State Of New York v. Ross
- Vyskocil
- 1:19-cv-09380
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In State Of New York v. Ross, Judge Vyskocil denied defendants’ motion without prejudice and administratively closed plaintiffs’ motion pending the administrative record.
The State of New York, Basil Seggos, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Wilbur Ross, the United States Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Marine Fisheries Service.
What happened
State Of New York v. Ross involved pending motions and an administrative record that defendants had not filed with the Clerk of Court. The court said it could not decide the motions without that record.
The record had previously been provided to the court, but it was not transferred when the case was reassigned. Although defendants received permission to file electronic and hard-copy versions, the Clerk had not received either version.
Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil denied defendants’ motion to dismiss or, alternatively, for summary judgment without prejudice to renewing it after the record is filed. She also administratively closed plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment pending the record’s filing and ordered each side to submit a letter about proposed Amendment 21 to the fishery management plan.
The detailed version
- State Of New York v. Ross · No. 1:19-cv-09380
- Vyskocil
- Sept. 21, 2020
Background
The parties had proposed, and the court had approved, a schedule requiring defendants to file the administrative record. Defendants later reported that an electronic copy had been filed with the court and sought permission to file it electronically with the Clerk of Court. After the case was reassigned to Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, the administrative record that had been provided to the prior judge was not transferred. The court then granted defendants permission to file the record in electronic format with the Clerk, but the Clerk still had not received it.
Court’s reasoning
The court stated that it could not rule on the pending motions without the administrative record. It relied on precedent explaining that judicial review of an administrative action requires a thorough review of the full record before the agency.
Rulings and next steps
The court denied without prejudice defendants’ motion to dismiss or, alternatively, for summary judgment. The order allowed defendants to move to reopen or renew that motion after filing hard-copy and electronic versions of the administrative record with the court. The court also administratively closed plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment pending the record’s filing. In addition, the court ordered each party to file a letter of no more than three pages addressing the effect of proposed Amendment 21 to the Summer Flounder Fishery Management Plan on the case.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.