Sugar v. Greenburgh Eleven Union Free School District

Background

Greenburgh Eleven Union Free School District and Elton Thompson filed under seal a motion to enforce a settlement agreement. They asserted that the agreement recorded settlement terms reached by the plaintiff and defendants on March 25, 2019, during a settlement conference before Magistrate Judge McCarthy.

The court’s January 24, 2020, order gave the plaintiff until March 31, 2020, to retain new counsel and/or oppose the motion. That order warned that the plaintiff’s opposition was due by that date whether or not she had retained counsel, and that the court could treat the motion as unopposed if she did not respond. The opinion states that the plaintiff had not opposed the motion by April 3, 2020.

Ruling

On its own initiative, the court extended the plaintiff’s deadline to April 17, 2020, to retain counsel and/or oppose the motion. The court reiterated that the opposition was due whether or not the plaintiff had retained new counsel and that it would deem the motion unopposed and fully submitted if she failed to respond by the new deadline.

The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees. The order did not decide whether the settlement agreement should be enforced. The opinion refers to the filing as a motion to enforce a settlement agreement but later calls it a motion to dismiss; the court’s description is therefore inconsistent.