Vaughn v. Metropolitan Transit Authority
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-03221
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Vaughn v. Metropolitan Transit Authority, Judge Broderick ordered defendants to state how they want to proceed after Vaughn amended his complaint.
Parnell D. Vaughn and the defendants, whose pending motion to dismiss was affected by Vaughn’s amended complaint.
What happened
In Parnell D. Vaughn v. Metropolitan Transit Authority, et al., Vaughn, who was representing himself, filed an amended complaint while defendants’ motion to dismiss was pending.
The court explained that, after a proper amendment, it could either treat the pending motion as no longer active or evaluate that motion using the amended complaint’s allegations.
Judge Vernon S. Broderick ordered defendants to file a letter within seven days stating which option they wanted the court to follow. The order did not decide the motion to dismiss.
The detailed version
- Vaughn v. Metropolitan Transit Authority · No. 1:22-cv-03221
- Laura Swain
- June 8, 2022
Background
Parnell D. Vaughn, proceeding without a lawyer, filed an amended complaint on June 6, 2022, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(1)(B). Defendants had already filed a motion to dismiss, and that motion was still pending.
Court’s Analysis
The court cited a Second Circuit decision explaining that when a plaintiff properly amends a complaint while a motion to dismiss is pending, the district court may either deny the pending motion as moot, meaning it no longer needs to be decided, or evaluate the motion based on the facts alleged in the amended complaint.
Order
Judge Vernon S. Broderick ordered defendants to file a letter within seven days stating whether they wanted the pending motion to dismiss treated as moot, without prejudice to filing a new motion under Rule 15(a)(3), or wanted the court to evaluate the existing motion using the amended complaint. The order did not grant or deny the motion to dismiss and did not resolve the claims.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.