Research methods, court/ruling records and source audits

On the court's standard form IFP-10, 'Order of Dismissal or Remand', the court ordered that 'this case is HEREBY ORDERED DISMISSED without prejudice', terminated the case and marked it JS-6. The form issues where the court has sent a warning letter about a filing deficiency and more than thirty days have passed without correction. Which of the form's three alternative deficiencies was marked cannot be determined: the filed copy is flattened and carries no tick glyph in any content stream. The docket shows that the complaint was entered Sept. 8, 2026 alongside a notice of deficiency in filed documents and a notice of discrepancies with the filing of a complaint.

The court overruled the plaintiff’s objections, adopted Magistrate Judge Phillip J. Caraballo’s report and recommendation of Oct. 1, 2026 in its entirety, dismissed the complaint without prejudice under Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(m) for failure to serve the defendant, and directed the Clerk of Court to close the case. A summons had issued on Apr. 8, 2026, and show cause orders of July 28 and Sept. 3, 2026 had each directed the plaintiff to provide proof of service and warned that the case was subject to Rule 4(m) dismissal without it. The plaintiff’s proof-of-service form, filed with his objections and dated Sept. 9, 2026, was held deficient because it bears the case number of a different action against the same defendant.

Granted The IMA Group’s motion to dismiss as to the civil-conspiracy claim and denied it in all other respects, so the medical-malpractice claim against that defendant proceeds. The alternative request for leave to amend, made in the opposition brief, was denied. IMA was directed to answer within fourteen days and the motion sequence was terminated. The court did not reach the Social Security Administration’s combined Rule 12(b)(1) and Rule 56 motion, recording that it was not yet fully submitted. Of the four claims pled, only civil conspiracy and medical malpractice were before the court on this motion, the other two not having been pled against this defendant.

Recommends that the defendants’ motion to dismiss be granted and the complaint dismissed with prejudice under 28 U.S.C. § 1915 and Rule 12(b)(6), describing the secret-society allegations as fantastic or delusional and rejecting the FTC Act, Title VII, Sherman Act, intentional-infliction, defamation and civil-conspiracy claims on their merits. Read in full. No adopting order was on the docket as of 2026-09-23.

Order and accompanying memorandum denied the plaintiff’s motion to expedite discovery (Doc. 43) and granted the defence motion to stay discovery (Doc. 45), without prejudice to renewal following resolution of the pending and potentially dispositive motions. The memorandum records four such motions then pending (Docs. 10, 18, 21 and 30) and notes the case was assigned to the magistrate judge on July 29, 2026 with the referral clarified Aug. 19, 2026. Both documents read in full.

Minute order read in full (marked Page 1 of 1). Plaintiff appeared pro se by remote appearance; there were no appearances for defendants. The Court denied the Motion for Reconsideration filed by Frank Tufano on 07/27/2026, stating that the motion "is Denied because it does not satisfy the requirements of Code of Civil Procedure Section 1008." The July 14, 2026 dismissal without prejudice therefore stands. This replaces the earlier register-of-actions entry with the order's own text and adds the statutory ground for the denial.

The Aug. 19, 2026 minute order, read in full, records that an "Order Striking Statement of Disqualification; Verified Answer was signed and filed prior to this morning's hearing." The court's published document list separately shows an Order dated Aug. 18, 2026 (5 pages) and a Certificate of Mailing for "Order Striking Statement of Disqualification; Verified Answer" of the same date. Plaintiff had therefore sought to disqualify the assigned judge and the statement was stricken the day before his reconsideration motion was denied. The striking order's own text was not read - only its first page is viewable without purchase - so the fact that it was signed and filed is taken from the Aug. 19 minute order, which was read complete.

The court found that it had erred in attempting to impose a sixty-day probational period for expert disclosures by issuing summary judgment 'without prejudice'. It vacated sua sponte the part of its Aug. 7, 2026 order that issued summary judgment and reopened the case. The dispositions on the motion to disqualify and the motions in limine were left unchanged, as was the court's conclusion that the plaintiff cannot prove his case without medical expert testimony. The court required expert disclosures to be prepared and served under the Federal Rules by Sept. 6, 2026 and stated that summary judgment would issue if that deadline were not met. The plaintiff's motion to strike and the defendant's motion to amend the scheduling order were denied as moot. The entry is a text-only order and states that no PDF document is associated with it, so the docket text is the order in full.

Order of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, entered on the consolidated appeals Nos. 26-302 (L) and 26-1487 (Con) and filed on the district docket Aug. 13, 2026 as ECF 139. The panel (Bianco, Menashi and Kahn, Circuit Judges) denied Tufano's motion to stay the district court judgment, citing Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434-35 (2009), and stated that the appeals "will continue in the ordinary course." The Judge field is left blank because this is a per curiam panel order and is not attributable to a single judge. This is the second denial of a stay on the same Nken ground, after the district court's denial of June 11, 2026.

Recommended that both motions to dismiss be granted and every claim dismissed with prejudice, on three grounds: the judicial defendants are protected by absolute judicial immunity; the criminal statute pled affords no private right of action; and the claims against the remaining defendants are barred by claim preclusion. It further recommended that leave to amend be denied as futile. The recommendation was adopted in its entirety by the order of Sept. 1, 2026 that closed the case, so these are the operative grounds of dismissal.