Bettis v. Metropolitan Correction Center
- Katharine Parker
- 1:21-cv-07496
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Bettis v. Metropolitan Correctional Center, Judge Parker ordered officials to identify the correct Jane Doe defendant and provide service information.
Zubearu Bettis, the United States Attorney’s Office, the Metropolitan Correctional Center, and the unidentified Jane Doe defendant.
What happened
In Bettis v. Metropolitan Correctional Center, Zubearu Bettis told the court that the United States Attorney’s Office had identified the wrong person as the Jane Doe defendant. Bettis said that person, Yoon Kang, was not at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York on October 2, 2018, when Bettis was infected, and provided a further description of the person Bettis seeks to sue.
The court explained that a person proceeding without a lawyer is entitled to the district court’s help identifying a defendant. It therefore directed the United States Attorney’s Office, which represents and acts as the agent for the Metropolitan Correctional Center, to try to identify the Jane Doe defendant’s identity, badge number, and address for service.
Judge Parker ordered the United States Attorney’s Office to provide that information to Bettis and the court within 60 days of January 13, 2022. The clerk was also directed to mail the order and Bettis’s letter to the relevant parties. The order addressed identifying a defendant and did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Bettis v. Metropolitan Correction Center · No. 1:21-cv-07496
- Katharine Parker
- Jan. 13, 2022
Background
Zubearu Bettis filed a letter explaining that the United States Attorney’s Office had identified the wrong Jane Doe defendant under an earlier order by Judge Valerie Caproni. Bettis stated that Yoon Kang was not at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York on October 2, 2018, when Bettis was infected. Bettis supplied a further description of the Jane Doe defendant in a letter filed as ECF No. 22.
Court’s analysis
The court relied on the rule that a person proceeding without a lawyer is entitled to assistance from the district court in identifying a defendant. The court found that Bettis’s additional description warranted further efforts to identify the Jane Doe defendant.
Order
The court ordered the United States Attorney’s Office—which the order describes as the attorney for and agent of the Metropolitan Correctional Center—to try to identify the Jane Doe defendant’s identity and badge number and the address where that defendant could be served. The office was ordered to provide that information to Bettis and the court within 60 days of the order’s date. The clerk was directed to mail a copy of the order to Bettis and to mail the order and Bettis’s ECF No. 22 letter to the United States Attorney’s Office.
This was a procedural order concerning identification and service of a defendant. The opinion did not decide the merits of Bettis’s underlying claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.