Sloane v. Dougherty
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:19-cv-06844
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Sloane v. Dougherty, Judge McMahon granted Sloane more time to appeal but denied fee-free status for the appeal.
Derek Sloane, who represented himself, received more time to file a notice of appeal but was denied fee-free status for an appeal from this order.
What happened
In Sloane v. Dougherty, Derek Sloane, who represented himself, asked for more time to file an appeal. The court had previously denied his request to proceed without paying filing fees and dismissed his complaint without prejudice.
The court said an appeal normally must be filed within 30 days after judgment. It found good cause to extend that deadline because Sloane said the superintendent had locked him up, preventing timely filing. The court treated his motion as filed on August 30, 2019, under the prison-mailbox rule.
Judge Colleen McMahon granted Sloane’s motion for more time to file a notice of appeal. She also ruled that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for that appeal.
The detailed version
- Sloane v. Dougherty · No. 1:19-cv-06844
- Colleen McMahon
- Nov. 12, 2019
Background
Derek Sloane filed the action without a lawyer. On July 24, 2019, the court denied his request to proceed without paying filing fees under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g) and dismissed the complaint without prejudice. The court later received Sloane’s notice of appeal and his motion for an extension of time to file it.
Issue and standard
Under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(1)(A), a notice of appeal in a civil case generally must be filed within 30 days after judgment. Rule 4(a)(5)(A) allows a district court to extend that deadline when the motion is filed within 30 days after the original deadline and the party shows excusable neglect or good cause.
Sloane dated his extension motion August 30, 2019. Applying the prison-mailbox rule, the court treated the motion as filed on that date. Sloane stated that he missed the deadline because the superintendent had “locked [him] up for no reason.”
Ruling
Judge Colleen McMahon found good cause and granted Sloane’s motion for an extension of time to file a notice of appeal. The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith, and it denied Sloane permission to proceed without paying fees for that appeal. The Clerk was directed to mail Sloane a copy of the order and record service on the docket.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.