Kalichenko v. Barnes
- Wilhelmina Wright
- 0:20-cv-01646
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 2
In Kalichenko v. Barnes, Judge Thorson granted amendment but denied appointment of counsel.
Olena Kalichenko’s complaint may be amended, but her request for appointed counsel was denied. The defendants received deadlines to answer or otherwise respond.
What happened
In Kalichenko v. Barnes, Olena Kalichenko asked to amend her complaint and to have a lawyer appointed. The court treated her letter as both motions.
The court granted the motion to amend and directed Kalichenko to file a complete amended complaint by February 26, 2021. It set deadlines for the defendants to answer or otherwise respond.
Judge Thorson denied the request for appointed counsel, concluding that the case did not appear significantly more complicated than other cases filed without lawyers by prisoners. The order did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Kalichenko v. Barnes · No. 0:20-cv-01646
- Wilhelmina Wright
- Jan. 29, 2021
Background
Olena Kalichenko sent the court a letter. The court construed the letter as a motion to amend her complaint and a motion to appoint counsel. The defendants responded after meeting and conferring with Kalichenko.
Rulings
The court granted Kalichenko’s motion to amend. It directed her to file the amended complaint no later than February 26, 2021, and stated that the amended complaint must be complete by itself rather than incorporate her earlier pleading by reference.
The court set response deadlines. Defendants who had been served were required to answer or otherwise respond within 60 days after the amended complaint was filed. Defendants who had not been served by the date of the order were required to respond under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(a). If Kalichenko did not file an amended complaint, the served defendants’ answer remained due on March 22, 2021.
The court denied Kalichenko’s motion to appoint counsel. It explained that a person litigating without a lawyer generally has no statutory or constitutional right to appointed counsel in a civil case, and that appointment is left to the district court’s discretion. Based on the record, the court concluded that the case did not appear significantly more complicated than other prisoner cases filed without lawyers in that court, so appointment did not appear warranted at that time.
Effect of the Order
This was a procedural order about amendment and counsel. It did not decide the merits of Kalichenko’s claims against the defendants.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.