Perez v. State of New York
Juana Perez v. State of New York; Police Dept. of New York; Port Authority Bus Station
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:19-cv-09329
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Juana Perez v. State of New York, Judge McMahon denied Perez’s late requests to extend the deadline for appealing the 2019 judgment.
The order affected Juana Perez by denying her requests to extend the deadline for appealing the 2019 judgment and denying permission to appeal without paying the filing fee. It also concerned the defendants in the dismissed action, but the order did not decide the underlying claims.
What happened
In Juana Perez v. State of New York, the court had dismissed Perez’s action without prejudice in 2019 because a substantially similar case was already pending. Judgment was entered on October 10, 2019, and the court later denied an earlier request to extend the appeal deadline.
Perez filed two more requests in 2025, but the court found them far too late. The rules allowed an extension request only within a limited period after the appeal deadline, and they did not allow the court to reopen the deadline more than 180 days after judgment based on lack of notice. The court also noted that Perez’s appeal had already been dismissed for not paying the filing fee or submitting an application to appeal without paying it.
Judge Colleen McMahon denied both motions for an extension of time to appeal. She also denied Perez permission to appeal without paying the filing fee and certified that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Perez v. State of New York · No. 1:19-cv-09329
- Colleen McMahon
- Oct. 27, 2025
Background
In October 2019, the court dismissed this action without prejudice as duplicative because Perez already had a substantially similar action pending in the same court. Judgment was entered on October 10, 2019. In December 2019, the court denied Perez’s earlier request for more time to appeal because the motion form was blank and she had not shown a valid reason for the delay.
Perez later filed two additional motions for more time to appeal, on August 6, 2025, and September 9, 2025. She also told the court that she had not received a letter from the court and referred to medical, work-related, financial, and pregnancy-related circumstances.
Court’s Analysis
Under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(5)(A), a district court may extend the time to file a civil appeal only if the request is made within 30 days after the original appeal deadline and the person seeking the extension shows excusable neglect or good cause. The court treated that 30-day period as a strict deadline. Because Perez filed her 2025 motions more than 60 days after the October 10, 2019 judgment, the court concluded that it could not extend the appeal deadline under that rule.
Rule 4(a)(6) separately allows a court to reopen the appeal period when the person did not receive notice of the judgment, but the request must be made within 180 days after judgment or within 14 days after receiving notice, whichever comes first. The court found that Perez’s motions were filed more than 180 days after judgment and that she did not identify when she received notice. It therefore found no basis to reopen the appeal period under that rule.
The court also noted that Perez’s appeal had already been dismissed, effective September 16, 2025, because she did not pay the appellate filing fee or submit an application to proceed without paying it.
Ruling
Judge Colleen McMahon denied Perez’s two motions for an extension of time to appeal. The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying the filing fee.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.