Maldonado v. Gunsett
- Vincent Briccetti
- 7:21-cv-03719
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Maldonado v. Gunsett, Judge Briccetti extended the service deadline to December 30, 2022, and ordered Marshals Service paperwork for defendants.
Edwin Maldonado and the eight defendants whose service deadline was extended: Amanda Saunders, Anthony C. Russo, Gerard Guiney, John Serrell, Kevin O’Connor, Richard Smith, II, Douglas Hildebrandt, and Daniel F. Mulligan. The Clerk and U.S. Marshals Service were also directed to take administrative steps.
What happened
Maldonado v. Gunsett is a civil-rights case brought by Edwin Maldonado, who was representing himself and had been allowed to proceed without paying filing fees. He asserted constitutional claims under a federal civil-rights law against Officer John Gunsett and other defendants.
The court found that several defendants had not been served, including Amanda Saunders, Anthony C. Russo, Gerard Guiney, John Serrell, Kevin O’Connor, Richard Smith, II, Douglas Hildebrandt, and Daniel F. Mulligan. It ordered the Clerk to prepare summonses and other paperwork for service by the U.S. Marshals Service and to correct Mulligan’s name on the docket.
Judge Vincent L. Briccetti extended Maldonado’s deadline to serve those eight defendants to December 30, 2022. The court also denied fee-free status for any appeal after certifying that an appeal would not be taken in good faith, and warned that the case could be dismissed if Maldonado did not report an address change.
The detailed version
- Maldonado v. Gunsett · No. 7:21-cv-03719
- Vincent Briccetti
- Nov. 9, 2022
Background
Edwin Maldonado, proceeding without a lawyer and without paying filing fees, brought constitutional claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The case originally included Officer John Gunsett and other defendants, including several defendants identified by placeholder names. The Attorney General later identified additional defendants and provided the correct name and service address for Daniel F. Mulligan, who had previously been entered incorrectly on the docket as “John Mulligen.”
The court had issued earlier service orders directing the U.S. Marshals Service to serve defendants. The court then learned that Amanda Saunders, Anthony C. Russo, and Gerard Guiney had been included in an earlier service order but accidentally omitted from the fourth amended service order. The docket also did not show service on John Serrell, Kevin O’Connor, Richard Smith, II, Douglas Hildebrandt, or Daniel F. Mulligan, although the court had been informed that the Marshals Service was working on service for those defendants.
Order
The court ordered the Clerk to prepare a U.S. Marshals Service process receipt and return form, summonses, and other necessary paperwork for each named defendant listed in the order’s appendix. The service addresses were also included in the appendix.
The court extended Maldonado’s deadline under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(m) to serve Saunders, Russo, Guiney, Serrell, O’Connor, Smith, Hildebrandt, and Mulligan to December 30, 2022. It also ordered the Clerk to correct Mulligan’s name on the docket.
Other Rulings and Effect
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith. It therefore denied Maldonado’s fee-free status for purposes of an appeal. The court also directed Maldonado to notify the court in writing of any address change and stated that the action may be dismissed if he fails to do so. This order addressed service and related case administration; it did not decide the underlying constitutional claims. Judge Vincent L. Briccetti signed the order.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.