Peters v. Doe
- Edgardo Ramos
- 1:21-cv-05527
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Peters v. Doe, Judge Ramos ordered pro se plaintiff Peters to answer identification questions by August 1, warning that noncompliance could lead to dismissal.
Ziphaire W. Peters, who was ordered to answer identification questions by August 1, 2023, and warned that noncompliance could lead to dismissal; Correction Officer John Doe remained the defendant to be identified.
What happened
In Peters v. Doe, Ziphaire W. Peters sued Correction Officer John Doe. The court had previously dismissed the claims against three other individual defendants, leaving John Doe as the sole defendant to be identified.
The court had ordered Peters to answer identification questions from the New York City Law Department so the John Doe defendant could be identified. Peters did not respond to the questions or several related letters over at least one year.
Judge Edgardo Ramos ordered Peters to respond by August 1, 2023. The order warned that failing to respond could result in dismissal for failure to prosecute, but it did not itself dismiss the action.
The detailed version
- Peters v. Doe · No. 1:21-cv-05527
- Edgardo Ramos
- July 18, 2023
Background
Ziphaire W. Peters, representing himself, filed the action on June 23, 2021. On May 18, 2022, the Court dismissed the complaint as to Tinesha Mills, identified as the Warden at the Anna M. Kross Center; Assistant Deputy Warden Santiago; and Cynthia Brann, identified as a former Commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction. The remaining defendant was Correction Officer John Doe.
Identification Efforts
On November 29, 2022, the Court directed Peters to answer identification questions from the New York City Law Department within 60 days. The questions were intended to help identify the John Doe defendant. The City later informed the Court that Peters had not responded to the questions or to correspondence sent in July, September, October, and November 2022. The Court stated that Peters had failed to litigate the case for at least one year.
Order
Judge Edgardo Ramos directed Peters to respond to the Law Department’s identification questions by August 1, 2023. The Court warned that failure to respond would result in dismissal for failure to prosecute under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b), which allows a court to dismiss an action when a plaintiff does not pursue it. The Court also stated that Peters’s lengthy failure to comply with court orders provided ample grounds for dismissal. The order did not itself dismiss the action.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.