Burns v. Un-named employees of New York City Corrections and Health and…

Background

George Edward Burns filed this action while proceeding without a lawyer. The defendants were identified in the caption as unnamed employees of New York City Corrections and Health and Hospitals, along with John Doe and Jane Doe employees of those entities. The opinion states that Burns was a pretrial detainee when he filed the complaint and was released from New York City Department of Corrections custody on October 25, 2022.

The City of New York moved to dismiss the complaint under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). The opinion does not decide that motion on its merits. Instead, the court addressed Burns’s failure to participate in the case.

Failure to Prosecute

Burns had not appeared or participated in the case since September 2022. The court directed him to update his address and warned that failing to do so or otherwise appearing could lead to dismissal for failure to prosecute under Rule 41(b). On April 25, 2023, the court gave him one final opportunity to provide updated contact information and again warned that failure to respond would lead to a recommendation that the complaint be dismissed. Burns did not respond.

Rule 41(b) allows a court to dismiss an action when a plaintiff fails to follow court orders or otherwise fails to move the case forward. Before doing so, the court considered five factors: the length of the plaintiff’s delay, whether the plaintiff was warned about dismissal, likely prejudice to the defendants, the court’s need to manage its docket while preserving the plaintiff’s opportunity to be heard, and whether a lesser sanction might work.

Ruling

Judge Analisa Torres concluded that all five factors favored dismissal. The court found that Burns’s delay was significant, that he had received clear warnings, and that prejudice to the defendants could be presumed from the unreasonable delay. The court also found that leaving the case on the docket was inefficient and that lesser sanctions were unlikely to be effective because Burns had not communicated with the court despite repeated warnings.

Accordingly, the court dismissed Burns’s complaint without prejudice for failure to prosecute. The clerk was directed to terminate all pending motions, vacate all conferences, close the case, and mail a copy of the order to Burns.