Rahman v. Balanos
- Vernon Broderick
- 1:23-cv-08168
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Rahman v. Bolanos, Judge Broderick allowed an amended complaint, extended service time, and referred the case to a magistrate judge for pretrial matters.
Sha-Heed Rahman, the defendants, and the three defendants who had not yet been served were affected by the amendment, response, service, and pretrial-referral orders.
What happened
In Rahman v. Bolanos, Sha-Heed Rahman, representing himself, alleges that conditions at the Otis Bantum Correctional Facility, excessive force, and denial of medical care harmed him in July and August 2023.
Rahman filed an amended complaint while the defendants’ motion to dismiss was pending. He also asked the court to help identify three defendants who had not been served and to extend his service deadline.
Judge Vernon S. Broderick granted the request to amend, made the amended complaint the operative complaint, extended the service deadline to January 31, 2025, and referred the case to Magistrate Judge Tarnofsky for general pretrial matters. The court did not decide the motion to dismiss.
The detailed version
- Rahman v. Balanos · No. 1:23-cv-08168
- Vernon Broderick
- Oct. 25, 2024
Background
Sha-Heed Rahman filed this action without a lawyer on September 14, 2023. He alleges that, while incarcerated at the Otis Bantum Correctional Facility on Rikers Island, the defendants subjected him to substandard conditions of confinement, used excessive force, and denied him medical care during July and August 2023.
The court issued an order of service on April 29, 2024. The defendants later filed a motion to dismiss the complaint. On September 18, 2024, Rahman filed an amended complaint and asked the court to make it the operative complaint, extend the deadline for serving three defendants, and issue an order requiring assistance in identifying Officer Ascensceau, Captain Jane Doe, and John/Jane Doe Medical Staff.
Rulings
The court granted Rahman’s request to amend. The amended complaint, filed as Document 26, became the operative complaint in the case.
The court ordered the defendants to file a letter by November 22, 2024, stating whether they wished to renew their existing motion to dismiss or file an additional motion to dismiss the amended complaint. The letter also had to respond, to the extent possible, to Rahman’s descriptions of the unserved defendants.
The court extended the deadline for Rahman to serve Officer Ascensceau, Captain Jane Doe, and John/Jane Doe Medical Staff to January 31, 2025. It also referred the action to Magistrate Judge Tarnofsky for general pretrial purposes and advised the parties that they could consent to Judge Tarnofsky’s jurisdiction. The order did not rule on the merits of Rahman’s allegations or decide the pending motion to dismiss.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.