Lugo v. The City of New York
- Vernon Broderick
- 1:19-cv-06086
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Lugo v. City of New York, Judge Broderick lifted the stay, extended defendants’ answer deadline, and ordered efforts to identify John Doe officers.
Wilson Lugo, the City of New York, the named police officers, and the unidentified police officers Lugo seeks to sue. The order also directed the City’s Law Department and addressed the deadline for all defendants to answer.
What happened
Lugo v. The City of New York is a civil-rights case brought by Wilson Lugo against the City, police officers, and unidentified officers. The court had paused the case while the Civilian Complaint Review Board investigated the incident.
After the investigation ended, the defendants asked for more time to answer because of the COVID-19 pandemic and uncertainty about representation for the individual officers. The court also considered how to identify the unidentified officers Lugo sought to sue.
Judge Vernon S. Broderick lifted the pause, extended all defendants’ answer deadline to August 7, 2020, and ordered the City’s Law Department to try to identify the unidentified officers and provide their service addresses or report that it could not identify them.
The detailed version
- Lugo v. The City of New York · No. 1:19-cv-06086
- Vernon Broderick
- May 12, 2020
Background
Wilson Lugo brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal law allowing claims for deprivation of constitutional rights by officials acting under state law, against the City of New York, three named New York City police officers, and four or five unidentified New York City police officers. The opinion states that Lugo was representing himself.
On September 10, 2019, the court stayed, or paused, the action while the Civilian Complaint Review Board investigated the incident described in the complaint. Two days later, the court postponed Lugo’s deadline to serve the defendants and said it would later order the City to identify the unidentified officers and set a deadline for Lugo to amend the complaint.
On May 8, 2020, the defendants informed the court that the investigation had ended. They also requested more time for all defendants to answer because of the COVID-19 pandemic and to allow the New York City Law Department to decide whether it would represent the individual officer defendants.
Court’s Orders
The court stated that a self-represented litigant is entitled to the district court’s assistance in identifying a defendant. Based on the complaint, the court concluded that the information provided might allow the New York City Police Department to identify the unidentified officers, including a plainclothes detective, officers alleged to have arrested Lugo, and other officers who were at the scene.
The court ordered the following:
- The stay was lifted. - All defendants’ time to answer was extended until August 7, 2020. - By August 7, 2020, the Office of the Corporation Counsel of the City of New York had to decide whether it would represent the individual officer defendants. - The New York City Law Department had to try to identify the unidentified officers and find addresses where they could be served. By August 7, 2020, it had to provide the identities and service addresses to Lugo and the court, and state whether it would represent those defendants, or report that it could not identify them. - The Clerk of Court was directed to mail the order to Lugo.
This order addressed case administration and identification of defendants. It did not decide the merits of Lugo’s constitutional claims.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.