Pagan v. McCarthy
- Laura Swain
- 1:24-cv-08893
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Pagan v. McCarthy, Judge Swain orders pro se plaintiff Jerry Pagan to submit an original complaint signature within 30 days or face dismissal.
Jerry Pagan must provide an original signature on the complaint within 30 days for the case to proceed to processing; otherwise, the action will be dismissed. The court also denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for an appeal from this order.
What happened
In Pagan v. McCarthy, Jerry Pagan filed this action without a lawyer, but his complaint did not include a signature.
The court ordered Pagan to resubmit the complaint’s signature page with an original signature within 30 days. The court will not issue a summons yet; if Pagan follows the order, the Clerk’s Office will process the case, but if he does not, the action will be dismissed.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying appeal fees for purposes of an appeal.
The detailed version
- Pagan v. McCarthy · No. 1:24-cv-08893
- Laura Swain
- Jan. 2, 2025
Background
Jerry Pagan brought the action without a lawyer. He submitted a complaint that did not include a signature.
Signature requirement
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(a) and Local Civil Rule 11.1(a) require an unrepresented party to personally sign a pleading. The court explained that this requirement calls for a handwritten name or a handplaced mark.
Order
The court directed Pagan to resubmit the complaint’s signature page with an original signature within 30 days of the order. A copy of the signature page was attached. No summons will issue at this time. If Pagan complies, the Clerk’s Office will process the case under its procedures. If he does not comply within the allowed time, the action will be dismissed.
Appeal-fee ruling
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith. It therefore denied permission to proceed without prepaying appeal fees for purposes of an appeal.
Attached certification and warnings
The attached signature page requires each plaintiff to sign and date the complaint. It also includes certifications concerning improper purposes, legal and factual support, and compliance with Rule 11, along with warnings about filing cases while imprisoned, exhausting administrative procedures for prison-condition claims, and keeping the Clerk’s Office informed of address changes.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.