docket, which is stale.
Research status: Source-backed (report and recommendation read in full via GovInfo; adopting order read as docket-entry text)
Research notes: Strong repetition link: the Feb. 3, 2026 R&R expressly says C055 makes the identical factual allegations made in previously dismissed C048; it also identifies C059 as a third similar action with the same defendants, identical allegations and same claims. Update 2026-08-25: The appeal from this case is docketed at the Third Circuit as No. 26-1737, confirmed from that docket's first entry naming District Court No. 3:25-cv-01400, with the report and recommendation and the order attached as the documents appealed from. The R&R also records, in a footnote, that "Plaintiff has filed at least twenty-two separate actions in this Court within the past two years, half of which are closed" -- a court-authored statement about filing volume, not a research classification.
Related litigation
- Previous related case: 3:25-cv-00262 — Tufano v. Saladino et al
- Dispute group: Saladino-related litigation
Court & ruling records
Findings recorded only where they are tied to an order, opinion or report and recommendation.
Record labels distinguish final orders/opinions, reports and recommendations, non-final orders, and tentative/indexed ruling records.
Repeated litigation / identical factual allegations (R&R)
R&R described C048, C055 and C059 as a trilogy raising essentially the same claims against the same defendants; it said C055 repeated the identical factual allegations from dismissed C048 and C059 again made identical factual allegations and the same claims.
February 3, 2026 ruling source — govinfo.gov ↗Repeated previously rejected legal theory / amendment futile (R&R)
R&R noted that the private-right-of-action defect in Tufano's 18 U.S.C. §241 theory had already been explained in an earlier case and repeated in C048/C055; it also found that he had been advised of pleading deficiencies and chose not to amend, so further amendment would be futile.
February 3, 2026 ruling source — govinfo.gov ↗Court-stated litigation-volume observation (R&R footnote)
Footnote to the report and recommendation recording that "Plaintiff has filed at least twenty-two separate actions in this Court within the past two years, half of which are closed." This is a judicial statement about filing volume in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. It is not a vexatious-litigant determination and no filing restriction was imposed. Substantially the same observation appears in the report and recommendation in C059.
February 3, 2026 ruling source — govinfo.gov ↗Appellate history
Appeals taken from this docket record, with what the research does and does not establish about each.
Taking an appeal is a party’s filing, not a ruling — only an appellate court’s own disposition is a finding, and a disposition recorded here is a docket fact rather than reasoning unless the order itself was read. An appeal continues the action it arises from, so appeals are never counted as additional lawsuits: the case and originating-action counts published elsewhere on this site are unaffected by this section. Where a docket number or a current status is not recorded, that is a stated gap in the research, not a finding that none exists. See Methodology.
26-1737
Confirmed from the appellate docket's first entry naming District Court No. 3:25-cv-01400, with the report and recommendation and the adopting order attached as the documents appealed from. Re-checked 2026-09-10. The Third Circuit's own docket is mirrored on CourtListener, but only through its case-opening entries, and it records no termination date. No disposition appears in any free public source, and the M.D. Pa. district docket - where a Third Circuit order or mandate would be entered on its return - is mirrored in RECAP only through 2026-05 and carries no appellate entry. The appeal is therefore recorded as pending on the strength of an open appellate docket rather than a read disposition.
Record source — courtlistener.com ↗Filing-restriction indicators
Strength labels are research classifications, not judicial declarations that the litigant is vexatious.
StrongRepeated identical factual allegations after prior dismissal
R&R described a trilogy of cases raising essentially the same claims against the same defendants and expressly found C055 repeated C048's identical factual allegations. Plaintiff had been advised of pleading deficiencies in an earlier report and recommendation and did not amend; final dismissal was with prejudice. The documents held record that advice about pleading deficiencies and contain no warning to Plaintiff about his filing conduct, so no judicial warning is coded here.
