Banks v. McLaughlin
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:19-cv-04127
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Banks v. McLaughlin, Judge McMahon granted Banks more time to appeal but required a notice of appeal within thirty days.
Uquinn Banks received an extension of time to appeal, but he still had to file a recognizable notice of appeal within thirty days and was denied permission to proceed without prepaying the appeal fee from this order.
What happened
Banks v. McLaughlin concerned Uquinn Banks’s request for more time to appeal the Court’s earlier dismissal of his action. The Court had entered judgment on November 22, 2019, and Banks had not filed a notice of appeal.
The Court found that Banks’s request was timely under the prisoner mailbox rule and that his stated difficulty assembling the appeal filing fees supported an extension. The Court granted the extension and directed Banks to file a recognizable notice of appeal within thirty days of this order if he wished to appeal.
Chief United States District Judge Colleen McMahon also certified that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying the appeal filing fee. The order did not reconsider the earlier dismissal.
The detailed version
- Banks v. McLaughlin · No. 1:19-cv-04127
- Colleen McMahon
- May 14, 2020
Background
Uquinn Banks sued Edward J. McLaughlin, Judge; the District Attorney’s Office; Lucy Lang, Assistant District Attorney; Downstate Correctional Facility; Comstock Correctional Facility; Coxsackie Correctional Facility; Robert Briere, Attorney; Eugene Nathanson, Attorney; Dennis J. Doody, Appellate Attorney; Commissioner DOCCS; and NYCPD 25. By order dated November 21, 2019, the Court dismissed the action under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i)–(iii), and judgment was entered on November 22, 2019.
Motion for an Extension
Banks signed a motion seeking an extension of time to appeal on December 18, 2019. He stated that he needed additional time because he was working on assembling the filing fees for an appeal. Under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(1)(A), a civil notice of appeal generally must be filed within thirty days after judgment. Rule 4(a)(5)(A) allows a district court to extend that deadline when the request is timely and the party shows excusable neglect or good cause.
The Court concluded that, under the prisoner mailbox rule, Banks’s motion appeared to have been filed within thirty days after the appeal deadline expired. The Court granted the motion for an extension of time.
Notice of Appeal Requirement
The Court explained that an appeal cannot proceed unless Banks files a notice of appeal identifying the judgment, order, or portion of an order he wants to challenge. The Court cautioned that his previous letters and other filings would not trigger an appeal unless he filed a document recognizable as a notice of appeal. If Banks wished to appeal, he was required to file that notice within thirty days of May 14, 2020.
Other Rulings
The Court noted that it had previously denied Banks’s request to proceed without paying the appeal filing fee because an appeal from the dismissal would not be taken in good faith. The order stated that Banks could ask the Court of Appeals for permission to proceed without paying the full fee at the start of the appeal. The Court separately 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 proceed without prepaying the appeal fee for that appeal.
Disposition
Chief United States District Judge Colleen McMahon granted Banks’s motion for an extension of time to appeal. The order did not alter or reconsider the earlier dismissal of the action.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.