Brown v. New York City
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-05758
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Brown v. New York City, Judge Swain dismissed Anthony Brown’s complaint without prejudice after he failed to update his address.
Anthony Brown’s complaint was dismissed without prejudice. New York City and the Department of Correction of NYC were the named defendants.
What happened
In Brown v. New York City, the court had directed Anthony Brown to provide an updated mailing address within 30 days and warned that failing to do so would result in dismissal.
The first mailing of that order went to an outdated address and was returned. The clerk’s office remailed the order to the address specified by the court, but Brown did not notify the court of a new address or contact the court further.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed the complaint without prejudice. She also denied permission to proceed without paying filing fees on any appeal from the order and directed the clerk to enter judgment.
The detailed version
- Brown v. New York City · No. 1:23-cv-05758
- Laura Swain
- May 22, 2024
Background
On March 13, 2024, the court directed Anthony Brown to provide an updated mailing address within 30 days. The court warned that failing to comply would result in dismissal of the complaint. The clerk’s office was instructed to mail that order to Brown at the George R. Vierno Center address identified in the order.
The clerk’s office initially mailed the order to an outdated address. The mailing was returned on April 3, 2024, marked as undeliverable. On April 5, 2024, the clerk’s office remailed the order to the address specified in the March 13 order. That mailing was not returned. Brown did not notify the court of a change in mailing address and did not contact the court further, either in writing or otherwise.
Ruling
The court dismissed Brown’s complaint without prejudice because he did not provide an updated address or otherwise contact the court as directed. The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying filing fees for purposes of an appeal. Judge Laura Taylor Swain directed the clerk to mail the order to Brown at the specified address, update the court’s electronic filing system with that address, and enter judgment.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.