Feliciano v. City of New York
- Lewis Kaplan
- 1:20-cv-10033
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Feliciano v. City of New York, Judge Kaplan considered a consent request to stay the civil case during a criminal investigation; the text does not show the ruling.
The civil case involving Madeline Feliciano, Nicholas Feliciano, the City of New York, Tasha Lambre, and other defendants would be paused if the requested stay were entered; the defendants’ deadline to respond to the complaint would also be postponed.
What happened
Feliciano v. City of New York concerns claims arising from Nicholas Feliciano’s attempted suicide while in New York City Department of Correction custody. The plaintiff alleges that employees of city correction, fire, and health agencies were deliberately indifferent to his medical needs and safety.
The City and defendant Tasha Lambre asked to pause the civil case because criminal, correction-department, and investigation-department inquiries remained open. The plaintiff consented to the requested pause, although the plaintiff’s lawyer had previously said a stay was not legally required. The request described a six-week stay through May 13, 2022, and elsewhere requested an additional 30-day stay.
The supplied text is a request and status report, not a clear order stating whether the stay was granted or denied. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s ruling therefore cannot be determined from this text.
The detailed version
- Feliciano v. City of New York · No. 1:20-cv-10033
- Lewis Kaplan
- Apr. 4, 2022
Background
The supplied document is a letter from Alan H. Scheiner, senior counsel for the City, to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. It concerns a civil-rights action brought by Madeline Feliciano as guardian of Nicholas Feliciano against the City of New York and others. The letter states that the case arises from Nicholas Feliciano’s attempted suicide on November 27, 2019, while he was in the custody of the New York City Department of Correction.
The plaintiff alleges that employees of the Department of Correction, the Fire Department of the City of New York, and the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation were deliberately indifferent to Feliciano’s medical needs and safety. The document does not provide a decision on those allegations.
Request to Stay the Case
The City asked the court to pause the civil case for additional time because a criminal investigation into the incident remained ongoing. The letter also refers to open investigations by the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, the Department of Correction, and the Department of Investigation. Defendant Tasha Lambre joined the request, and the plaintiff consented to it. The letter notes that plaintiff’s counsel had previously stated that a stay was not legally required but consented to a stay nonetheless.
The letter first requests a six-week stay from April 1 through May 13, 2022. It also asks the court to postpone the defendants’ deadline to respond to the complaint until a later date and to allow the parties to report on May 13 how they wished to proceed. Near the end, however, the letter requests an additional 30-day stay. The supplied text does not resolve that apparent difference.
The letter says that the case had previously been stayed several times by stipulation and order, including a stay through April 1, 2022. It describes the request as the seventh request for a stay based on the open investigation.
Ruling and Disposition
The supplied text does not contain a clear operative order granting or denying the requested stay. It therefore does not establish whether Judge Lewis A. Kaplan granted the request, denied it, or entered a different schedule. Because the document concerns a request to pause and manage the litigation rather than a decision on the underlying civil-rights allegations, this matter is classified as a procedural order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.