Source — govinfo.gov ↗StrongCourt-stated litigation volume in the district
A footnote to the Feb. 3, 2026 report and recommendation records that "Plaintiff has filed at least twenty-two separate actions in this Court within the past two years, half of which are closed." This records a judicial statement about filing volume in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. It is not a finding that Frank Tufano is a vexatious litigant, and no filing restriction or prefiling order accompanied it. Substantially the same observation appears in the report and recommendation in C059.
Source — govinfo.gov ↗Chronology events
Sequence does not by itself prove motive or causation.
New complaint filed
Tufano filed C055 naming substantially the same defendants.
Source — govinfo.gov ↗Concurrent same-day complaint filed (state court)
A Lackawanna County Saladino complaint (C019, 2025-05793) was filed the same day as the original federal Saladino complaint C055 (3:25-cv-01400). Direct review of C019's Verified Complaint confirms all five named defendants (Paul Saladino MD, Jeffrey Davis Esq, David D. Lin Esq, White Plains Lodge #473, The Illuminati) match C055's federal caption exactly, and C019 brings Fraud, Tortious Interference, and Civil Conspiracy counts overlapping C055's five causes of action.
Source — ic-access.com ↗Third similar complaint filed
Tufano filed a third similar action against the same defendants; it also added Judge Karoline Mehalchick.
Source — govinfo.gov ↗Screening warning / opportunity to amend
A screening order advised Tufano of pleading deficiencies and gave him an opportunity to file an amended complaint; he did not amend.
Source — govinfo.gov ↗R&R and related dismissal
The C055 R&R recommended dismissal with no further leave to amend; on the same date C059 was dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
Source — govinfo.gov ↗Final dismissal
District court adopted the R&R and dismissed C055 with prejudice.
Source — govinfo.gov ↗Pennsylvania cross-forum relationships
Same-day parallel original complaints (defendants/claims confirmed overlapping)Medium
The Lackawanna compilation and federal docket share the same date/title context; federal Filing 1 is an original complaint, not a removal. Direct review of the state Verified Complaint confirms all 5 defendants match the federal caption exactly, and its Fraud, Tortious Interference, and Civil Conspiracy counts overlap C055's five causes of action (see VI021).
Federal source — dockets.justia.com ↗Secondary sources
Commentary from former counsel or other secondary sources is retained separately from court findings and primary-source records.
Saladino v. Frank Tufano 20-cv-9346 – Decision on Mr. Tufano's Motion to Vacate His DefaultFebruary 16, 2026
Davis summarizes the representation/default chronology in C100 and points readers to the Jan. 29, 2026 Opinion & Order. The underlying court record independently confirms counsel was relieved Feb. 23, 2021, no answer was filed, default followed, and the earlier motion to vacate default was denied after the court found willful default and no meritorious defense.
Evidentiary treatment: Blog commentary is secondary. Court findings about default, motions, and representation are recorded in COURT_FINDINGS only where supported by the court opinions/docket.
Secondary source — daviscantor.com ↗Public video statements
Public statements are displayed separately from court findings. Quotations are transcribed from the video’s own YouTube auto-generated captions and timestamped from the caption cues covering the passage quoted. The Strong / Moderate / Context tier is this project’s research classification of how closely a statement bears on the documented filing patterns — it is not a judicial finding. Any second badge names the filing-restriction factor the statement’s own words describe; it records what the speaker said, not that a court found it.
How quotations are marked: An ellipsis (…) inside a quotation marks words left out between two passages of the same video, which can sit some minutes apart. The omitted wording is not reproduced here, and a clip on the statement supercut plays the whole span from the quotation’s first word to its last — so it includes the omitted material. Quotations without an ellipsis are continuous speech.
Repeated/escalatory filing¶
And that's actually what's happening with the um the Saladino case. I filed a new one and I actually named, you know, the lawyer that screwed me over. I named the secret societies and I named That's a that was filed. I could talk about that in a separate video
An announcement of a completed filing on an already-litigated dispute, with its defendant composition described rather than listed. C055 and C019 were both filed 2025-07-29, two days before publication, and both name exactly what he describes — a lawyer (Jeffrey Davis Esq; David D. Lin Esq) and secret societies (The Illuminati; White Plains Lodge #473) alongside Paul Saladino MD.
