Brancato v. Gunn

Brancato v. Gunn is a United States Supreme Court case regarding frivolous court filings. In the case, the Court denied petitioner's ability to continue to submit such filings.

Background
At the Supreme Court, indigent petitioners are able to proceed by filing a motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis, or IFP. IFP petitions are governed by Supreme Court Rule 39, which states in relevant part:

"If satisfied that a petition for a writ of certiorari, jurisdictional statement, or petition for an extraordinary writ is frivolous or malicious, the Court may deny leave to proceed in forma pauperis."

Prior to this case, Brancato had filed seven petitions for certiorari in the Supreme Court, all of which were found to be frivolous and denied without dissent.

Supreme Court
In a per curiam opinion, the Court denied Brancato's motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis. It further directed the Clerk of the court not to accept further petitions from Brancato in noncriminal matters unless he paid the Court's docketing fee as required by Supreme Court Rule 38. Since Brancato's petitions were limited to the civil context, he would only be prohibited from filing additional petitions in this context. The Court based its decision in this case on its findings in a similar case, Martin v. District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Justice Stevens dissented, citing the reasons he gave in his dissenting opinion in Martin.