Zappin v. Ramey
| Decision Date | 27 October 2022 |
| Docket Number | 3:22-cv-00080 |
| Parties | ANTHONY ZAPPIN, Plaintiff, v. ANCIL RAMEY, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of West Virginia |
PROPOSED FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Pending before the Court are a pro se amended complaint filed by Plaintiff Anthony Zappin under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, (ECF No. 14), and Defendants' Motions to Dismiss and for Pre-Filing Injunction, (ECF Nos. 11, 15). This matter is assigned to the Honorable Robert C. Chambers, United States District Judge, and is referred to the undersigned United States Magistrate Judge for submission of proposed findings of fact and recommendations for disposition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B). For the reasons that follow, the undersigned respectfully PROPOSES that the presiding District Judge accept and adopt the findings herein and RECOMMENDS that Defendants' motions (ECF Nos. 11, 15), be GRANTED; the amended complaint, (ECF No. 14), be DISMISSED, with prejudice; this action be CLOSED and REMOVED from the docket of the Court; and a prefiling injunction be IMPOSED prohibiting Plaintiff from instituting any further civil litigation in this district against the named defendants or any other individual concerning Plaintiff's divorce, custody, or attorney disciplinary proceedings; disbarments; or prosecution for a tangentially related criminal matter without first obtaining leave to do so from this Court. See, e.g., Brumfield v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., No. 3:15-CV-14127, 2016 WL 1254627, at *11 (S.D W.Va. Mar. 11, 2016), report and recommendation adopted, 2016 WL 1267803 (S.D. W.Va. Mar. 30, 2016) (imposing prefiling injunction due to repeated vexatious litigation on the same topics); also Zappin v Cooper, 20 Civ. 2669 (ER), 2022 WL 985634 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 31, 2022).
This case is one of many pro se lawsuits filed by Zappin, an attorney formerly licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia, New York, and West Virginia. Not all of Zappin's lawsuits are relevant to the instant action, but to the extent that they are relevant, they are discussed below. Also addressed below are two of three attorney disciplinary proceedings lodged against Zappin.
Zappin married Claire K. Comfort in 2013. Comfort and Zappin quickly developed marital problems and by November of that year entered into a consent order in the District of Columbia by which Zappin agreed to have no contact with Comfort and only supervised visitation with the couple's newborn son. Zappin v. Comfort, 49 Misc.3d 1201(A), 26 N.Y.S.3d 217 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2015), aff'd, 146 A.D.3d 575, 49 N.Y.S.3d 6 (2017) (). On February 11, 2014, after Comfort moved to New York, Zappin filed for divorce and child custody in the New York County Supreme Court. Zappin represented himself in the proceedings. By all accounts, the divorce and custody battle were acrimonious and covered extensively by New York City tabloids.
Justice Matthew F. Cooper was assigned to preside over Zappin's divorce and child custody proceedings after Justice Deborah A. Kaplan withdrew from the case. On September 18, 2015, Justice Cooper issued an Order imposing sanctions against Zappin in the amount of $10,000. Sanctions Order, at *11. In the Order, Justice Cooper found that Zappin had used “his law license as a tool to threaten, bully, and intimidate.” Id., at *2. Justice Cooper reviewed the history of the divorce proceeding, describing Zappin as being aggressively hostile to both the presiding judge in the District of Columbia and to Justice Kaplan. Id., at *2-*3. Justice Cooper cited to passages in the record where Zappin accused Justice Kaplan of lying, indicating that Zappin made “other deeply personal, and frankly outrageous, verbal attacks” against Justice Kaplan that could “only be described as words not said in civil discourse, let alone ones that should ever be uttered by an attorney to a judge in the context of a court proceeding.” Id., at *3. Justice Cooper listed numerous instances in which Zappin intentionally tried to delay and disrupt the proceedings, all while vehemently complaining that he was being denied a hearing on continued supervised access to his child. Id., at *4-*5. Justice Cooper noted that Zappin treated Comfort's counsel in the same “offensive and patently improper manner,” but exhibited his “worst form of behavior” toward the attorney who was appointed to represent the interests of Zappin's child. Id., at *6. According to Justice Cooper, Zappin retaliated against his child's attorney by creating websites posting insulting statements about her, serving her with improper subpoenas, and filing an unmerited and dishonest complaint against the expert retained by the attorney. Id., at *7-*10. Justice Cooper found that warnings had not had any effect on Zappin's misconduct; consequently, Justice Cooper imposed monetary sanctions “for the integrity of the judicial process, as well as for the protection of the other litigants and the child.” Id., at *11.
