Syville v. City of New York

Background

Alphonso Syville, Donald Lord, Anthony McDonald, Raymon Dash, Anthony Ashley, Issac Dickerson, Eugene Davis, and Alfred Wilder proceeded without lawyers and had been allowed to proceed without paying filing fees. They were current or former residents of the Fort Washington Shelter for Homeless Single Men, which the opinion says was allegedly operated by Project Renewal. They asserted claims concerning shelter conditions and the actions of shelter staff, employees of the New York City Department of Homeless Services, Sera Security, Oasis, and the New York City Housing Authority.

Dismissal of claims against DHS

The court applied the screening requirement for complaints filed without payment of filing fees. It held that the New York City Department of Homeless Services, as a City agency, is not an entity that can be sued separately. Because the City of New York was already named as a defendant, the court dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims against DHS under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii). The opinion did not decide the underlying claims about the shelter’s conditions or staff conduct.

Severance of claims

The court severed the claims of Donald Lord, Anthony McDonald, Raymon Dash, Anthony Ashley, Issac Dickerson, Eugene Davis, and Alfred Wilder from this action and from one another under Rule 21 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. It concluded that the plaintiffs’ claims arose from their individual experiences and did not involve the same transactions or common questions of law or fact. The court also found that allowing multiple unrepresented plaintiffs to litigate together would create practical problems because each person could appear only for himself and would have to personally sign every filing.

The Clerk of Court was directed to open a new and separate civil action for each of those seven plaintiffs and to docket specified copies of the existing filings and orders in each new case. Those cases were to proceed independently from that point forward. The court also accepted the assignment of each new action as a related case to facilitate feasible coordination of case management.

Consolidation of Syville’s cases

The remaining claims in this action belonged to Alphonso Syville. The court found that those claims and Syville’s other action, No. 1:20-CV-0571 (LTS) (SDA), involved the same issues of fact and law and the same principal parties. It therefore consolidated the two actions under Rule 42(a). The court directed Syville to include the claims from this action in his amended complaint in the other action so that all of his claims could proceed together, and so this action could be administratively closed.

Disposition

Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims against the New York City Department of Homeless Services, severed the claims of the seven named plaintiffs from this action and from each other, directed the Clerk to open separate cases for them, and consolidated this action with Syville’s other action. The court certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal.