Brown v. Carter
- Ronnie Abrams
- 1:21-cv-08981
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Brown v. Carter, Judge Abrams ordered Gustave Brown to respond to the defendants’ dismissal motion or risk dismissal for not pursuing the case.
Gustave Brown and the defendants in the action; the order required Brown to respond and left the defendants’ motion to dismiss undecided.
What happened
In Brown v. Carter, the defendants asked the court to dismiss Gustave Brown’s complaint and stated that they mailed him the motion papers. The court had not received Brown’s response.
The court ordered Brown to file either a response to the motion or a letter saying he would not respond by June 30, 2022. If he chose not to oppose the motion but said he intended to continue the case, the court would consider the motion ready for decision.
Judge Ronnie Abrams did not decide the dismissal motion. She warned that if Brown did not respond to the order, the court might dismiss the case for failure to pursue it under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b).
The detailed version
- Brown v. Carter · No. 1:21-cv-08981
- Ronnie Abrams
- June 8, 2022
Background
The defendants filed a motion to dismiss Brown’s complaint on March 7, 2022. According to an affidavit of service filed by defense counsel, the defendants mailed Brown the motion papers. The court had not received a response from Brown.
Order
The court ordered Brown to file, no later than June 30, 2022, either a response to the motion to dismiss or a letter stating that he did not intend to file a response.
The court explained that if Brown stated that he intended to pursue the case but chose not to oppose the defendants’ motion, the court would treat the motion as fully submitted and decide it based on the complaint and the law. The court cited the principle that a court can assess the legal sufficiency of a complaint even without an opposing response.
Effect
The court did not decide the defendants’ motion to dismiss in this order. It warned that if Brown failed to respond either to the motion or to the court’s order, the court might dismiss the case for failure to prosecute under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b).
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.