Buxbaum v. Pollak
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-00529
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Buxbaum v. Pollak, Judge Swain dismissed the complaint without prejudice after Buxbaum neither paid filing fees nor submitted a fee-waiver application.
Michael Buxbaum’s complaint was dismissed without prejudice because he neither submitted the required fee-waiver application nor paid the $405 filing fee. The court also denied fee-waiver status for an appeal and directed entry of judgment.
What happened
In Buxbaum v. Pollak, the court ordered Michael Buxbaum to submit, within thirty days, an application to proceed without paying filing fees or to pay the $405 required to file a civil action.
Buxbaum did neither. The court dismissed the complaint without prejudice, meaning the dismissal did not bar refiling, and directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ruled that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-waiver status for any appeal. The order did not address the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Buxbaum v. Pollak · No. 1:25-cv-00529
- Laura Swain
- Feb. 27, 2025
Background
The court had previously ordered Plaintiff Michael Buxbaum, within thirty days, either to submit a completed application to proceed without paying filing fees or to pay the $405 filing fee required for a civil action. The prior order warned that failure to comply would result in dismissal of the complaint.
Ruling
Buxbaum did not submit the application and did not pay the filing fee. The court therefore dismissed the complaint without prejudice under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1914 and 1915. The order does not discuss the merits of Buxbaum’s claims against Aimee Pollak.
Appeal and Judgment
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied the ability to proceed without paying fees for purposes of an appeal. The court directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.