Taylor v. NYC

Background

Roy Taylor, who was detained at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center, filed a self-represented lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He alleged, among other things, that conditions in New York City Department of Correction custody exposed him to serious harm because he could not remain six feet from other people and detainees in the general population were not tested for COVID-19. He sought damages and release from custody. The court had already granted permission for him to proceed without paying the filing fee in advance.

Claims for Other Inmates

The court held that Taylor could not litigate claims belonging to other inmates. It dismissed those claims and stated that the action would proceed with Roy Taylor as the sole plaintiff.

Request for Release from Custody

Taylor labeled the case as a civil-rights action but also sought release on his own recognizance. The court explained that a petition challenging custody, rather than a civil-rights claim, is the required method for a state prisoner seeking earlier release. Because Taylor was a state pretrial detainee, the court said that a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 would generally be the proper vehicle. Such a petition generally requires exhaustion of available state-court remedies.

Taylor had not alleged that he exhausted a challenge to his custody in state court, and he had not named his custodian as a respondent. The court therefore declined to convert the case into a custody petition and dismissed the claims seeking release without prejudice to Taylor’s repleading them.

Immunity Rulings

The court dismissed the claims against the U.S. Department of Justice because Taylor did not identify a claim against that agency or a statute waiving the federal government’s sovereign immunity.

The court dismissed Taylor’s claims against New York State because the Eleventh Amendment generally bars suits against a state in federal court, and the court stated that New York had not waived that immunity and Congress had not removed it for claims under § 1983. Claims for damages against Governor Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Letitia James in their official capacities were also dismissed on that basis.

The court explained that the Eleventh Amendment does not bar claims seeking prospective injunctive relief against state officials. Because it was unclear whether Taylor sought such relief from Cuomo or James, the court dismissed any such claims without prejudice to repleading official-capacity claims for injunctive relief in an amended complaint that the court might permit.

Personal Involvement and Redundant Claims

To state a § 1983 claim, Taylor had to allege facts showing each defendant’s direct and personal involvement in the alleged constitutional violation. The court found that Taylor did not mention Cuomo, James, or Mayor Bill DeBlasio in the body of the complaint and did not allege how they were personally involved. It dismissed the personal-capacity claims against those officials for failure to state a claim.

The court dismissed Taylor’s official-capacity claims against DeBlasio as redundant of the claims against New York City. It also dismissed the claims against “Corp Counsel” because the complaint did not make clear whether Taylor meant the New York City Law Department or a particular attorney, and it contained no allegations against that defendant.

Disposition

The court dismissed Taylor’s claims against New York State Government, the U.S. Department of Justice, Andrew Cuomo, Letitia James, Bill DeBlasio, and “Corp Counsel.” It separately declined to recharacterize the release-related claims as a custody petition and dismissed those claims without prejudice because they were unexhausted. The order did not dismiss the claims against the City of New York. Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil directed the Clerk to notify the New York City Department of Correction and the New York City Law Department, requested that New York City waive service, and denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for an appeal after certifying that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.