Barnett v. Doctor Nortin
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-04755
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Barnett v. Doctor Nortin, Judge Swain ordered the pro se prisoner to pay fees or submit authorization within 30 days before the case proceeds.
Lafvorne L. Barnett, who must either pay the required fees or submit the required prisoner authorization for the action to proceed.
What happened
In Barnett v. Doctor Nortin, Lafvorne L. Barnett filed a civil action while incarcerated and asked to proceed without paying the filing fees upfront. The court said a prisoner must either pay $405 or submit both an application and authorization for account deductions.
Barnett submitted the application but not the required prisoner authorization. The authorization would allow $350 to be collected from his account in installments and would provide the court with certified account statements from the previous six months. No summons would issue at this time.
The court ordered Barnett to pay the $405 or submit the completed authorization within 30 days. Judge Laura Taylor Swain stated that the case would be processed if he complied and would be dismissed if he did not. The court also denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees.
The detailed version
- Barnett v. Doctor Nortin · No. 1:25-cv-04755
- Laura Swain
- June 16, 2025
Background
Lafvorne L. Barnett, who the opinion says is incarcerated at Westchester County Jail, brought this civil action without a lawyer. He submitted an application to proceed without prepaying court fees, but he did not submit the required prisoner authorization.
Fee and authorization requirements
The court explained that filing a civil action requires payment of $405: a $350 filing fee and a $55 administrative fee. A prisoner who cannot prepay may ask to proceed without prepayment by submitting a signed application and a prisoner authorization. If that status is granted, the Prison Litigation Reform Act requires the $350 filing fee to be collected in installments from the prisoner's account. The authorization also directs the correctional facility to send the court certified copies of the prisoner's account statements for the previous six months. The $55 administrative fee does not apply to a person granted this status.
Order
The court ordered Barnett, within 30 days of the order, either to pay the $405 in fees or complete and submit the attached prisoner authorization. The authorization was to identify docket number 25-CV-4755 (LTS). The court directed that no summons issue at that time. It stated that, if Barnett complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk's Office procedures; if he failed to comply within the allowed period, the action would be dismissed.
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees. The opinion also cautioned that certain future dismissals of prisoner actions can count as strikes under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g).
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.