Syville v. City of New York
- Laura Swain
- 1:20-cv-00570
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Syville v. City of New York, Judge McMahon denied class treatment, dismissed Syville’s claims for others without prejudice, and gave 28 listed plaintiffs 30 days to sign declarations.
Alphonso Syville’s attempts to assert claims for other people and to proceed as a class action were denied. The 28 other individuals listed as plaintiffs were given 30 days to file signed declarations; the court said it would dismiss their claims if they did not do so.
What happened
In Syville v. City of New York, Alphonso Syville filed a complaint for himself and 28 other listed plaintiffs, seeking to proceed as a class action. Syville was representing himself, and the other listed plaintiffs had not signed the complaint.
The court ruled that Syville could represent only himself, not other people or a class. It denied class-action treatment and dismissed without prejudice any claims Syville made for others. It gave each of the 28 other listed plaintiffs 30 days to file a signed declaration confirming that they are plaintiffs, are representing themselves, and agree with the complaint.
Judge Colleen McMahon also directed that no summons issue yet and said the other listed plaintiffs’ claims would be dismissed if they did not file the required declarations. The court denied the ability to proceed without paying fees for any appeal, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Syville v. City of New York · No. 1:20-cv-00570
- Laura Swain
- Feb. 25, 2020
Background
Alphonso Syville filed the complaint while representing himself. The court had granted his request to proceed without paying the filing fee. The complaint sought to proceed as a class action and listed 28 additional individuals as plaintiffs. Those individuals had submitted signed applications to proceed without paying the filing fee, but they had not signed the complaint. An attached document said that people at Fort Washington Shelter had authorized Syville to advocate for them.
Claims on behalf of others and class action
The court held that a person representing himself in federal court may represent only himself, not other people. Because Syville did not allege that he was a lawyer, he could not serve as a class representative. The court therefore denied the request for the case to proceed as a class action and dismissed without prejudice any claims Syville asserted on behalf of anyone other than himself. “Without prejudice” means those claims were not barred from being brought again in an appropriate way.
Unsigned complaint and declarations
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(a) requires an unrepresented party to personally sign a pleading. The court found that none of the 28 other listed plaintiffs had signed the complaint. It granted each of them 30 days from the date of the order to file a separate, completed, and signed declaration stating that the person is a plaintiff, is representing himself or herself, and agrees with the allegations in the complaint. The court directed the Clerk of Court to mail the order to those individuals and noted that no summons would issue at that time. If a listed plaintiff failed to file the declaration within the allowed period, the court said it would dismiss that individual’s claims.
Disposition
The court denied the request to proceed as a class action, dismissed without prejudice Syville’s claims on behalf of other individuals, and granted the 28 other listed plaintiffs leave to file the required declarations. It also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied the ability to proceed without paying fees for purposes of an appeal. Judge Colleen McMahon entered the order.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.