PITTSBURGH — A federal judge in Pittsburgh has dismissed a New Jersey woman’s lawsuit against the Paul Laurence Dunbar Center over a $50,000 loan she made to the center in 2013.

The dismissal of the suit, which was ordered Friday by U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab, doesn’t prevent Jean Coulter, a Philadelphia-based attorney who is representing herself, from refiling in state court. But it ends a months-long legal process in federal court that centered on whether Coulter was owed interest on the money she lent to the center.

Coulter filed the suit on Feb. 1, asking a judge to award her $250,000 in interest and punitive damages for what she said was a breach of contract, gross negligence, conspiracy and fraud on the center’s part.

In 2013, Coulter offered the center an interest-free loan of $50,000, and said in court documents that the center subsequently defaulted on the repayment schedule, was “illegally secretive” about its finances and board information, and engaged in “wasteful spending.”

Bill Halle, a board member for the center, said Coulter was offered a $50,000 check twice, to repay the loan, but refused to accept it and claimed she was owed interest.

The suit’s dismissal comes as a function of procedural rules governing civil cases in federal court, said John Steidle, an attorney with the Pittsburgh-based law firm Burns White LLC, which represented the more than 19 defendants named in Colter’s lawsuit. Steidle filed a successful motion to have the suit dismissed against all the named defendants except the Dunbar Center, which removed one benchmark for Coulter having standing to file her claim in federal court — that there be defendants living in a different state from the plaintiff. Because the suit’s central claim of damages — the $50,000 loan — is less than the $75,000 required for a civil suit to have standing in federal court, Schwab ultimately dismissed the suit in its entirety, for “lack of subject matter jurisdiction.”

Coulter did not return a message left seeking comment on the dismissal.