Gudanowski v. John Doe, N.Y. State Trooper
- Vincent Briccetti
- 7:20-cv-00111
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Gudanowski v. John Doe, Judge Briccetti struck an amended complaint because it did not follow the court’s identification procedure.
Paul T. Gudanowski’s amended complaint was removed from the docket, and he was denied permission to appeal without paying the appeal filing fee. The defendants were not otherwise affected by a merits ruling.
What happened
Paul T. Gudanowski sued John Doe #1, a New York State Trooper, and other defendants. The court had ordered the New York Attorney General to identify 10 John Doe defendants before Gudanowski filed an amended complaint naming them.
Gudanowski filed an amended complaint before the Attorney General provided the requested information. The court found that filing did not comply with its earlier order and struck it from the docket.
Judge Vincent L. Briccetti also ruled that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Gudanowski permission to proceed without paying the appeal filing fee.
The detailed version
- Gudanowski v. John Doe, N.Y. State Trooper · No. 7:20-cv-00111
- Vincent Briccetti
- Apr. 8, 2020
Background
Paul T. Gudanowski brought this action against John Doe #1, a New York State Trooper, and other defendants. On March 4, 2020, the court entered an order directing the New York Attorney General to determine the identities of the 10 John Doe defendants Gudanowski sought to sue and provide that information to Gudanowski and the court by May 4, 2020. The order also directed Gudanowski to file an amended complaint naming those defendants within 30 days after receiving the information and included an amended-complaint form.
The April 6 Filing
On April 6, 2020, Gudanowski filed an amended complaint using the form attached to the March 4 order. The filing summarized some allegations from his original complaint and added new allegations. The court determined that the filing did not comply with the March 4 order because it did not name the John Doe defendants identified by the Attorney General. The court noted that the Attorney General had not yet supplied the identification information, so the amended complaint could not name those defendants.
Ruling
The court ordered that the amended complaint be stricken from the docket. It also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying the filing fee for an appeal. The Clerk was instructed to strike the amended complaint, and the court directed that a copy of the order be mailed to Gudanowski.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.