Fredricks v. Mills
- Laura Swain
- 1:21-cv-04996
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Fredricks v. Mills, Judge Swain administratively closed a mistakenly opened case and directed its petition be filed as an amendment in an earlier case.
Nigel Fredricks and the administration of his habeas petition; the petition was moved into the earlier action, No. 21-CV-3690, while No. 21-CV-4996 was administratively closed.
What happened
In Fredricks v. Mills, Nigel Fredricks filed a petition challenging what he described as an assault case. The court had first opened the matter under docket number 21-CV-3690 and allowed him to submit an amended petition.
Fredricks then filed the amended petition, but the Clerk’s Office mistakenly opened it as a new case under docket number 21-CV-4996. Fredricks told the court that he intended the filing to be an amendment in the earlier case, not a new lawsuit.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain directed the Clerk to administratively close case 21-CV-4996 and file its petition as an amended petition in case 21-CV-3690. She also directed the Clerk to mail the order to Fredricks and denied fee-free appeal status because any appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Fredricks v. Mills · No. 1:21-cv-04996
- Laura Swain
- June 23, 2021
Background
Nigel Fredricks filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging what he called “an assault case.” The Clerk opened his original petition as civil action No. 21-CV-3690. On May 17, 2021, the court gave Fredricks 30 days to file an amended petition.
Fredricks filed a petition labeled with the earlier docket number on June 4, 2021. The Clerk instead opened that filing as a new civil action, No. 21-CV-4996. The court later received Fredricks’s letter explaining that he did not intend to begin a new action and wanted the filing treated as an amended pleading in No. 21-CV-3690.
Court’s action
The court directed the Clerk to administratively close No. 21-CV-4996; file the petition docketed as ECF No. 1 in that case as an amended petition in No. 21-CV-3690; and file a copy of the order in the earlier action. Fredricks was directed to put docket number 21-CV-3690 on future papers supporting his petition.
The court also directed the Clerk to mail Fredricks a copy of the order and note service on the docket. It certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and therefore denied fee-free appeal status for that appeal. The order did not decide the underlying habeas petition’s claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.