Lewis v. Dayton
- Susan Nelson
- 0:12-cv-00593
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 2
In Lewis v. Dayton, Judge Nelson dismissed the case without prejudice for failure to prosecute and denied Lewis’s other motions as moot.
The order ended Brandy Owen Lewis’s case against Governor Mark Dayton and the other named defendants. It also denied as moot Lewis’s filing-fee application and request for appointed counsel.
What happened
In Lewis v. Dayton, Brandy Owen Lewis’s case had been stayed for more than a decade while a related case was resolved. After the stay was lifted, the court had twice ordered Lewis to say whether he intended to continue the case.
Lewis did not respond by the deadline set in the second order. The court therefore dismissed the case without prejudice under Rule 41(b) for failure to prosecute, meaning the dismissal did not bar refiling based on the order’s stated terms.
Judge Susan Richard Nelson also denied as moot Lewis’s application to proceed without paying filing fees and motion for appointment of counsel. Judgment was ordered entered.
The detailed version
- Lewis v. Dayton · No. 0:12-cv-00593
- Susan Nelson
- Oct. 3, 2022
Background
The case had been stayed for more than a decade while the court awaited the resolution of a related proceeding, Karsjens v. Minnesota Department of Human Services. Judgment was later entered in that proceeding, so the stay in Lewis’s case was lifted.
Before the stay was lifted, the court twice directed Brandy Owen Lewis to notify the court whether he intended to continue prosecuting the case. The second order gave Lewis 21 days to respond and stated that the case would be dismissed without prejudice for failure to prosecute if he did not do so.
Ruling
Lewis did not respond to either order or otherwise notify the court of an intent to continue the case. The court dismissed the action without prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b) for failure to prosecute.
The court also denied as moot Lewis’s application to proceed without paying filing fees and his motion for appointment of counsel. The court ordered judgment entered accordingly.
Meaning of the ruling
The dismissal was based on Lewis’s failure to respond to the court’s orders, not on a decision about the underlying claims. The opinion expressly states that the dismissal was without prejudice.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.