Gardner v. Hochul
- Philip Halpern
- 7:21-cv-10185
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Gardner v. Koeningsman, Judge Halpern denied repeated requests for appointed counsel and denied fee-free appeal status after the action had been dismissed.
Phillip Jerome Gardner, whose repeated requests for appointed counsel were denied and whose fee-free status for an appeal was denied.
What happened
In Phillip Jerome Gardner v. Dr. Carl J. Koeningsman, et al., the court had already dismissed the action for failure to state a claim and had denied an earlier request for a free lawyer. Gardner then submitted two more requests for appointed counsel.
The court denied both later requests for the same reasons stated in its earlier order. It explained that any request for a lawyer to help with an appeal had to be made to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Judge Philip M. Halpern also certified that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for an appeal. The Clerk was directed to terminate the pending motion and mail the order to Gardner.
The detailed version
- Gardner v. Hochul · No. 7:21-cv-10185
- Philip Halpern
- May 2, 2022
Background
On March 30, 2022, the court dismissed this action under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B) and denied Gardner’s request for appointment of pro bono counsel. The opinion states that the action had been dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
After that dismissal, Gardner submitted additional requests for appointment of pro bono counsel. The court denied one request on April 12, 2022, explaining that the case had been dismissed and that any request for counsel to pursue an appeal had to be made to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Rulings
The court denied Gardner’s April 19 and April 26, 2022 applications for appointment of pro bono counsel for the same reasons given in the April 12 endorsement. The court also stated that, even if it considered the applications on their merits, it would deny them because the action had already been dismissed for failure to state a claim. The opinion identifies the merits of the case, efforts to obtain a lawyer, and the applicant’s ability to present the case without counsel as factors relevant to such requests, with the merits receiving the most attention.
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith. It therefore denied in forma pauperis status, meaning permission to proceed without paying the ordinary filing costs, for purposes of an appeal. The Clerk was directed to terminate the motion sequence pending at Doc. 18 and mail a copy of the order to Gardner.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.