Best v. ACS
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-03017
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Best v. ACS, Judge Swain denied a warrant-service request, extended filing deadlines, and denied permission to appeal without paying fees.
Motisla Saholay Best is required to file a second amended complaint and provide a valid mailing address or consent to electronic service. The case was not dismissed by this order; the order also affects any attempted appeal by denying fee-free appeal status.
What happened
In Best v. ACS, Motisla Saholay Best was representing herself and had been allowed to proceed without paying filing fees. The court had ordered her to file a second amended complaint because her earlier complaints did not follow federal pleading rules.
Best did not file the required complaint. Instead, she asked the U.S. Marshals to serve a warrant and submitted other documents that the court found confusing. The court denied the warrant-service request, extended the time to file the complaint, and directed Best to provide a valid mailing address or agree to electronic service because mailed orders had been returned.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied the request for the Marshals to serve a warrant, directed the Clerk to terminate that motion and other pending applications, and denied fee-free appeal status after certifying that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Best v. ACS · No. 1:23-cv-03017
- Laura Swain
- Aug. 15, 2023
Background
Motisla Saholay Best was proceeding without a lawyer and without paying filing fees. On June 26, 2023, the court ordered her to file a second amended complaint within 60 days because her original and first amended complaints did not comply with federal pleading rules. The court warned that failure to comply would result in dismissal of the action.
Best did not file a second amended complaint. Instead, on August 8, 2023, she filed an “emergency request that marshals serve warrant” and a supporting declaration. The court found that those filings did not respond to the order requiring an amended complaint. Best also tried to submit additional documents by email, but the court found them confusing and could not docket them.
Rulings
The court denied the motion asking the U.S. Marshals to serve a warrant. It granted Best additional time to comply with the June 26 order and directed her to file a second amended complaint. The body of the order says that complaint was due within 30 days of the order. It also directed Best to notify the court of her current address within 30 days, noting that every order mailed by the Clerk’s Office had been returned as undeliverable.
The order’s conclusion instead directs Best, within 60 days, to file the second amended complaint and either provide a valid mailing address or consent to electronic service. If Best does not comply within the allowed time and cannot show good cause for the failure, the court states that the first amended complaint will be dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. The court did not dismiss the action in this order.
The Clerk was directed to terminate the warrant-service motion and all other pending applications. The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied Best permission to proceed without paying fees for an appeal.
Classification
This is a procedural order because the court addressed amendment, service, address, docket, and appeal-status matters without deciding the merits of Best’s underlying claims. The order also sets a possible future dismissal for failure to state a claim, but it does not impose that dismissal here.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.