Morgan v. City of New York
- Naomi Buchwald
- 1:23-cv-01079
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Morgan v. City of New York, Judge Buchwald granted in part a request, giving defendants 30 more days to respond and complete fact discovery.
The defendants received 30-day extensions to respond to the amended complaint and to complete fact discovery; the plaintiffs’ opposition was not fully accepted.
What happened
In Morgan et al. v. City of New York, the defendants asked for 45 more days to respond to the amended complaint and to extend the fact-discovery deadline. They said several individual defendants had only recently been served and that the City needed time to decide whether it would represent them.
The plaintiffs opposed the request. They argued that delays by the City in providing accurate service information caused the late service and did not justify extending either deadline.
Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald granted the request in part. The court granted a 30-day extension for defendants to respond to the amended complaint and a 30-day extension of the fact-discovery deadline.
The detailed version
- Morgan v. City of New York · No. 1:23-cv-01079
- Naomi Buchwald
- May 9, 2024
Background
The City of New York, writing on behalf of all defendants, requested a 45-day extension of the deadline to respond to the plaintiffs’ amended complaint and an extension of the fact-discovery deadline. The requested dates were June 27, 2024, for the response and August 29, 2024, for fact discovery. The City stated that the individual defendants had only recently been served and that the Law Department needed time to interview them and decide whether to represent them under New York General Municipal Law § 50-k. The City also said depositions could not begin before those representation decisions were made.
This was the defendants’ second request to extend the deadlines. The opinion states that the court had previously granted in part an earlier request. The City said it had provided service information it believed was correct and had not knowingly withheld or provided incorrect addresses.
The Parties’ Positions
The plaintiffs did not consent to either requested extension. They argued that the City had known the individual defendants’ names and shield numbers for more than two months and had delayed providing accurate service information. They described the service history for Mary Tinsley-Thomas, Beethoven Joseph, Jalil Telemaque, and Jeron Smith, and argued that the City’s delays caused the late service. They also argued that the City’s lack of representation decisions did not justify extending the deadlines.
Ruling
Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald granted the application in part. The court granted a 30-day extension for defendants to respond to the amended complaint and a 30-day extension of the fact-discovery deadline. The text does not state the resulting calendar dates for those deadlines.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.