Hasnain v. City Of New York
- Rochon
- 1:24-cv-06221
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Hasnain v. City of New York, Judge Rochon directed the City to respond to plaintiffs’ request to identify unidentified defendants.
The plaintiffs, including Hasnain, the City of New York, and the unidentified Doe defendants named in the complaint.
What happened
In Hasnain v. City of New York, the plaintiffs asked the court to require the City to identify unidentified police-officer defendants before the September 13, 2024 deadline for their civil-rights claims. They said the available video was not clear enough to read the officers’ names or badge numbers.
The plaintiffs asked the City to use reasonably diligent efforts to identify Doe defendants 1 through 9 by September 12, 2024. Their lawyer said the City had declined to conduct discovery before answering the complaint and cited other cases involving requests to identify unidentified officers.
Judge Jennifer L. Rochon did not decide the identification request in this order. Instead, she directed the defendants to respond to the plaintiffs’ letter by August 28, 2024, at 1:00 p.m.
The detailed version
- Hasnain v. City Of New York · No. 1:24-cv-06221
- Rochon
- Aug. 23, 2024
Background
Plaintiffs’ counsel asked the court to require the City of New York to identify the John and Jane Doe defendants named in the complaint before the September 13, 2024 deadline for claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal civil-rights law. The letter states that the events occurred on September 13, 2021, and that members of the New York City Police Department allegedly grabbed Hasnain and slammed her to the ground, causing her to lose consciousness and suffer a concussion despite wearing a bicycle helmet.
The complaint identified Doe defendants numbered 1 through 9. Counsel stated that plaintiffs had video footage and had taken still images from it, but that the video was not clear enough to read badge numbers or names. Counsel also stated that the City had said it would not conduct discovery before answering the complaint. The letter cited other cases in which courts directed the City to investigate and identify unidentified officers before the applicable deadline.
Request
Plaintiffs asked the court to direct the City to identify Doe defendants 1 through 9 through reasonably diligent efforts by September 12, 2024. The letter argued that failing to obtain the officers’ identities before the deadline could substantially prejudice plaintiffs.
Court’s Action
Judge Rochon directed the defendants to respond to the plaintiffs’ letter by August 28, 2024, at 1:00 p.m. The provided text does not show that the court granted or denied the request to require identification, and it does not state that the City was ordered to identify the Doe defendants.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.