Azzarmi v. 55 Fulton Market
- George Daniels
- 1:20-cv-06835
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Aasir Azzarmi v. Key Food Stores, Judge Daniels ordered service help for the pro se plaintiff and required more information to identify unnamed defendants.
Aasir Azzarmi, Key Food Stores Cooperative, Inc., and the unnamed Doe defendants. The order requires court-assisted service on Key Food but does not resolve the claims against any defendant.
What happened
Aasir Azzarmi v. Key Food Stores involved Azzarmi’s allegation that employees of a Key Food store made false statements accusing him of larceny. He sued Key Food Stores Cooperative, Inc., and unnamed defendants, representing himself and relying on diversity jurisdiction.
Because the court had allowed Azzarmi to proceed without paying filing fees in advance, it directed the Clerk and U.S. Marshals Service to help serve Key Food. The court extended the service deadline to 90 days after the summons is issued. It said Azzarmi had not provided enough information to identify the unnamed defendants because he did not give the store’s address or location, and warned that naming unnamed defendants does not pause the deadline for bringing claims against them.
Judge George B. Daniels ordered the Clerk to mail Azzarmi an information package, prepare the service forms, issue a summons, and send the necessary papers to the Marshals Service. The order addressed service and identification issues; it did not decide whether Azzarmi’s slander allegations were valid.
The detailed version
- Azzarmi v. 55 Fulton Market · No. 1:20-cv-06835
- George Daniels
- Sept. 22, 2020
Background
Aasir Azzarmi, proceeding without a lawyer, sued Key Food Stores Cooperative, Inc., and Does 1–10. He invoked the court’s authority over disputes between citizens of different states and alleged that, on October 20, 2019, employees of a Key Food store at an unspecified location in New York County made false statements accusing him of larceny. The opinion states that the court had previously allowed him to proceed without paying filing fees in advance.
Service on Key Food
Because Azzarmi was proceeding without paying the filing fees in advance, the court said he could rely on the court and the U.S. Marshals Service to serve the summons and complaint. The court extended the service deadline to 90 days after the summons is issued, rather than 90 days after the complaint was filed. It directed the Clerk of Court to prepare the Marshals Service service form, issue a summons, and provide the Marshals Service with the documents needed to serve Key Food Stores Cooperative, Inc. The court stated that if service is not completed within that period, Azzarmi should request more time.
Unnamed defendants
The court explained that a self-represented litigant is entitled to help from the district court in identifying a defendant. But Azzarmi had not provided the address or location of the Key Food store where the alleged conduct occurred. The court therefore found that he had not supplied enough information for Key Food to identify the store manager or the other unnamed defendants. It also warned that naming unnamed defendants does not pause the deadline for bringing claims against them and that Azzarmi was responsible for learning their identities and amending his complaint before that deadline expired.
Order
Judge George B. Daniels directed the Clerk to mail Azzarmi an information package, complete the service forms using Key Food’s address, and deliver the required documents to the U.S. Marshals Service. The court also instructed Azzarmi to notify the court in writing if his address changed and warned that the action could be dismissed if he failed to do so. The opinion is a service and defendant-identification order; it does not resolve the merits of the alleged slander claim.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.