Godoy v. Brown
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:18-cv-06650
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Godoy v. Brown, Judge Gilliam extended Maurice Godoy’s deadline to file a second amended complaint, warning that failure would lead to dismissal.
Maurice Godoy, whose deadline to file a second amended complaint was extended; the case remained subject to dismissal if he did not file a proper complaint by February 14, 2020.
What happened
Godoy v. Brown involved Maurice Godoy, an incarcerated person representing himself in a civil-rights case under Section 1983, a federal law allowing claims against state officials for certain rights violations. The court had previously dismissed his amended complaint but allowed him to file another one addressing specific problems.
Godoy missed the December 24, 2019 deadline and instead appealed the earlier order. The court explained that the appeal did not pause the deadline and that Godoy needed to file a complaint stating legally recognized claims if he wanted the case to continue.
Judge Gilliam granted Godoy an extension until February 14, 2020, to file a second amended complaint. The order said that failing to file a proper complaint by then would result in dismissal without further notice.
The detailed version
- Godoy v. Brown · No. 4:18-cv-06650
- Haywood Gilliam
- Jan. 13, 2020
Background
Maurice Godoy, an inmate at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison, filed this civil-rights action without a lawyer under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The court had dismissed his amended complaint on November 26, 2019, but gave him permission to amend again. The court ordered him to file a second amended complaint by December 24, 2019, addressing the deficiencies identified in that earlier order, or the action would be dismissed.
Godoy did not file the second amended complaint by the deadline. He did file a notice of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, challenging the November 26 order. This order states that the notice of appeal did not pause the district court’s deadlines.
Ruling
The court granted, on its own initiative, an extension of time until February 14, 2020, for Godoy to file a second amended complaint addressing the previously identified deficiencies. The court stated that failure to file a proper second amended complaint by that date would result in dismissal of the action without further notice. It also directed the Clerk to send Godoy two blank complaint forms.
The court reminded Godoy that an amended complaint replaces earlier complaints entirely, that he could not incorporate material from the earlier complaints by reference, and that he could not add new, unrelated claims. The opinion does not describe the specific deficiencies identified in the November 26 order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.