Adams v. Annucci
- Kenneth Karas
- 7:17-cv-03794-KMK
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Adams v. Annucci, Judge Karas denied Adams’s motion for reconsideration of an earlier partial dismissal of his civil-rights claims.
Jerry Adams, Anthony Annucci, and Ann Marie T. Sullivan; the order denied Adams’s request to change the court’s March 2020 rulings.
What happened
In Adams v. Annucci, Jerry Adams, representing himself, sued Anthony Annucci and Ann Marie T. Sullivan under a federal civil-rights law. He alleged that requiring him to participate in a treatment program and imposing sanctions for refusing to participate violated his constitutional rights.
The court’s March 2020 order granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss in part and denied it in part. That order allowed some of Adams’s claims to continue, dismissed some claims with prejudice, dismissed other claims without prejudice, and gave him an opportunity to file another amended complaint. Adams instead asked the court to reconsider that order, arguing among other things that the court had failed to consider a possible future civil-commitment proceeding and requesting that the state Attorney General’s Office be disqualified from representing the defendants.
Judge Karas denied the motion for reconsideration. He concluded that Adams identified no change in controlling law, new evidence, or clear error, and was repeating arguments the court had already considered. Judge Karas also ruled that the possible future proceeding was too hypothetical to establish standing and that the request to disqualify the Attorney General’s Office was untimely and meritless.
The detailed version
- Adams v. Annucci · No. 7:17-cv-03794-KMK
- Kenneth Karas
- Jan. 29, 2021
Background
Jerry Adams, proceeding without a lawyer, brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Anthony Annucci and Ann Marie T. Sullivan. Adams alleged that requiring him to participate in a treatment program and imposing sanctions—including revoking good-time credits when he did not participate—violated the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
In a March 27, 2020 Opinion and Order, the court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss in part and denied it in part. The court allowed Adams’s Fourteenth Amendment claim concerning his status as a sex offender and his First Amendment claim concerning sanctions other than revocation of good-time credits by Annucci to proceed. It dismissed Adams’s Fifth Amendment claims with prejudice. It dismissed certain First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment claims under Heck v. Humphrey without prejudice, so those claims could be brought again if his conviction or incarceration were later invalidated in one of the ways identified by the court. The court also dismissed without prejudice an Eighth Amendment claim concerning other sanctions imposed by Annucci and a Fourteenth Amendment claim concerning procedural defects that would not necessarily invalidate the revocation of good-time credits. Adams was given 30 days to file a third amended complaint, but he did not do so.
Motion for Reconsideration
Adams instead moved for reconsideration of the March 2020 order. Reconsideration is an exceptional remedy governed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) and Local Civil Rule 6.3. The court explained that it is not a way to repeat arguments already rejected or submit material that could previously have been presented. A movant must identify an intervening change in controlling law, new evidence, or a clear error or manifest injustice resulting from the earlier decision.
Court’s Analysis
The court found that Adams had identified none of those grounds. It concluded that he was repeating arguments the court had expressly considered and rejected, and had not shown that the court overlooked controlling law, relevant facts, or another matter that could have changed the result.
The court separately rejected Adams’s argument concerning a possible future proceeding under Article 10 of the New York Mental Hygiene Law. To establish constitutional standing, a plaintiff must show an actual or sufficiently imminent injury that was caused by the defendants and could be remedied by a favorable decision. The court held that Adams’s allegation that he might someday face an Article 10 civil-commitment hearing was hypothetical and therefore did not establish a sufficiently imminent injury.
Adams also asked the court to recuse or disqualify the Office of the Attorney General from representing the defendants. The court had previously considered and denied that request in 2017. It held that any request to reconsider that earlier ruling was untimely under the fourteen-day deadline in Local Civil Rule 6.3 and was meritless.
Disposition
Judge Kenneth M. Karas denied Adams’s Motion for Reconsideration. The order directed the Clerk of Court to mail Adams a copy of the order at the address listed on the docket.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.