Blackwood v. Ossining Police
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:20-cv-06231
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Blackwood v. Ossining Police, Judge McMahon administratively closed the case and treated its complaint as an amendment to an earlier case.
Phillip Blackwood, the related action under case number 20-CV-5435, and the court officials directed to process the filing and suspend fee deductions.
What happened
In Blackwood v. Ossining Police, Phillip Blackwood filed a complaint against the Ossining Police and several officers. The court said this complaint appeared to arise from the same events as an earlier complaint filed under case number 20-CV-5435.
The court treated the complaint in this case, 20-CV-6231, as an amended complaint in the earlier case. It directed the Clerk of Court to file it there and administratively close this case.
Judge Colleen McMahon also directed that Blackwood not be charged the filing fee for this case and that any previously authorized deductions from his prison trust account for this lawsuit be suspended. The court denied in forma pauperis status for an appeal after certifying that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Blackwood v. Ossining Police · No. 1:20-cv-06231
- Colleen McMahon
- Aug. 24, 2020
Background
Phillip Blackwood, who was proceeding without a lawyer and was being held in the Westchester County Jail, filed a complaint against the Ossining Police Department on July 14, 2020. The court received another complaint from him on August 6, 2020, naming the Ossining Police Department and several individual Ossining police officers. The Clerk of Court opened the second complaint as this separate civil action, No. 20-CV-6231.
Court’s analysis
After reviewing both complaints, the court concluded that they appeared to arise from the same events. It determined that the complaint in No. 20-CV-6231 was best treated as an amended complaint in Blackwood’s action pending under No. 20-CV-5435.
Ruling
The court directed the Clerk of Court to docket the complaint in No. 20-CV-6231 as an amended complaint in No. 20-CV-5435 and to administratively close No. 20-CV-6231. Administrative closure handled the filing as part of the earlier case; the order did not decide the underlying claims.
The court also directed the Clerk not to charge Blackwood the $350 filing fee for this action. It directed the warden or superintendent having custody of Blackwood to suspend any previously authorized monetary deduction from his prison trust account for this lawsuit. The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying the appeal-related fees for purposes of an appeal.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.