Fredricks v. Whittingham
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-04248
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Fredricks v. Whittingham, Judge Swain denied Fredricks’s appeal-extension motion as unnecessary because he timely filed notices, and denied appeal-related IFP status.
Nigel Fredricks’s request for more time to file a notice of appeal was denied as unnecessary, and his ability to proceed without paying the filing fee for an appeal from this order was denied.
What happened
In Fredricks v. Whittingham, the court had dismissed Nigel Fredricks’s complaint after finding that it did not state a claim about inadequate mental-health care under the Fourteenth Amendment. Fredricks later filed two notices of appeal.
Fredricks then asked for more time to file a notice of appeal. The court found that he had already filed a notice within the required 30-day period, so an extension was unnecessary.
Judge Swain denied the extension request as unnecessary. She also ruled that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying the filing fee for that appeal.
The detailed version
- Fredricks v. Whittingham · No. 1:22-cv-04248
- Laura Swain
- Sept. 19, 2023
Background
The court had previously found that Nigel Fredricks failed to state a claim against Dr. Phillip Whittingham for inadequate mental-health care under the Fourteenth Amendment and dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. The court gave Fredricks 60 days to file an amended complaint.
Fredricks filed documents that he described as second amended complaints, along with letters explaining which submission he wanted to use. He then filed a notice of interlocutory appeal. The Second Circuit dismissed that appeal. On August 7, 2023, this court dismissed the action under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii). Fredricks later filed two notices of appeal, one handwritten and one on the court’s form. The appeal had been sent to the Second Circuit.
Motion and ruling
Fredricks moved for an extension of time to file a notice of appeal. Under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(1)(A), a notice of appeal in a civil case generally must be filed within 30 days after judgment. The court determined that Fredricks had filed a notice of appeal within that 30-day period. It therefore denied his motion for an extension of time to file a notice of appeal as unnecessary.
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. It consequently denied permission to proceed without paying the filing fee for an appeal from this order.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.