Atas v. The New York Times Company
- James Oetken
- 1:22-cv-00853
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Atas v. The New York Times Company, Judge Oetken denied Nadire Atas’s request for pro bono counsel without prejudice.
Nadire Atas’s request for volunteer counsel was denied without prejudice, so she may renew the request later in the case. The order did not decide her defamation claims.
What happened
In Atas v. The New York Times Company, Nadire Atas asked the court to request a volunteer lawyer for her defamation claims against The New York Times, several employees, and a relative of an employee. She also sought to add Dr. Todd Essig as a defendant.
The court recognized that Atas had been allowed to proceed without paying filing fees, so she qualified as unable to afford counsel. But the court concluded that her allegations concerned facts within her own knowledge, that she could investigate and present them, and that the legal issues were not too complex for her to handle at that stage.
Judge J. Paul Oetken denied the request for counsel. The denial was without prejudice, allowing Atas to apply again later in the case. The court also denied her ability to proceed without paying fees for an appeal from this order.
The detailed version
- Atas v. The New York Times Company · No. 1:22-cv-00853
- James Oetken
- Dec. 22, 2022
Background
Nadire Atas applied for the court to request pro bono counsel, meaning a volunteer lawyer, in her civil case. She alleged defamation claims against The New York Times, several of its employees, and one employee’s relative based on two articles and one podcast episode. Her Second Amended Complaint also sought to add Dr. Todd Essig, a psychologist quoted in the first article, as a defendant.
The court had previously allowed Atas to proceed without paying filing fees. The court therefore treated her as unable to afford counsel for purposes of the request.
Legal standard
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(1), a court may ask an attorney to represent a person who cannot afford counsel, but civil litigants do not have an automatic right to a court-appointed lawyer. Courts consider whether the claim appears likely to have merit and, if so, whether factors such as the person’s ability to investigate facts, the need for cross-examination, the ability to present the case, the complexity of the legal issues, and other circumstances support appointing counsel.
Court’s analysis
The court stated that, even if Atas’s claims were considered likely to have merit, the relevant factors weighed against appointing counsel at that point in the case. Her allegations involved matters within her personal knowledge, including accusations that the Times articles said she had threatened people, authored certain harassing internet postings, suffered from mental illness, and at some point lived at a homeless shelter.
The court found that Atas’s lack of legal training, by itself, was not enough to justify appointing counsel. It also found that her filings showed she could understand and plead the basic elements of defamation, and that the claims were not so complex or unusual that she could not handle them at that stage.
Disposition
The court denied Atas’s application for the court to request counsel. The denial was without prejudice to a renewed application later in the case. The court also certified that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied Atas permission to proceed without paying fees for purposes of an appeal. The clerk was directed to close the motion and mail the order to Atas.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.