Brown v. Automattic
- Katherine Failla
- 1:19-cv-06328
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Brown v. Automattic, Judge Failla treated Brown’s filings and conference statements as the operative complaint and ordered defendants to choose answering or moving to dismiss.
Dora I. Brown and defendants Automattic Inc., Bluehost-Endurance International Group, and Twitter.
What happened
In Brown v. Automattic, Dora I. Brown submitted a document labeled her Third Amended Complaint, but the court found it did not fully address previously identified problems.
Because Brown was representing herself, the court viewed her claims with special consideration. It combined her Second Amended Complaint, Third Amended Complaint, and statements from a July 28, 2020 conference into one operative Third Amended Complaint.
Judge Katherine Polk Failla ordered the defendants to tell the court in writing by November 13, 2020, whether they would answer the complaint or ask the court to dismiss it. The order did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Brown v. Automattic · No. 1:19-cv-06328
- Katherine Failla
- Oct. 22, 2020
Background
Dora I. Brown submitted a document captioned as her Third Amended Complaint. The court stated that the document did not fully address deficiencies the court had previously identified. Brown was representing herself.
What the Court Considered
The court applied the special consideration generally given to people who represent themselves. It construed Brown’s Second Amended Complaint, her Third Amended Complaint, and her statements during the July 28, 2020 conference together as the operative pleading—that is, the complaint governing the case. The court deemed those materials the Third Amended Complaint.
Order
Judge Katherine Polk Failla ordered Automattic Inc., Bluehost-Endurance International Group, and Twitter to advise the court in writing by November 13, 2020, whether they wished to file an answer or move to dismiss the Third Amended Complaint. The Clerk of Court was directed to mail Brown a copy of the order. The order did not rule on the merits of Brown’s claims or grant or deny a motion to dismiss.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.