Bernstein v. United States Department of Housing & Urban Development
- William Orrick
- 3:20-cv-02983
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
Bernstein v. HUD: Judge Corley denied counsel and kept the July 26, 2021 deadline after rejecting Bernstein and Tigano’s request for a year-long stay.
The order directly affected Mary Helen Bernstein and Elizabeth Grace Tigano by denying appointed counsel and requiring them to respond to Screening Order No. 2 by July 26, 2021. It also kept the case moving for the defendants.
What happened
In Bernstein v. United States Department of Housing & Urban Development, Mary Helen Bernstein and Elizabeth Grace Tigano, who were representing themselves, asked the court to appoint a lawyer and objected to the denial of a lengthy pause in the case.
The court denied their request for appointed counsel because they had not shown a likely chance of success or that they could not explain their claims without a lawyer. It also left in place the prior decision not to pause the case for nearly a year.
Judge Corley ruled that the plaintiffs’ response to the court’s screening order remained due on July 26, 2021, citing the need to manage the case and avoid prejudice from lengthy delays.
The detailed version
- Bernstein v. United States Department of Housing & Urban Development · No. 3:20-cv-02983
- William Orrick
- July 6, 2021
Background
Mary Helen Bernstein and Elizabeth Grace Tigano brought a discrimination action against the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, and several individual defendants employed by those agencies. They were proceeding without an attorney and without paying filing fees.
The plaintiffs had repeatedly sought additional time to file amended complaints. On May 27, 2021, the court denied their request to pause the case until March 2022 but granted additional time to file an amended complaint. The plaintiffs then filed objections, a letter, and a motion asking the court to appoint counsel. They argued, among other things, that the court should not have denied the requested pause before they filed an administrative motion to seal that would explain the basis for the request. They did not file that sealing motion or any further filings by the deadline the court later provided.
Motion for Appointment of Counsel
The court explained that a lawyer may be appointed for a person without financial resources in a civil case only in exceptional circumstances. It considered whether the plaintiffs had shown a likely chance of success and whether they could explain their claims without a lawyer given the complexity of the legal issues.
The court relied on its earlier screening order, which found that the plaintiffs had not shown a likelihood of success and had not shown that their difficulties were caused by problems explaining their claims or by complex legal issues. The court also noted that it had granted multiple extensions to accommodate alleged communication disabilities and that the plaintiffs could consult the Legal Help Desk. The court denied the motion for appointment of counsel.
Objection to Denial of Stay
The court considered the plaintiffs’ objection to the earlier denial of their request for a nearly year-long stay. The court stated that it was sympathetic to the plaintiffs’ personal situations and had attempted to accommodate their disabilities through extensions and referrals to the Legal Help Desk. It nevertheless concluded that it could not pause the proceeding for a year.
The court noted that the plaintiffs had received multiple opportunities to plead proper claims against an expanding group of defendants, that one defendant had appeared and moved to dismiss, and that the court needed to manage its docket, resolve the litigation efficiently, and avoid prejudice to defendants from extended delays. The court therefore left the existing schedule in place: the plaintiffs’ response to Screening Order No. 2 remained due July 26, 2021.
Disposition
The motion for appointment of counsel was denied. The court also left in place its prior denial of the requested stay and maintained the July 26, 2021 response deadline.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.