Forrest v. Warden Renee
- Lewis Liman
- 1:21-cv-10152
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Forrest v. Warden Renee, Judge Liman partly granted defendants’ motion to dismiss and kept limited claims against Warden Renee and Captain Carter alive.
Trevor Forrest’s claims against the City of New York were dismissed, as were claims concerning access to congregate religious services or the health clinic. Limited claims against Warden Renee and Captain Carter concerning an imam and injunctive relief remained.
What happened
In Forrest v. Warden Renee, the defendants asked the court to dismiss Trevor Forrest’s complaint. A magistrate judge recommended granting that motion in part, and no party objected within the allowed time.
The court dismissed all of Forrest’s claims against the City of New York. It also dismissed claims based on the individual defendants’ alleged refusal to let him attend group religious services or visit the health clinic.
Judge Lewis J. Liman adopted the recommendation and granted the motion to dismiss in part. He denied the motion as to Forrest’s remaining civil-rights and religious-land-use claims against Warden Renee and Captain Carter, but only for the alleged refusal to bring an imam to Forrest’s cell and to the extent Forrest sought court-ordered relief rather than money damages.
The detailed version
- Forrest v. Warden Renee · No. 1:21-cv-10152
- Lewis Liman
- Mar. 9, 2023
Background
Trevor Forrest sued the City of New York, Warden Renee, and Captain Carter. The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which concerns whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim. On February 1, 2023, Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses recommended that the motion be granted in part. The parties were given fourteen days to object, but no objections had been filed as of March 8, 2023.
Court’s review
Because no objections were filed, the district court reviewed the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation for clear error. The court found no clear error and adopted the report and recommendation in its entirety.
Ruling
The court granted in part the defendants’ motion to dismiss. It dismissed all of Forrest’s claims against the City of New York. It also dismissed Forrest’s claims based on the individual defendants’ alleged refusal to allow him to attend congregate religious services or visit the health clinic.
The court denied the motion as to Forrest’s claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a civil-rights statute, and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act against Warden Renee and Captain Carter, insofar as those claims were based on the alleged refusal to bring an imam to Forrest’s cell for religious instruction, counseling, and prayer, and insofar as Forrest sought injunctive relief rather than damages. The court also directed the clerk to close docket entry 25.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.