[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 21-11068

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

WASEEM DAKER, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

versus

KIMBERLY M. ESMOND ADAMS, 

Judge, 

JANE C. BARWICK, 

Judge, 

JERRY W. BAXTER, 

Judge, 

T. JACKSON BEDFORD, JR., 

Judge, 

CHRISTOPHER M. BRASHER, 

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2 Opinion of the Court 21-11068

Judge, et al., 

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Georgia

D.C. Docket No. 1:20-cv-04130-WMR

____________________

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and LAGOA, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Waseem Daker, a Georgia prisoner, appeals pro se the dismissal of his complaint against state judges and court clerks, 42 

U.S.C. § 1983, for failure to state a claim and the denial of his motion to vacate the dismissal order, Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e). Daker also 

appeals the order striking his amended complaint, which sought to 

add new defendants and claims, because he did not comply with a 

permanent filing injunction, which was reimposed between the filing of his original and amended complaints. We affirm.

In May 2020, Daker complained that the state judges routinely failed to timely rule on civil filings, entered opposing parties’ 

proposed orders against him, and failed to recuse, for which Daker 

sought declaratory and injunctive relief. Daker also complained 

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that, between 2013 and 2017, the court clerks routinely misapplied 

the process for screening civil cases to habeas-corpus petitions, 

which violated his right of access to the state courts. Daker asserted 

that these counts against the court clerks were timely under the 

“renewal statute,” O.C.G.A. § 9-2-61, because they were part of an 

earlier lawsuit that was dismissed by the district court.

In October 2020, a magistrate judge issued a report and recommendation that the district court dismiss Daker’s complaint 

without prejudice. 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. The magistrate judge stated 

that Daker failed to state a claim against the state judges because 

they were entitled to absolute judicial immunity, and none of his 

allegations entitled him to declaratory or injunctive relief. The 

magistrate judge stated that Daker failed to state a claim against the 

court clerks because it was apparent that he was aware of their alleged misconduct no later than the end of 2017, so his claims were 

barred by the two-year statute of limitations. The magistrate judge 

found that the renewal statute did not apply because the earlier 

lawsuit was dismissed before the defendants were served. The 

magistrate judge also noted that the filing injunction imposed 

against Daker in August 2020 was not in effect when he filed the 

complaint. Daker objected to the report and recommendation.

In November 2020, before the district court ruled, Daker 

filed an amended and supplemental complaint. In addition to the 

31 judges sued in the original complaint, the amended complaint 

named 25 state appellate judges but did not state any specific allegations against them. Instead, the amended complaint added three 

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counts against two state judges who were named in the original 

complaint. In those new counts, Daker alleged that, in 2020, the 

two judges “denied filing of [his in forma pauperis] request” because 

a prison official did not sign the request, O.C.G.A. § 9-10-14(b), and 

because he did not include a copy of his prison account statement, 

id. § 42-12-5(a)(3). Daker also alleged that, during 2020, the clerk of 

the Georgia Supreme Court failed to file several of his petitions for 

a writ of certiorari.

In February 2021, the district court overruled Daker’s objections, adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendation, and dismissed the original complaint. The district court also reviewed sua 

sponte Daker’s amended complaint and ruled that it was a “new action” and did not relate back because he added “entirely new claims 

against entirely new defendants.” The district court ruled that the 

permanent filing injunction imposed in August 2020 applied to the 

amended complaint and struck it for failing to comply with the requirements of the injunction. 

Daker moved the district court to vacate the dismissal order, 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e). As relevant, Daker argued that the renewal 

statute applied because he was not required to pay the filing fee or 

serve the defendants for the federal action to be “valid.” Daker also 

challenged the application of the filing injunction to his amended 

complaint. The district court rejected Daker’s arguments and denied the motion.

Daker argues that the district judge and magistrate judge 

erred by failing sua sponte to recuse. See 28 U.S.C. § 455(a). Daker 

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argues that, because the district judge and magistrate judge recused 

themselves from several of Daker’s cases in March 2022, their rulings in this earlier case should be vacated and reconsidered by a 

new judge. We disagree. 

Section 455 provides two conditions for recusal. 28 U.S.C. 

§ 455(a)–(b). Under subsection (a), “Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his partiality might reasonably be questioned.” Id. 

§ 455(a). Under subsection (b), a judge must recuse himself 

“[w]here he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a 

party . . . .” Id. § 455(b). 

Without evidence of pervasive bias and prejudice, “a judge’s 

rulings in the same or a related case may not serve as the basis for 

a recusal motion.” McWhorter v. City of Birmingham, 906 F.2d 674, 

678 (11th Cir. 1990). Daker cites only the district judge’s and magistrate judge’s recusals from his other cases in March 2022, but their 

later recusals do not establish that they held any pervasive bias or 

prejudice against him at the time of their earlier rulings. See id.

