Murray v. Donoud Trump Inc.
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-07743
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Murray v. Donoud Trump, Inc., Judge Swain denied an unnecessary appeal-extension motion, treated it as a notice of appeal, and denied appeal fee-free status.
Robert Lee Murray’s appeal-related filings were affected: his request for an extension was denied as unnecessary, the motion was treated as a notice of appeal, and fee-free status for the appeal was denied.
What happened
In Robert Lee Murray v. Donoud Trump, Inc., et al., Murray, who filed without a lawyer, asked for more time to appeal an earlier judgment. The earlier judgment dismissed his constitutional claims under a federal civil-rights law because they were brought against private parties, and declined to hear related state-law claims.
The court applied the rule that a detained person’s filing is considered made when given to prison officials for mailing. It treated Murray’s November 9, 2022, motion as filed within 15 days of judgment, so the 30-day appeal period had not expired and an extension was unnecessary. Because Murray had not separately filed a notice of appeal, the court treated his extension motion as his notice of appeal.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied the extension motion as unnecessary, directed the clerk to terminate Murray’s request to proceed without paying appeal fees because that status had already been denied, and certified that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Murray v. Donoud Trump Inc. · No. 1:22-cv-07743
- Laura Swain
- July 21, 2023
Background
Robert Lee Murray filed the action without a lawyer and asserted constitutional-rights claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. On October 24, 2022, the court dismissed those claims for failure to state a claim because Murray asserted them against private parties. The court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction—its authority to hear related state-law claims—and entered judgment that day.
Twenty-one days after judgment, the court received Murray’s motion for an extension of time to file a notice of appeal and his motion to proceed without paying filing fees on appeal. Because Murray was detained when he filed the action, the court applied the prison-mailbox rule, under which a detained person’s filing is treated as filed when delivered to prison officials for mailing. The motion was dated November 9, 2022, and the court assumed Murray gave it to prison officials that day. That made the motion filed 15 days after judgment.
Court’s reasoning and ruling
Federal appellate rules generally give a litigant 30 days after entry of an order or judgment to file a notice of appeal. Because that period had not expired when Murray sought an extension, the court denied the extension motion as unnecessary. Murray had not actually filed a separate notice of appeal, so the court construed the extension motion as a timely notice of appeal.
The court directed the clerk to terminate Murray’s motion to proceed without paying fees on appeal because the court had already denied that status for an appeal. The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and therefore denied fee-free status for the appeal. Judge Laura Taylor Swain signed the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.