Nettles v. McFadden
- Laura Swain
- 1:24-cv-07078
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Nettles v. McFadden, Judge Swain denied extra time because Nettles’s appeal notice was timely under the prison-mail rule.
Milton Wayne Nettles, who filed the action without a lawyer and sought extra time to appeal; the order also denied him permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
What happened
In Nettles v. McFadden, Milton Wayne Nettles asked for more time to appeal after the court had dismissed his action without prejudice. The court received his appeal notice on December 26, 2024, but he had signed it on December 6.
The court applied the rule that an incarcerated person’s filing is treated as filed when it is given to prison officials for mailing. Because Nettles signed the notice before the December 16 deadline, the court treated it as timely, making extra time unnecessary.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied the motion for an extension of time and directed the clerk to terminate it. She also denied fee-waiver status for an appeal, certifying that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Nettles v. McFadden · No. 1:24-cv-07078
- Laura Swain
- Jan. 10, 2025
Background
Milton Wayne Nettles filed this action without a lawyer. The court had ordered him to either pay the fees required to start a new civil case or submit an application to proceed without paying those fees, along with the required prisoner authorization. After Nettles did not comply, the court dismissed the action without prejudice on November 15, 2024, and entered a civil judgment on November 19, 2024.
Nettles later submitted a notice of appeal and a motion asking for more time to file the notice. The court received both documents on December 26, 2024; the documents were dated December 6, 2024.
Court’s reasoning
The court explained that Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(1)(A) generally requires a notice of appeal to be filed within 30 days after the judgment or order being appealed. It also explained the prison-mail rule: an incarcerated person’s filing is treated as filed when the person places it in the prison mail system. In the absence of contrary evidence, courts generally assume that date is the date the person signed the filing.
The deadline to appeal the November 19 judgment was December 16, 2024. Although the court received Nettles’s notice on December 26, he signed it on December 6. Applying the prison-mail rule, the court treated the notice as filed on December 6 and therefore found it timely. Because the notice was timely, the motion for extra time was unnecessary.
Ruling
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied the motion for an extension of time to file a notice of appeal and directed the clerk to terminate the motion. The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith, and denied Nettles permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.