The district court did not err by dismissing Daker’s original 

complaint. Daker’s claims against the court clerks were barred by 

the two-year statute of limitations because their alleged misconduct occurred between 2013 and January 2017, and he presented 

his complaint for filing in May 2020. See Hancock v. Cape, 875 F.3d 

1079, 1082 & n.1 (11th Cir. 2017). And Daker cannot benefit from 

the Georgia renewal statute because the statute applies only to actions that were considered valid before dismissal. See id. at 1084

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(applying Georgia law to determine whether a federal lawsuit 

could be renewed after a non-merits dismissal); Scott v. Muscogee 

Cty., 949 F.2d 1122, 1123 (11th Cir. 1992) (same). And the “mere 

filing of appellant’s complaint . . . without service on appellee[s], 

[does] not . . . constitute a ‘valid’ action. . . . [I]t is essential that the 

declaration filed in the first instance should have been served upon 

the defendant[s].” Scott, 949 F.2d at 1123 (quoting Acree v. Knab, 348 

S.E.2d 716, 717 (Ga. Ct. App. 1986) (second and third alterations in 

original). Because Daker did not serve the state officials in the earlier lawsuit, that action was not valid, and the renewal statute does 

not revive his untimely claims. See id.

The district court properly dismissed Daker’s claims against 

the state judges too. In Georgia, as in the federal system, judges are 

immune from suit unless they have committed a nonjudicial act or 

“act[ed] in the complete absence of all jurisdiction.” Withers v. 

Schroeder, 819 S.E.2d 49, 52 (Ga. 2018). A “judge is not deprived of 

judicial immunity simply because she has allegedly acted mistakenly, maliciously or corruptly.” Id. Judicial immunity does not protect a state judge from claims for injunctive and declaratory relief. 

See Pulliam v. Allen, 466 U.S. 522, 542 (1984); GeorgiaCarry.Org, Inc. 

v. Bordeaux, 834 S.E.2d 896, 900–01 (Ga. Ct. App. 2019). But Congress has amended section 1983 to bar claims for injunctive relief 

against judges acting in their judicial capacity unless “‘a declaratory 

decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable.’” Bolin v. 

Story, 225 F.3d 1234, 1239 (11th Cir. 2000) (quoting 42 U.S.C. 

§ 1983). To obtain declaratory relief, Daker must prove that there 

was a constitutional violation, a serious risk of continuing 

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irreparable injury if relief is not granted, and the absence of an adequate remedy at law. Id. at 1242.

Daker was ineligible for declaratory relief because he had an 

adequate remedy—the right to appeal to the state appellate courts. 

See id. Specifically, Daker sought “injunctive relief enjoining Judge 

Defendants from denying filing of future prisoner civil actions 

based on failure to provide a certified copy of his prison account 

statement.” He also sought a declaratory judgment that the state 

judges who received and entered proposed orders from opposing 

parties violated his right of access to the courts, for which he sought 

an injunction requiring those judges to recuse from his future 

cases. But because Daker did not establish that he was unable to 

avail himself of the appellate process to challenge any of these rulings, declaratory and injunctive relief were unavailable. See id.

Daker argues that his amended complaint was not subject to 

the requirements of the filing injunction because it was not a “new 

action,” but Daker is only partially correct. His amended complaint 

was new in two ways: he alleged in three new counts that two previously-named state judges failed to file his in forma pauperis requests, and he alleged in passing in five counts that the clerk of the 

Georgia Supreme Court failed to file his petitions for a writ of certiorari. The district court correctly determined that Daker’s attempt to add entirely new claims against a new party—the clerk of 

the Georgia Supreme Court—would not relate back to the original 

complaint for the purpose of applying the filing injunction. See Fed. 

R. Civ. P. 15(c)(1)(B),(C) (providing that a pleading can relate back 

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if it ”asserts a claim or defense that arose out of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence set out—or attempted to be set out—in the 

original pleading,” and that the added party must have “(i) received 

such notice of the action that it will not be prejudiced in defending 

on the merits . . . and (ii) knew or should have known that the action would have been brought against it, but for a mistake concerning the proper party’s identity.”). Because the clerk was a new party 

and the claim against her did not arise from the same transactions 

or occurrences alleged in the original complaint, Daker’s claims 

against her were subject to the filing injunction. 

As for the new counts against the two state judges named in 

the original complaint, even if the injunction did not apply, allowing the amendment would be futile. See L.S. ex rel. Hernandez v. Peterson, 982 F.3d 1323, 1332 (11th Cir. 2020); Silberman v. Miami Dade 

Transit, 927 F.3d 1123, 1132 (11th Cir. 2019). The new counts—alleging that the judges denied filing his in forma pauperis requests because they were not signed by a prison official and Daker did not 

provide a copy of his inmate account—contain the same allegations 

that Daker raised against several other states judges in his original 

complaint and that the district court ruled did not entitle him to 

declaratory or injunctive relief. For these reasons, the new counts 

in Daker’s amended complaint could not state a claim for relief 

even if the filing injunction did not apply to the amended complaint. See Silberman, 927 F.3d at 1133 (“Leave to amend a complaint 

is futile when the complaint as amended would still be properly 

dismissed.”). Although Daker identified in his amended notice of 

appeal the order denying his motion to vacate the dismissal order, 

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Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e), he does not raise any argument about it. Timson v. Sampson, 518 F.3d 870, 874 (11th Cir. 2008).

We AFFIRM the dismissal of Daker’s amended complaint 

and the denial of his motion to vacate.

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