McGriff v. Superintendent Keyser
- Nelson Roman
- 7:17-cv-07307
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In McGriff v. Keyser, Judge Roman denied defendants’ request to stay case-management-plan filing, allowed limited exhaustion discovery, and extended the deadline.
The defendants may pursue limited exhaustion-related discovery before the magistrate judge, while McGriff and the defendants received an additional week to file the case management plan. The order did not resolve the exhaustion dispute or the underlying claims.
What happened
McGriff v. Superintendent Keyser concerns defendants’ request to delay the case-management-plan deadline while they pursued limited discovery about whether McGriff exhausted required prison grievance procedures. Defendants said they planned to seek summary judgment on exhaustion.
The court denied the request to stay the filing of the case management plan. It allowed defendants to seek the proposed discovery before the magistrate judge and then request permission to file any appropriate motion.
Judge Nelson S. Roman also gave the parties one additional week, until February 25, 2020, to submit the completed plan. The order did not decide whether McGriff exhausted his remedies or whether defendants were entitled to summary judgment.
The detailed version
- McGriff v. Superintendent Keyser · No. 7:17-cv-07307
- Nelson Roman
- Feb. 14, 2020
Background
Defendants William Keyser, Anthony Polizzi, and Stephen Keyser asked the court to stay the deadline for filing a case management plan and instead set a schedule for limited discovery about exhaustion under the Prison Litigation Reform Act. Exhaustion generally requires a prisoner to complete available administrative grievance procedures before bringing a prison-conditions lawsuit. Defendants stated that, after this discovery, they intended to move for summary judgment on the ground that McGriff had not exhausted his available remedies.
Defendants asserted that McGriff had filed a grievance only about finding hair in his food while he was in the special housing unit. They stated that claim had already been dismissed and that no other grievances concerned McGriff’s remaining Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment claims against the defendants.
Ruling
The court denied defendants’ request to stay the filing of the case management plan. It authorized defendants to seek the identified discovery before the magistrate judge and then seek permission to file any appropriate motion. The court also granted the parties an additional week, until February 25, 2020, to submit the completed case management plan.
The clerk was directed to mail the endorsement to McGriff, identified as proceeding without a lawyer, enter proof of service on the docket, and terminate the motion identified as docket number 61. The order did not decide the exhaustion issue, the planned summary-judgment motion, or the underlying constitutional claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.