White v. Department of Corrections

Background

Robert White filed this action without a lawyer while held at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center on Rikers Island. The complaint lists White and 27 other prisoners as plaintiffs and appears to assert claims arising from an August 29, 2025 incident involving alleged forced, mandatory, random, or organized strip searches. White was the only plaintiff who signed the complaint. He was also the only plaintiff who submitted a signed application to proceed without paying the filing fee and a prisoner authorization; the court had granted his application.

Reason for Severance

The court discussed Rule 20, which permits multiple plaintiffs to join one case when their claims arise from the same transaction or occurrence and share a common legal or factual question. It also discussed Rule 21, which allows a court to separate claims when doing so promotes fairness, efficiency, or judicial economy, even without finding that joinder was improper.

The court concluded that managing one case involving 28 self-represented prisoners would not be fair or efficient. Each self-represented plaintiff may act only for himself or herself and may not represent another plaintiff. Rule 11 also requires each unrepresented party to personally sign court papers. Because prisoners could be released or transferred, some plaintiffs might be unable to sign future filings. The court further found that security restrictions would likely limit the prisoners’ ability to discuss strategy, share evidence, or exchange copies of filings, creating a risk of piecemeal submissions, delays, and missed deadlines.

Order

The court severed all claims belonging to the 27 plaintiffs other than White under Rule 21. White proceeded as the sole plaintiff in this action. The court directed the Clerk of Court to open a separate civil action, with a new docket number, for each of the 27 other plaintiffs and to file a copy of the original complaint and this order in each new action. The court stated that the new cases would proceed independently unless the court later ordered otherwise. It also directed the other plaintiffs to submit signed complaint signature pages and either pay the required fees or submit completed applications to proceed without paying the fees, along with prisoner authorizations.

The court did not decide whether the new cases should be treated as related or combined. Finally, it certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied the plaintiffs permission to proceed without paying fees for an appeal. The order addressed case management and did not decide the merits of the alleged searches.