Chappelle v. The City Municipality
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-06301
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Chappelle v. The City Municipality, Chief Judge Swain ordered Marquis Chappelle to pay filing fees or submit prisoner authorization within 30 days.
Marquis Chappelle is directly affected because he must pay the fees or submit the required authorization for the action to proceed. The case will be dismissed if he does not comply within 30 days; the defendants are not required to respond at this stage.
What happened
Marquis Chappelle v. The City Municipality concerns a civil case brought by Chappelle, who is incarcerated and does not have a lawyer. He submitted an application to proceed without paying fees upfront but did not submit the required prisoner authorization.
The order gives Chappelle 30 days to either pay $405 in fees or complete and submit the authorization. The authorization would allow the court to deduct the $350 filing fee from his prison account in installments and obtain his account statements. No summons will issue at this time.
If Chappelle does not comply, the action will be dismissed. If he complies, the Clerk’s Office will process the case under its procedures. Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain also denied permission to appeal without paying fees, finding that any appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Chappelle v. The City Municipality · No. 1:25-cv-06301
- Laura Swain
- Aug. 1, 2025
Background
Marquis Chappelle, who is incarcerated at the Rikers Island – North Infirmary Command, filed this civil action without a lawyer. The opinion states that he submitted an application to proceed without prepaying filing fees, but he did not submit the required prisoner authorization.
Filing-fee requirements
The court explained that a prisoner bringing a civil action must either pay $405 in fees—a $350 filing fee and a $55 administrative fee—or request permission to proceed without prepayment by submitting a signed application and a prisoner authorization. If the court grants the application, the Prison Litigation Reform Act requires collection of the $350 filing fee in installments from the prisoner’s account. The authorization also directs the correctional facility to provide certified account statements for the previous six months.
Order
The court ordered Chappelle, within 30 days of the order, to either pay the $405 in fees or complete and submit the attached prisoner authorization. The order states that the authorization should be labeled with docket number 1:25-CV-6301, although the case caption identifies the docket number as 1:25-CV-63012 (LTS).
No summons will issue at this time. If Chappelle complies, the Clerk’s Office will process the case under its procedures. If he does not comply within the allowed time, the action will be dismissed. The court also 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.
What the order did not decide
The opinion addresses filing requirements only. It does not decide the merits of Chappelle’s claims against the defendants.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.