Fredericks v. Cott
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-04581
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Fredericks v. Cott, Judge Swain denied IFP and dismissed the action without prejudice under the PLRA’s three-strikes rule.
Nigel Fredericks’s ability to proceed without prepaying filing fees in this action and in future federal civil actions while he is incarcerated; the order did not reach the underlying claims against James L. Cott or Analisa Torres.
What happened
In Fredericks v. Cott, Nigel Fredericks, who is incarcerated and representing himself, filed the action without paying the filing fee or submitting an application to proceed without prepayment. The court understood that he was seeking that fee waiver.
The court found that Fredericks was barred from filing a new federal civil action without prepaying fees because he had previously accumulated three qualifying dismissals. The complaint did not show that he faced an immediate danger of serious physical injury when he filed it, so the exception to that bar did not apply.
Judge Swain denied Fredericks’s request to proceed without prepaying fees and dismissed the action without prejudice under the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s three-strikes rule. The court also directed entry of judgment and denied fee-waiver status for any appeal because an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Fredericks v. Cott · No. 1:25-cv-04581
- Laura Swain
- June 4, 2025
Background
Nigel Fredericks, who was incarcerated at Five Points Correctional Facility and proceeded without a lawyer, brought this action against James L. Cott and Analisa Torres. He did not pay the filing fees or submit an application to proceed without prepaying them. The court therefore treated the case as a request to proceed without prepayment of fees, commonly called proceeding in forma pauperis.
The court explained that another federal district court had previously determined that Fredericks was barred from filing new federal civil actions without prepaying fees while incarcerated. That determination relied on the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s “three-strikes” rule, 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). The rule generally bars a prisoner from proceeding without prepaying fees when the prisoner has had three or more earlier federal actions or appeals dismissed as frivolous, malicious, or failing to state a claim, unless the prisoner faced an imminent danger of serious physical injury.
Court’s Analysis
The court stated that Fredericks’s complaint did not show that he faced an imminent danger of serious physical injury when he filed the complaint. The opinion also said that the complaint was largely illegible and that Fredericks appeared to be suing a United States District Judge and a United States Magistrate Judge over actions they took while presiding over his earlier cases. Because the three-strikes bar applied and the imminent-danger exception did not, Fredericks could not proceed without prepaying the filing fees while incarcerated.
The opinion did not decide the underlying claims against the defendants. It noted that Fredericks could start a new action by paying the filing fees, after which the complaint would be reviewed under the prisoner-screening statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1915A.
Disposition
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied Fredericks’s request to proceed without prepaying fees and dismissed the action without prejudice under the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s three-strikes rule. The Clerk of Court was directed to enter judgment. The court also certified that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-waiver status for purposes of an appeal. The order states that Fredericks remains barred from proceeding without prepaying fees in future actions while he is incarcerated unless he faces an imminent threat of serious physical injury.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.