Tripathy v. McClowski
- Cathy Seibel
- 7:21-cv-06584
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 7
In Tripathy v. McCloskey, Judge Seibel ordered Sanjay Tripathy to redo his summary-judgment response because it violated Local Rule 56.1.
Sanjay Tripathy must submit a compliant amended Local Rule 56.1 response by June 12, 2024. The defendants’ factual statements may be treated as admitted if Tripathy’s response remains noncompliant and those statements are properly supported.
What happened
In Sanjay Tripathy v. Robert McCloskey, et al., the defendants had asked for summary judgment, which would resolve the case without a trial if granted. The court had not yet decided that request.
Tripathy’s response to the defendants’ statement of facts was 356 pages long, included arguments and opinions instead of focused factual responses, often failed to directly answer the defendants’ numbered statements, and generally lacked specific citations to supporting evidence. The court recognized that Tripathy was representing himself but said that did not excuse compliance with the local rules.
Judge Cathy Seibel gave Tripathy one more opportunity to submit a corrected response by June 12, 2024. The court ordered that the new response be short, factual, supported by specific citations, and limited to the required format; noncompliant paragraphs could be disregarded and properly supported facts could be treated as admitted.
The detailed version
- Tripathy v. McClowski · No. 7:21-cv-06584
- Cathy Seibel
- May 13, 2024
Background
The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, asking the court to resolve the case without a trial. They also filed a 186-paragraph statement of material facts under Local Rule 56.1 of the Southern District of New York. Sanjay Tripathy filed a response to that statement.
Problems with the Response
The court found several procedural defects in Tripathy’s response:
- It was 356 pages long, more than 14 times the length of the defendants’ statement, and therefore was not short and concise. - Many alleged denials did not directly dispute the corresponding factual statements. Instead, they asserted that the defendants’ statements lacked context or were misleading. - Many responses included arguments, legal conclusions, and opinions, including accusations that statements were false and claims concerning religious beliefs and legal violations. - The response often cited entire exhibits or deposition transcripts without identifying the specific pages, lines, or paragraphs supporting the response.
The court explained that a Local Rule 56.1 response is meant to identify whether each asserted fact is disputed and, if so, to point to specific admissible evidence supporting the dispute. The court noted that Tripathy’s self-represented status did not exempt him from following procedural rules.
Order
The court gave Tripathy one additional opportunity to comply with Local Rule 56.1. It ordered him to submit an amended response, and only an amended response, by June 12, 2024. The amended response must be short and concise; identify disputed facts briefly; include specific citations to exhibits and page, line, or paragraph numbers; omit arguments, legal conclusions, phrase-based objections, and immaterial context; and use paragraph indentations for readability.
The court stated that it would disregard any paragraph that failed to comply with the order and cited authorities. If the defendants’ corresponding facts were properly supported by admissible evidence, those facts could then be treated as admitted. The order did not decide the defendants’ pending motion for summary judgment or the underlying claims.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.