Langston v. Con Edison
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-03807
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Langston v. Con Edison, Judge Swain directed the complaint into an earlier case, closed this action, and denied fee-free appeal status.
The plaintiffs, the defendants named in this action, and the related earlier case were affected: the complaint was made an amended complaint in the earlier action, this action was administratively closed, and appeal-fee waiver status was denied.
What happened
In Langston v. Con Edison, Willour Othello Langston and Sharilyn Catherine Langston filed this pro se lawsuit claiming violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Five days earlier, they had filed another case containing most, if not all, of the same facts and naming Con Edison as the only defendant.
To avoid duplicating proceedings, the court directed the Clerk to file the complaint from this case as an amended complaint in the earlier case, No. 25-CV-3807, with a May 6, 2025 filing date. The court also directed the Clerk to place the electronic-service form and this order in that earlier case.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain directed the Clerk to administratively close this action. She also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied the plaintiffs permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
The detailed version
- Langston v. Con Edison · No. 1:25-cv-03807
- Laura Swain
- May 14, 2025
Background
Willour Othello Langston and Sharilyn Catherine Langston filed this pro se action on May 6, 2025. The complaint asserted claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) against Consolidated Edison, Inc.; “ConEd”; and employees Tim Cawley, Matt Ketschke, Yukari Saegusa, and Kirkland B. Andrews. The court understood Consolidated Edison, Inc., ConEd, and Con Edison to be the same entity.
The plaintiffs had filed an earlier pro se action on May 1, 2025, naming Con Edison as the only defendant and alleging most, if not all, of the facts alleged in this action. The earlier action is identified as No. 25-CV-3807.
Court’s Action
In the interests of judicial economy, the court directed the Clerk of Court to file the complaint in this action as an amended complaint in the earlier action, with a filing date of May 6, 2025. The court also directed the Clerk to docket the consent-to-electronic-service form filed in this action and a copy of the order in the earlier action.
The court further directed the Clerk to administratively close this action. Administrative closure is a docket-management action; the order does not state that the ERISA claims were decided on their merits.
Appeal-Filing Status
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith. It therefore denied in forma pauperis status for purposes of an appeal, meaning the plaintiffs could not appeal this order without paying the required filing costs under that status.
Disposition
Judge Laura Taylor Swain directed the complaint and related filings into the earlier action, administratively closed this action, and denied in forma pauperis status for an appeal. The order did not resolve the plaintiffs’ ERISA claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.