Brantley v. Municipal Credit Union
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:19-cv-10991
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Brantley v. Municipal Credit Union, Judge McMahon closed a duplicate case and denied fee-free appeal status.
The order affected Mark S. Brantley and closed the duplicate action opened under docket number 19-CV-10991; it did not resolve the claims in the separately docketed complaint.
What happened
Mark S. Brantley, representing himself, filed a complaint about his removal from a volunteer position on the Municipal Credit Union’s Board of Directors. The court had opened that complaint under a different case number, 19-CV-10994.
Brantley then submitted corrected complaint pages to fix a statute citation error, but the Clerk mistakenly opened those pages as this separate case, 19-CV-10991. The court directed the Clerk to administratively close this duplicate action.
Chief Judge Colleen McMahon closed the case under docket number 19-CV-10991 and certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith, denying fee-free status for any appeal.
The detailed version
- Brantley v. Municipal Credit Union · No. 1:19-cv-10991
- Colleen McMahon
- Dec. 5, 2019
Background
On November 27, 2019, Mark S. Brantley filed a complaint without a lawyer concerning his removal from a volunteer position on the Board of Directors of the Municipal Credit Union. He invoked federal-question and diversity jurisdiction. The Clerk opened that complaint under case number 19-CV-10994.
That same day, Brantley sent the court a letter seeking to correct a statute citation error on several pages of the complaint. He submitted three corrected pages for substitution. The Clerk mistakenly opened those pages as a new civil action under docket number 19-CV-10991.
Court’s Action
Because Brantley made clear that the pages were intended to correct the complaint filed under case number 19-CV-10994, the court determined that this action had been opened as a duplicate in error. The court directed the Clerk to administratively close this action and stated that the order closed the case under docket number 19-CV-10991.
Appeal and Disposition
Chief Judge Colleen McMahon certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith. The court therefore denied Brantley fee-free status for purposes of an appeal. The order did not decide the underlying claims concerning his removal from the volunteer position.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.