Nunez v. Silber
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-08462
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
Nunez v. Silber: Judge Swain denied reconsideration and denied as unnecessary an extension to appeal, treating that motion as a notice of appeal.
Javier Nunez, who sought reconsideration of the dismissal and more time to appeal; the defendants were not directly granted or denied relief by this order.
What happened
Nunez v. Silber involved Javier Nunez’s challenge to events surrounding the eviction of him and his father from a Manhattan apartment. The court had dismissed his amended complaint without prejudice because it duplicated another pending case.
Nunez asked the court to reconsider that dismissal and requested more time to appeal it. He filed the request within the required 30-day period, so the court found that an extension was unnecessary.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied reconsideration and denied the extension request as unnecessary. She directed the Clerk to treat the extension motion as a notice of appeal and process it, denied fee-free status for any appeal from this order, and closed the matter.
The detailed version
- Nunez v. Silber · No. 1:23-cv-08462
- Laura Swain
- July 9, 2024
Background
Javier Nunez filed this action without a lawyer and sought permission to proceed without paying filing fees. He named individuals allegedly involved in evicting him and his father from a Manhattan apartment, his father’s caseworker, his therapists, and police officers who allegedly did not investigate his complaints. On October 16, 2023, the court dismissed Nunez’s amended complaint without prejudice because it duplicated a complaint already pending in the court.
On October 31, 2023, Nunez moved for reconsideration of the dismissal and asked for more time to file a notice of appeal.
Motion for reconsideration
The court treated the reconsideration request as a motion under Rule 59(e), which requires a party to show that the court overlooked controlling law or factual matters previously presented. The court concluded that Nunez had not shown that it overlooked anything when dismissing this action as duplicative of his substantially similar action. The court therefore denied the motion for reconsideration.
Request for more time to appeal
The court explained that, in a civil case, a notice of appeal generally must be filed within 30 days after judgment. Because Nunez filed his request within 30 days of the October 16 dismissal order, the court determined that the request was timely and that an extension was unnecessary. The court denied the motion for an extension of time as unnecessary.
Disposition
The court directed the Clerk to terminate both motions, treat the extension motion as a notice of appeal, and process that notice under the Clerk’s procedures. The matter was closed, and the Clerk was directed to accept no further documents in the action except those directed to the Court of Appeals. The court also certified that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied Nunez permission to proceed without paying fees for purposes of an appeal.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.