El v. Black
- Vargas
- 1:23-cv-10317
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Sage El v. Black, Judge Vargas lifted the stay and set June 23, 2025, as the defendants’ deadline to respond.
Sage El and the named defendants: the case moved forward, and the defendants’ responses to the complaint became due June 23, 2025.
What happened
In Sage El v. Black, Sage El sued three New York City police officers and six unidentified officers, alleging excessive force and false arrest. The court had stayed the case while a civilian police-misconduct investigation proceeded.
After that investigation ended, the New York City Corporation Counsel asked for another stay while a disciplinary proceeding against one officer continued. The court found that the request was not sufficiently justified, and noted that Sage El had a legitimate interest in moving the case forward after more than a year of delay.
Judge Jeannette A. Vargas lifted the stay and ordered the defendants to respond to the complaint by June 23, 2025. The court also clarified that no defendant was currently in default because the case had been stayed, so the Clerk would not issue a certificate of default at that time.
The detailed version
- El v. Black · No. 1:23-cv-10317
- Vargas
- May 6, 2025
Background
Sage El, proceeding without a lawyer, filed this civil-rights action alleging that three named New York City police officers—Calvin S. Black, Felix D. Jimenez, and Elijah P. Rodrigo—and six unidentified officers subjected him to excessive force and false arrest in September 2023. The complaint named the officers in both their individual and official capacities.
The court allowed El to proceed without paying the filing fee and ordered the United States Marshals Service to serve the defendants. The court also ordered the New York City Law Department to identify the unidentified officers. Two of those officers were identified and ordered served. The Marshals Service served the named defendants and the two later-identified individual defendants.
On February 20, 2024, the court stayed the case while the Civilian Complaint Review Board investigated the events. Because of that stay, the defendants’ time to respond to the complaint had not begun to run, and none had appeared in the case.
Request for another stay
The Corporation Counsel for New York City, appearing as an interested party, informed the court that the review-board investigation ended on February 7, 2025. The investigation had forwarded charges against one defendant officer to the Administrative Prosecution Unit. The Corporation Counsel requested an additional stay until that disciplinary proceeding ended, explaining that representation decisions for the officer could not yet be made and that the proceeding might interfere with interviewing that officer or consulting other defendants who could be witnesses.
El objected to continuing the stay, arguing that the deadline for a default judgment had passed and that the Corporation Counsel was not a party to the case.
Court’s analysis
The court explained that federal courts have authority to stay proceedings to manage their cases efficiently, but a stay is an extraordinary remedy. The party seeking one must show undue prejudice or interference with constitutional rights. The court found no concerns involving the constitutional protection against compelled self-incrimination that might arise from a pending criminal indictment. It also noted that the officer involved in the disciplinary proceeding had not requested a stay himself.
The court held that the Corporation Counsel’s need to decide whether to represent one officer was not enough to justify an indefinite stay. The officer could represent himself or obtain private counsel if the Corporation Counsel decided not to represent him. The court also considered El’s interest in a prompt resolution, the importance of early evidence collection and witness memories, and the public interest in resolving allegations of police misconduct.
The court clarified that no defendant was currently in default because the case had been stayed by court order. It therefore stated that the Clerk would not issue a certificate of default at that time.
Disposition
The court ordered that the stay be lifted. It ordered the defendants to respond to the complaint by June 23, 2025, directed the Corporation Counsel to provide the order to each named defendant by May 9, 2025, and directed the Clerk to terminate the pending stay-related filing and lift the stay. The opinion does not separately state that the request for an additional stay was “denied”; its express disposition is that the stay was lifted.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.