Kimbrough v. Center for Justice Innovation
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-03951
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Kimbrough v. Center for Justice Innovation, Judge Swain ordered payment or an IFP application within 30 days before processing the case.
Melvin Dewayne Kimbrough must, within 30 days, either pay $405 in fees or submit a signed application to proceed without prepayment of fees. If he does not comply, the action will be dismissed; no summons will issue at this time.
What happened
In Kimbrough v. Center for Justice Innovation, Melvin Dewayne Kimbrough filed a civil action without paying the required fees or submitting an application to proceed without prepaying them. The order states that he was representing himself.
The court gave Kimbrough 30 days to pay $405 in fees or submit a signed application to proceed without prepayment. No summons would issue at that time, and the case would be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures if he complied.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain ordered that the action would be dismissed if Kimbrough did not comply within the allowed time. She also denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for any appeal from the order.
The detailed version
- Kimbrough v. Center for Justice Innovation · No. 1:25-cv-03951
- Laura Swain
- May 15, 2025
Background
Melvin Dewayne Kimbrough brought this civil action without a lawyer. He submitted the complaint but did not pay the required filing fees and did not submit an application to proceed without prepaying fees. The defendants are identified in the caption as Center for Justice Innovation et al.
Court’s Order
The court explained that a plaintiff must either pay $405—consisting of a $350 filing fee and a $55 administrative fee—or submit a signed application to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP), meaning without prepayment of fees. The court ordered Kimbrough, within 30 days of the order, to do one of those two things. If he submitted the application, it was to include docket number 25-CV-3951 (LTS).
No summons would issue at that time. If Kimbrough complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures. If he did not comply within the permitted period, the action would be dismissed.
Appeal-Related Ruling
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith. It therefore denied IFP status for purposes of an appeal.
Disposition and Classification
This is a procedural order concerning payment of filing fees or an IFP application. It does not decide the merits of Kimbrough’s claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.