Jackson v. N.J. Hopewell Township
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-05240
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Jackson v. N.J. Hopewell Township, Judge Swain denied an appeal-extension motion as moot and denied permission to appeal without paying fees.
Henry J. Jackson’s requests for more time to appeal and to appeal without paying the filing fee were denied or treated as moot; the opinion also directed the Clerk to terminate all pending motions.
What happened
In Jackson v. N.J. Hopewell Township, Henry J. Jackson, representing himself, filed a notice of appeal after the court dismissed his complaint and denied his request to proceed without paying filing fees. The judgment was entered on June 21, 2023.
Jackson’s notice of appeal was filed on July 10, 2023, within the required 30-day period. Because the notice was timely, Judge Swain found that Jackson did not need more time to appeal and treated his extension request as unnecessary.
Judge Swain denied the extension motions as moot and denied Jackson’s request to appeal without paying filing fees. The court also certified that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Jackson v. N.J. Hopewell Township · No. 1:23-cv-05240
- Laura Swain
- Sept. 18, 2023
Background
Henry J. Jackson, acting without a lawyer, filed the complaint on June 20, 2023, and asked to proceed without paying the filing fee. In an earlier order dated June 21, 2023, the court dismissed the complaint because Jackson was barred from filing new actions in the Southern District of New York without paying the filing fee. The court also denied permission to proceed without paying the fee for an appeal, and the Clerk entered judgment that day.
Appeal deadline
Jackson filed a notice of appeal on July 10, 2023, along with a motion for more time to appeal and a request to proceed without paying the appeal fee. He renewed the extension request on July 28, 2023. The court applied the rule requiring a civil notice of appeal to be filed within 30 days after judgment. Because Jackson filed the notice within 30 days of the June 21 judgment, the notice was timely and no extension was needed.
Ruling
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied Jackson’s motions for an extension of time to file a notice of appeal as moot. The court denied Jackson’s motion for permission to appeal without paying the filing fee. 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 directed the Clerk to terminate all pending motions.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.