Opinion
1:24-cv-00127-NT
10-23-2024
LIONEL NIMA NGAPEY, Plaintiff, v. LAW SCHOOL ADMISSION COUNCIL et al., Defendants.
ORDER AFFIRMING THE RECOMMENDED DECISION OF THE MAGISTRATE JUDGE
NANCY TORRESEN, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.
On July 1, 2024, the United States Magistrate Judge filed with the Court, with copies to the parties or their counsel, a Recommended Decision (ECF No. 13) on the Defendants' motions to dismiss (ECF Nos. 6 & 10). Because at that time the Plaintiff had not responded to the Defendants' motions to dismiss, the Magistrate Judge recommended granting the motions based on the Plaintiff's unexcused failure to comply with the District of Maine Local Rules. Recommended Decision 2 (citing Harriman v. Bolduc, No. 1:22-cv-00264-JDL, 2023 WL 2162809, at *2 (D. Me. Feb. 22, 2023) (finding a pro se plaintiff “waived his objection to the Motion to Dismiss because he failed to file a timely response”)); see also D. Me. Loc. R. 7(b) (requiring written objections to a contested motion within twenty-one days).
On July 5, 2024, the Plaintiff objected to the Recommended Decision, stating in part that his disabilities and homelessness had prevented him from timely responding to the Defendants' motions to dismiss (ECF No. 14). Defendant LSAC responded to the Plaintiff's objections on July 12, 2024 (ECF No. 15). The Plaintiff then filed an opposition to the Defendants' motions to dismiss (ECF No. 16) on July 25, 2024, which was over seventy days past the twenty-one-day response deadline. “[W]hile pro se litigants are accorded a certain degree of latitude,” the Plaintiff's pro se status “does not excuse him from complying with . . . the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Court's Local Rules.” Heather S. v. Berryhill, No. 1:18-CV-00178-JAW, 2018 WL 4781169, at *1 (D. Me. Oct. 3, 2018). The First Circuit has long held that “[t]he right of self-representation is not ‘a license not to comply with relevant rules of procedural and substantive law.' ” Andrews v. Bechtel Power Corp., 780 F.2d 124, 140 (1st Cir. 1985) (quoting Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 835 n.46 (1975)).
It is therefore ORDERED that the Magistrate Judge's Recommended Decision to grant the Defendants' motions to dismiss is hereby ADOPTED for the reasons stated in that Recommended Decision and for the additional reasons above.
SO ORDERED.