Frost v. Biden
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-04271
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Frost v. Biden, Judge Swain dismissed the action without prejudice because Frost had not obtained required permission to proceed without fees.
Vinton Frost's civil action against Joseph R. Biden, Jr.; the action was dismissed without prejudice, and fee-waived status was denied for any appeal.
What happened
In Frost v. Biden, Vinton Frost filed a civil action without a lawyer and sought to proceed without paying filing fees. An earlier order had barred him from filing future fee-waived civil actions in this court unless he first obtained permission.
Frost had not requested that permission. He also had not paid the filing fee or submitted a formal application to proceed without fees, although the court understood from his failure to pay that he was seeking that status. The complaint and electronic-service consent were unsigned.
The court dismissed the action without prejudice for violating the earlier order and directed the clerk to enter judgment. Judge Swain also denied fee-waived status for any appeal after certifying that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Frost v. Biden · No. 1:25-cv-04271
- Laura Swain
- June 6, 2025
Background
Vinton Frost filed this civil action against Joseph R. Biden, Jr., in his official capacity as identified in the caption. Frost was proceeding without a lawyer. He did not pay the filing fees and did not submit a formal application to proceed without paying them; the court therefore understood that he was seeking that status.
The court had previously ordered that Frost could not file future civil actions in that court without paying the fees unless he first obtained the court's permission to proceed without payment. Frost filed this action without seeking that permission. The opinion also notes that both his complaint and his consent to electronic service were unsigned.
Ruling
The court dismissed the action without prejudice because Frost failed to comply with the earlier order. It directed the clerk to enter judgment for that reason. The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying fees for purposes of an appeal.
Effect of the Order
The opinion does not decide the underlying claims against the defendant. The dismissal was based on Frost's failure to obtain the required permission before filing the action while seeking to proceed without paying fees.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.