White v. Department of Corrections
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-09122
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 10
In White v. Department of Corrections, Chief Judge Swain split 27 prisoners’ claims into separate cases while Robert White’s case continued alone.
Robert White and the 27 other named prisoner plaintiffs. White remains the sole plaintiff in this case; the other 27 plaintiffs are to receive separate civil actions. The order also affects their ability to appeal without paying fees because the court denied fee-free status for an appeal from this order.
What happened
In Robert White, et al. v. Department of Corrections, et al., Robert White and 27 other prisoners were named as plaintiffs in a complaint about alleged forced strip searches at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center. Only White signed the complaint and submitted the required applications to proceed without paying filing fees.
The court found that managing the prisoners’ claims together would be unfair and inefficient. The prisoners could not represent one another, each would need to sign court filings, and security and facility-related limits could make communication and shared litigation difficult.
Chief United States District Judge Laura Taylor Swain severed all claims except White’s under Rule 21. White will continue as the sole plaintiff in this case, while the court directed the Clerk to open 27 separate cases and copy the complaint and order into each one. The court also denied fee-free status for any appeal from this order.
The detailed version
- White v. Department of Corrections · No. 1:25-cv-09122
- Laura Swain
- Nov. 4, 2025
Background
Robert White filed this action without a lawyer while held at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center on Rikers Island. The complaint concerns an incident allegedly occurring there on August 29, 2025, and appears to allege that White and 27 other prisoners were subjected to forced, mandatory strip searches. The complaint listed all 28 prisoners as plaintiffs, but only White signed it. White was also the only prisoner who filed a signed application to proceed without paying filing fees and a prisoner authorization; the court had granted White that status.
Rules and reasoning
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20 allows multiple plaintiffs to join one case when their claims arise from the same transaction or related events and share a legal or factual question. Rule 21 allows a court to sever claims—separate them into different cases—even without finding that joinder was improper. The court considered judicial efficiency, possible prejudice, and whether the claims would involve different witnesses and evidence.
The court concluded that the practical difficulties of managing a multi-prisoner case justified severance. Because the prisoners were proceeding without lawyers, each could appear only for himself or herself, and White could not represent the other prisoners. Each unrepresented plaintiff would also have to personally sign court filings. The court noted that prisoners could be released or transferred, making some signatures difficult to obtain. Security concerns and limits on correspondence and in-person communication could also restrict the prisoners’ ability to discuss strategy, share discovery, and exchange filings, potentially causing piecemeal submissions, delays, and missed deadlines.
Order
The court severed under Rule 21 all claims brought by the plaintiffs other than White. White will proceed as the sole plaintiff in No. 1:25-CV-8711 (LTS). The Clerk of Court was directed to open a separate civil action, with a new docket number, for each of the other 27 named plaintiffs and to file a copy of the complaint and this order in each new action. The court stated that the new cases would proceed independently and that the prisoners would not be treated as co-plaintiffs unless the court later ordered otherwise. The other plaintiffs would then be directed to provide signed complaint signature pages and either pay the required fees or submit completed applications to proceed without paying fees and prisoner authorizations.
The court did not decide whether the new cases could later be treated as related or consolidated. It certified that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal. Judge Laura Taylor Swain signed the order as Chief United States District Judge.
Read the full 10-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.