Corwell v. Westchester County

Background

Ziare Corwell filed the action while he was a pretrial detainee at Westchester County Jail. He was proceeding without a lawyer and without paying the filing fee. The court repeatedly notified him that he had to report any address change in writing and that the case could be dismissed if he failed to do so.

Defendants moved to dismiss Corwell's amended complaint. Corwell did not oppose the motion or request more time, even after the court extended his deadline and warned that the motion would be treated as unopposed. On July 13, 2020, the court granted in part and denied in part the motion. It allowed Corwell's Fourteenth Amendment excessive-force claim to proceed against the individual defendants identified in that order and dismissed the other claims.

Failure to Update Address

Defense counsel later informed the court that Corwell had been transferred and then released from custody, had not updated his address, and could not be contacted for pretrial discovery. The court ordered Corwell to provide his current address in writing by February 4, 2021. The order warned that failure to do so could result in dismissal for failure to prosecute or comply with court orders. Corwell did not provide an updated address and had not communicated with the court since August 2020.

Ruling

Judge Briccetti concluded that Corwell had abandoned the case. Applying the factors used for dismissals based on failure to prosecute, the court dismissed the case with prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b) for failure to prosecute or comply with court orders. The Clerk was directed to close the case. The court also certified that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Corwell permission to appeal without paying the filing fee.

Classification

This is a procedural order because the court dismissed the case for failure to prosecute and comply with court orders without deciding the merits of the remaining excessive-force claim.