McGee v. Doyle
- Philip Halpern
- 7:24-cv-04772
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In McGee v. Doyle, Chief Judge Swain ordered Rondell McGee to pay fees or submit missing authorization before the case proceeds.
Rondell McGee must either pay the required fees or submit the prisoner authorization within 30 days for the action to proceed. The case will be dismissed if he does not comply.
What happened
In McGee v. Doyle, Rondell McGee filed a civil action without a lawyer and submitted an application to proceed without paying fees up front. He did not submit the required prisoner authorization.
The court gave McGee 30 days to either pay $405 in fees or complete and submit the authorization, which permits installment payments from his prison account. No summons would issue at that time. If McGee complies, the case will be processed; if he does not, the action will be dismissed. The court also denied permission to appeal without paying fees.
Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain issued this order on July 2, 2024. The order addressed filing requirements and did not decide the underlying claims against Terrence Doyle or the other defendants.
The detailed version
- McGee v. Doyle · No. 7:24-cv-04772
- Philip Halpern
- July 2, 2024
Background
Rondell McGee, who the opinion says is incarcerated at Westchester County Jail, brought this civil action without a lawyer. He submitted an application to proceed without paying court fees up front, but he did not submit the required prisoner authorization.
Court’s directive
The court explained that a prisoner must either pay $405 in fees—a $350 filing fee and a $55 administrative fee—or request permission to proceed without prepayment by submitting both a signed application and a prisoner authorization. If permission is granted, the $350 filing fee is collected in installments from the prisoner’s account. The authorization also directs the correctional facility to provide certified account statements for the previous six months and to make the required deductions.
The court ordered McGee, within 30 days of the order, to either pay the $405 or complete and submit the attached prisoner authorization, labeled with docket number 24-CV-4772 (LTS). No summons would issue at that time. If McGee complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures; if he failed to comply within the permitted time, the action would be dismissed. The court also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees.
Effect of the order
This is a procedural order about filing fees and required prisoner paperwork. It does not decide the underlying claims against Terrence Doyle or the other defendants. Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain signed the order on July 2, 2024. The opinion also cautioned that certain future dismissals could count as strikes under the prisoner filing-fee statute.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.