Santos v. Cross
- Louis Stanton
- 1:20-cv-04493
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Santos v. Cross, Judge Stanton terminated reconsideration because an appeal removed district-court jurisdiction and denied service request as moot.
Francisco Santos’s motions were affected: the reconsideration motion was terminated, and the request for service of the summons and complaint was denied as moot. The clerk was directed to notify Santos and the Second Circuit.
What happened
Santos v. Cross was an action that the court had already dismissed for failure to state a claim. After that dismissal, Francisco Santos appealed to the federal appeals court.
Santos later asked the district court to reconsider its dismissal and separately asked the court to have the defendants served with the summons and complaint. The court received both requests after the appeal had been sent to the appeals court.
Judge Louis L. Stanton ruled that the appeal removed the district court’s authority over the parts of the case involved in the appeal. He directed the clerk to terminate the reconsideration motion and denied the request for service as moot.
The detailed version
- Santos v. Cross · No. 1:20-cv-04493
- Louis Stanton
- Oct. 16, 2020
Background
The court had dismissed Francisco Santos’s action under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) for failure to state a claim. After the dismissal, Santos filed a notice of appeal, which the district court transmitted to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Santos later filed a motion asking the district court to reconsider its dismissal. He also had submitted a request for service of the summons and complaint on the defendants by the United States Marshals.
Court’s reasoning
The court explained that filing a notice of appeal gives the appeals court authority over the matters involved in the appeal and removes the district court’s control over those matters. The court also explained that the rule allowing certain timely motions to delay the effectiveness of a notice of appeal did not apply because Santos filed his reconsideration motion more than 28 days after judgment was entered.
Ruling
Because the appeal removed the district court’s authority over the action, the court directed the clerk to terminate Santos’s motion for reconsideration. The court also denied as moot Santos’s motion for service of the summons and complaint and directed the clerk to terminate that motion. The order further instructed the clerk to mail the order to Santos and provide a copy to the clerk of the Second Circuit.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.