Benton v. Cidambi
- Laura Swain
- 1:24-cv-02968
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Benton v. Cidambi, Judge Swain dismissed the action without prejudice because Benton neither paid filing fees nor submitted an IFP application.
Plaintiff Carzell Benton’s action was dismissed without prejudice because he did not submit the required application to proceed without paying filing fees or pay the $405 filing fee. The court also denied permission to proceed without paying fees on appeal; the underlying claims were not decided.
What happened
In Benton v. Cidambi, the court had ordered Benton to either submit an application to proceed without paying filing fees or pay the required $405 filing fee within 30 days. The order warned that failing to do so would lead to dismissal.
Benton did neither. The court therefore dismissed the action without prejudice, meaning the opinion did not bar refiling. The court did not decide the underlying claims.
Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ruled that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Benton permission to proceed without paying fees on appeal. She directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment dismissing the action.
The detailed version
- Benton v. Cidambi · No. 1:24-cv-02968
- Laura Swain
- June 25, 2024
Background
On April 22, 2024, the court directed Plaintiff Carzell Benton, also identified as Hassan H. Bey, to submit a completed application to proceed without paying filing fees, called an in forma pauperis application, or to pay the $405 required fee for filing a civil action. The court warned that failure to comply within 30 days would result in dismissal.
Court’s ruling
The court found that Benton had not submitted the application or paid the filing fee. It therefore dismissed the action without prejudice under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1914 and 1915. The dismissal was based on the filing-fee requirement, not on a decision about the underlying claims.
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. It consequently denied permission to proceed without paying fees for an appeal and directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment dismissing the action.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.