Watch at 04:28 — youtube.com ↗Repeated/escalatory filing¶
Uh I guess we'll find out what happens with the Saladin court case. Well, technically I already tried it once. I filed that case like five or six months ago and the judge dismissed it for failure to state a claim or something and then like I appealed it. It went to court of appeals. They didn't mail me the paperwork and then they dismissed it because I didn't pay the court fee or something. So, I had to refile it.
This is the speaker's own first-person account of the sequence the tracker records as a repeat-filing pair. He names the dispute ("the Saladin[o] court case"), dates his first attempt ("five or six months ago"), states the ground of dismissal ("failure to state a claim"), states that the appeal was itself dismissed on a fee/notice failure, and says he refiled as a result. Every element is checkable against the docket data and every element matches: C048 (M.D. Pa. 3:25-cv-00262) was filed 2025-02-12 — 5.6 months before this video published — and dismissed 2025-06-11 after an R&R recommended dismissal for failure to state a claim with leave to amend that he did not use. C055 (3:25-cv-01400) was filed 2025-07-29, two days before publication, and carries previous_related_case_id: C048 and refiling_of_prior_case: Yes. The appellate leg he describes is not currently in the tracker's C048 row and is a research lead. The dismissal-to-refiling core factor is satisfied by the new action, not by the appeal: the appeal is the ordinary appellate remedy and is expressly excluded by the factor's definition. The Strong tier rests on the refiling.
Watch at 12:55 — youtube.com ↗Legal-system allegation¶
because uh basically this corrupt secret society Illuminati agent, whatever group he's a part of, is using his connection to likely Freemason judge uh to just go after me and ruin my life because this case is completely unjustified.
this is the only place the title's claim is actually spoken. Note he hedges it — "likely Freemason judge" — and at this point he names neither the plaintiff nor the judge. The judge is not named until [7:25]; the plaintiff is never named in the entire video (he states at [1:10] that the injunction bars him from doing so).
Watch at 01:28 — youtube.com ↗Dispute background statement¶
Ever since I started my business in 2019, it's been a struggle against the secret society members, the elite, just to keep things going. And whether they're hiring people to directly place chargebacks, whether they're leaving fake reviews and slandering my business, it's always something.
This is the pleaded theory of the Shopify / business-platform dispute, stated on camera. The case tracker describes C040 as raising a "chargeback conspiracy", and describes C054 as "the same chargebacks-as-conspiracy theory and the same 18 U.S.C. 241 count that C040 lost", re-pled against a substantially identical defendant list. Here that theory is stated in his own words — organised actors "hiring people to directly place chargebacks" — on a dated public record, while four Shopify chargeback actions were live (C047, C050, C054, C095). It also fixes his business start date at 2019, a checkable fact. He describes no filing conduct: no case, court, docket, filing, lawyer or judge is named anywhere.
Watch / source — youtube.com ↗Related video research
Each video has its own research page with its verified publish date, timestamped statements and case links. A researched link between a video and a docket record is not a finding of causation in either direction.
- Did Paul Saladino RUIN MY FAMILY?!Watch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- Did PAUL SALADINO TELL TABAN TO BOTCH ME?!Watch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- Paul Saladino got me Kicked out of my Home and RUINED MY FAMILYWatch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- Corporations use SECRET SOCIETIES to DESTROY SMALL BUSINESSWatch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- NO LAW FIRM WILL HELP ME! Court System is ONLY for the \"Elite\Watch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- Illuminati Agent uses Corrupt Freemason Judge to RUIN MY LIFEWatch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
Cite this page
Frank Tufano Litigation Research. "Tufano v. Saladino, MD et al (3:25-cv-01400)". Research last verified August 25, 2026. https://suedbyfranktufano.com/cases/3-25-cv-01400-tufano-v-saladino-md-et-al/