Court, Explained
U.S. Federal District Courts
←Back to docket
N.D. Cal.Procedural orderFiled Sept. 30, 2025

Jones v. Mendocino County

Judge
Donna Ryu
Docket
3:25-cv-01182
Court
U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
Pages
2
Civil ProcedurePro Se
In one sentence

Judge Chen dismissed Lamont William Jones v. Mendocino County without prejudice after Jones failed to update his address.

Who this affects

Lamont William Jones’s case was dismissed without prejudice, and the defendants were no longer required to litigate the case at this stage. The court terminated the pending motions and closed the file.

What happened

In Lamont William Jones v. Mendocino County, Jones brought a civil-rights lawsuit without a lawyer. The court ordered him to provide a current address, but the order was returned as undeliverable, and he did not update his address or contact the court for more than two months.

The court dismissed the case without prejudice because Jones failed to comply with the court’s local address rule. This means the dismissal did not bar him from seeking to reopen the matter, but any motion to reopen must include a change-of-address form.

Judge Chen also terminated the pending motions and closed the case file.

The detailed version

For law students, journalists, and other readers who want the full reasoning

Case
Jones v. Mendocino County · No. 3:25-cv-01182
Judge
Donna Ryu
Date
Sept. 30, 2025

Background

Lamont William Jones filed this civil-rights lawsuit without a lawyer on February 5,

  1. The matter was reassigned to the district judge after a Ninth Circuit decision concerning a magistrate judge’s jurisdiction. Before reassignment, Judge Donna Ryu ordered Jones to provide a current address on July 10,
  2. The order was returned as undeliverable on July 29,
  3. More than two months later, Jones had not updated his address or otherwise communicated with the court.

Ruling

The court dismissed the matter without prejudice because Jones failed to comply with Civil Local Rule 3-11, which required him to keep the court informed of his current address. The court stated that any motion to reopen must include a change-of-address form. It also terminated the pending motions identified as ECF Nos. 4 and 6 and closed the file.

Effect

The order ended the case at this stage without deciding the underlying civil-rights claims. The dismissal was without prejudice, as stated in the order.

The authoritative version

Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.

Open opinion PDF →
Summary written with AI assistance. See how summaries are made. Spot something wrong? Tell us.