1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

2 DISTRICT OF NEVADA

3 JUSTIN LYNN VICTORY, Case No.: 2:25-cv-00604-APG-DJA 4 Plaintiff, 5 ORDER v. 6 ZACH CONINE, et al., 7 Defendants. 8

9 On April 2, 2025, state prisoner Justin Victory filed an application to proceed in 10 forma pauperis. (ECF No. 1). But Plaintiff did not file a complaint in this action. The Court 11 is aware that Plaintiff submitted a complaint one day later. But because Plaintiff’s 12 complaint did not include a case number, the Clerk of the Court correctly docketed it in a 13 separate action, which is styled Victory v. Conine, Case No. 2:25-cv-00605-JAD-EJY 14 (“Victory II”). Plaintiff has since filed an application to proceed in forma pauperis in that 15 case. Victory II, ECF No. 3. 16 I. DISCUSSION 17 A civil action is commenced by filing a complaint with the court.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 3. 18 “A civil-rights complaint filed by a person who is not represented by an attorney must be 19 submitted on the form provided by this court or must be legible and contain substantially 20 all the information called for by the court’s form.” Nev. LSR 2-1. And the complaint must 21 be signed personally by the unrepresented party. Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(a). If Plaintiff wants 22 to proceed with this action, he must submit a signed complaint on this Court’s approved 23 form. 24 Plaintiff is cautioned that “[p]laintiffs generally have no right to maintain two 25 separate actions involving the same subject matter at the same time in the same court 26 and against the same defendant.” Adams v. Cal. Dept. of Health Servs.,

, 27 688 (9th Cir. 2007) (cleaned up), overruled on other grounds by Taylor v. Sturgell, 553

, 904 (2008). In fact, duplicative litigation by a plaintiff proceeding in forma 2 pauperis may be dismissed as malicious under

(e). See Cato v. United 3 States,

, 1105 n.2 (9th Cir. 1995) (collecting cases). If Plaintiff did not intend 4 to initiate two different lawsuits but, rather, intended to file a single lawsuit and his 5 complaint and application to proceed in forma pauperis were erroneously separated into 6 two different lawsuits, then he should file a notice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 7 41(a)(1)(A)(i) voluntarily dismissing his later-filed lawsuit—Victory II, Case No. 2:25-cv- 8 00605-JAD-EJY. And Plaintiff is cautioned that he must clearly write the case number on 9 his documents to ensure that they are docketed in the correct lawsuit. See Nev. LR IA 10 10-2. 11 II. CONCLUSION 12 It is therefore ordered that Plaintiff has until May 9, 2025, to submit a signed legible 13 complaint to this Court. 14 Plaintiff is cautioned that this action will be subject to dismissal without prejudice if 15 he fails to timely comply with this order. 16 The Clerk of the Court is directed to send Plaintiff Victory the approved form for 17 filing a

complaint with instructions. 18 19 DATED: April 9, 2025

20

21 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE 22 23 24 25 26 27