Nance v. City of New York
- Analisa Torres
- 1:19-cv-05651
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Nance v. City of New York, Judge Torres declined to dismiss the case for inactivity, ordered address efforts, and granted defendants’ request to pause their response deadline.
Allen Travell Nance’s case was allowed to remain pending while defendants were required to seek his mailing address. The defendants’ deadline to answer or otherwise respond to the complaint was paused.
What happened
Nance v. City of New York concerns a lawsuit by Allen Travell Nance, who was representing himself, about alleged rights violations at Bellevue Hospital and other medical facilities. The court had ordered him to amend his complaint and provide contact information, but defendants said he had not done so after his release from custody.
Defendants asked the court to dismiss the case because Nance had not pursued it, or to require him to explain why it should not be dismissed. The court said it was possible Nance never received the earlier order because it was issued after his release, and that three months of inactivity alone did not justify dismissal.
Judge Analisa Torres ordered defendants to make reasonable efforts to find Nance’s mailing address and report those efforts by April 1, 2020. She also granted defendants’ request to pause their deadline to answer or otherwise respond to the complaint; the order did not expressly state a separate disposition of the request to dismiss or for a show-cause order.
The detailed version
- Nance v. City of New York · No. 1:19-cv-05651
- Analisa Torres
- Jan. 10, 2020
Background
Allen Travell Nance, who was an inmate at Fishkill Correctional Facility and was representing himself, brought this action against the City of New York and other defendants. He alleged that the defendants violated his rights at Bellevue Hospital and other medical facilities.
On September 24, 2019, the court issued an Order of Service. That order notified the defendants of the case, dismissed some claims while allowing Nance to amend them, and directed him to amend his complaint and provide additional information to the defendants. The order and an information packet were mailed to Nance on September 26, 2019.
Defendants’ request
On January 6, 2020, the defendants asked the court either to dismiss the action under Rule 41(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or to require Nance to explain why the case should not be dismissed. Rule 41(b) allows dismissal when a plaintiff fails to pursue the case or comply with court rules or an order. The defendants said Nance had not amended his complaint or provided contact information to them or the court after his release from incarceration in September 2019. They also asked the court to pause their deadline to answer or otherwise respond to the complaint.
The court explained that dismissal for failure to pursue a case is a severe sanction, especially for a person representing himself. Before using that sanction, courts consider the length of the failure to comply, whether the plaintiff received notice that dismissal could result, likely prejudice to defendants, the competing interests of docket management and a fair chance to be heard, and whether a less severe sanction would be appropriate.
Ruling
The court stated that it was not convinced Nance had received a fair chance to be heard or had been notified that he needed to comply with the Order of Service and that failure to comply could lead to dismissal. The court noted that Nance was reportedly released on September 18, 2019, before the Order of Service was issued, making it possible that he never received it. Although the case had been delayed for three months, the court said that period alone was not enough to justify dismissal for failure to pursue the case.
The court ordered the defendants to make reasonable efforts to determine a mailing address where Nance could be contacted. It required them to file a letter by April 1, 2020, describing those efforts and, if successful, reporting Nance’s address to the court. The court granted the defendants’ motion to pause their deadline to answer or otherwise respond to the complaint. The order did not expressly state a separate disposition of the defendants’ request to dismiss the action or issue a show-cause order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.