Elmsford Apartment Associates, LLC v. Cuomo
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:20-cv-04062
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Elmsford Apartment Associates v. Cuomo, Judge McMahon allowed simultaneous briefs on plaintiffs’ First Amendment Petition Clause claim.
The plaintiffs and defendant were required or permitted to address the plaintiffs’ First Amendment Petition Clause claim in concurrent letter briefs.
What happened
In Elmsford Apartment Associates, LLC v. Cuomo, the plaintiffs raised a claim that court closures connected to the challenged executive order violated their First Amendment right to petition the government.
The claim was raised during oral argument on the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment, held by telephone on June 24, 2020. The opinion does not describe the underlying dispute or decide whether the closures violated the Constitution.
Judge Colleen McMahon ordered the parties to file simultaneous letter briefs addressing the plaintiffs’ Petition Clause claim. Each brief could not exceed three pages and was due by June 26, 2020.
The detailed version
- Elmsford Apartment Associates, LLC v. Cuomo · No. 1:20-cv-04062
- Colleen McMahon
- June 24, 2020
Background During telephone oral argument on the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment, the plaintiffs asserted that court closures related to the challenged executive order violated their First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances. The opinion cites authority concerning the First Amendment Petition Clause.
Order The court permitted the parties to submit concurrent letter briefs addressing the plaintiffs’ Petition Clause claim. The briefs could not exceed three pages and had to be filed by June 26, 2020.
Disposition and significance Judge Colleen McMahon did not decide the merits of the Petition Clause claim in this order. The order addressed only further briefing on that claim, so this is a procedural order rather than a ruling on the underlying constitutional question.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.