Zappin appealed Justice Cooper's order of sanctions to the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, New York (hereinafter also referred to as the “Appellate Court”), which found that the sanctions were proper and that Zappin was not entitled to a hearing prior to the court imposing sanctions. Zappin v. Comfort, 146 A.D.3d 575, 49 N.Y.S.3d 6 (2017) appeal dismissed by 31 N.Y.3d 1077, 102 N.E.3d 1056 (2018). The Appellate Court determined that Justice Cooper's “detailed decision [was] amply supported by the record” and that Zappin had not advanced any meritorious argument. Id. The Appellate Court agreed that the record established “unprofessional, outrageous and malicious conduct” by Zappin and rejected each of his procedural arguments. Id.
On August 16, 2016, Justice Cooper entered a judgment of divorce on Zappin's petition, which incorporated an earlier order entered on March 1, 2016, awarding Comfort sole physical and legal custody of the parties' child, granting Zappin supervised visitation, and issuing a five-year stay-away order of protection in Comfort's favor. Zappin v. Comfort, 155 A.D.3d 497, 65 N.Y.S.3d 30-31 (2017) appeal dismissed 31 N.Y.3d 1077, 102 N.E.3d 1056 (2018) ().[1] Zappin appealed, and the Appellate Court affirmed the judgment. The Appellate Court concluded that the custody award was resolved on a “sound and substantial evidentiary basis,” specifically finding support in the record for Justice Cooper's determination that Comfort and her witnesses were credible, while Zappin's testimony was frequently “not truthful,” and Comfort's version of events regarding domestic violence was corroborated with photographs. Id. at 498. The Appellate Court found the evidence persuasive that Zappin had physically and verbally harmed Comfort, engaged in abusive litigation tactics, lacked emotional restraint, made repeated false allegations of abuse, and committed numerous family offenses. Divorce Judgment at 498. The Appellate Court rejected all of Zappin's procedural challenges, concluding that Justice Cooper's “rulings in this lengthy, contentious proceeding were fair and impartial, and were based in part on credibility determinations that have support in the record.” Id. at 500.
In 2016, the Attorney Grievance Committee of the Appellate Division, First Department, New York charged Zappin with professional misconduct in a collateral estoppel disciplinary action based upon Justice Cooper's findings during the divorce and custody proceedings. Matter of Zappin, 160 A.D.3d 1, 73 N.Y.S.3d 182 (N.Y.App.Div. 2018). Zappin was prosecuted by defendant herein, Kevin M. Doyle, under the supervision of chief attorney and defendant herein, Jorge Dopico. On October 17, 2016, the Appellate Court found that Zappin had violated multiple rules of professional conduct, basing its findings on Justice Cooper's determinations that Zappin had engaged in domestic violence against Comfort, testified falsely at a custody trial, introduced false evidence during the proceedings, presented misleading testimony, demonstrated disrespect for the court and counsel, threatened his wife and her attorney with professional harm, made offensive remarks to his child, engaged in frivolous and abusive litigation, and attempted to defame the child's attorney. Id., at *3. The Appellate Court referred the matter to a referee to recommend an appropriate sanction.
After conducting a hearing, the referee recommended disbarment, citing Zappin's lack of remorse and lack of respect for the judicial process as aggravating factors. Id., at *5. On March 8, 2018, the Appellate Court accepted the recommendation and ordered Zappin disbarred. Matter of Zappin, 160 A.D.3d, at *9. The Appellate Court rejected Zappin's argument that it would be fundamentally unfair to discipline him pursuant to the doctrine of collateral estoppel, pointing out that the Appellate Court had previously reviewed and affirmed Justice Cooper's findings on appeal. Id., at *6. The Appellate Court noted that the record was:
replete with numerous egregious and outrageous acts of misconduct perpetrated by respondent over the course of a four-year period, including his repeated acts of domestic violence toward his wife; his false testimony at the custody trial; his introduction of falsified evidence in the form of altered text messages; his presentation of misleading testimony through his expert witnesses; his flouting the directives of three judges; his setting up of a fake website about the attorney for the...
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