Castro v. New York City Department of Correction
- Ronnie Abrams
- 1:16-cv-08147
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Castro v. City of New York, Judge Abrams extended Marcelino Castro’s deadline to respond to summary judgment, warning the case could be dismissed if he did not respond.
Marcelino Castro, who was given additional time to respond to the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, and the defendants, whose motion remained undecided.
What happened
In Castro v. City of New York, the defendants had asked the court to decide the case without a trial. Marcelino Castro had not responded by the earlier deadlines.
The court found that Castro might not have received its earlier orders because they were mailed to an outdated ZIP code associated with the facility where he had previously been housed. The court therefore gave him until March 11, 2020, to respond to the defendants’ request or state that he would not oppose it.
Judge Ronnie Abrams warned that if Castro did not respond, the court would dismiss the case for failing to pursue it. The court did not decide the defendants’ request for summary judgment in this order.
The detailed version
- Castro v. New York City Department of Correction · No. 1:16-cv-08147
- Ronnie Abrams
- Feb. 11, 2020
Background
The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment on October 3, 2019. Summary judgment is a request for a ruling without a trial because the moving party contends that no genuine dispute requires a trial. Under the court’s rules for self-represented cases, Castro’s response was initially due October 24, 2019.
The court later issued orders extending the deadline and warning that failure to respond could lead to dismissal for failure to prosecute under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b). The latest deadline was January 31, 2020. The court had not received either a response to the summary-judgment motion or a letter stating that Castro did not intend to respond.
Reason for Extension
The court reviewed the address listed for Castro on the docket. The listed ZIP code, 11370, was associated with the Rikers Island Facility at the Anna M. Kross Center, where Castro had been housed at the beginning of the case. But a change-of-address filing from January 5, 2018, listed ZIP code 10031. The court concluded that Castro might not have received the earlier orders because they were mailed to the wrong ZIP code.
Order
The court granted Castro an extension until March 11, 2020, to respond to the defendants’ motion for summary judgment or to state that he did not intend to respond. If Castro stated that he intended to continue the case but chose not to oppose the motion, the court would treat the motion as fully submitted for decision. If he did not respond to the order, the court stated that it would dismiss the action for failure to prosecute under Rule 41(b).
The court directed the Clerk of Court to update the docket with ZIP code 10031 and mail Castro a copy of the order. The order did not rule on the defendants’ motion for summary judgment.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.