Diaz v. Liman
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-07103
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Diaz v. Liman, Judge Swain ordered Diaz to pay filing fees or submit forms to proceed, warning the action will be dismissed if he does not comply.
Miguel Diaz, who must either pay the required fees or submit the specified forms within 30 days to avoid dismissal of the action; the case is not required to proceed unless he complies.
What happened
In Miguel Diaz v. Lewis J. Liman, Miguel Diaz, who is incarcerated and representing himself, filed this action without paying the required fees or submitting the forms needed to request permission to pay later.
The court gave Diaz 30 days to either pay $405 in fees or submit a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees and an authorization allowing installment payments from his prison account. The court did not issue a summons and said the action will be dismissed if Diaz does not comply.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also declined to treat the filing as a request for relief from Diaz’s conviction under the statute he cited because that type of relief was unavailable through that procedure. She denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Diaz v. Liman · No. 1:25-cv-07103
- Laura Swain
- Aug. 29, 2025
Background
Miguel Diaz, who is incarcerated at United States Penitentiary Lee in Jonesville, Virginia, brought the action without a lawyer. The case was transferred to the Southern District of New York from the Western District of Virginia. Diaz filed without paying the required filing fees and without submitting a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees or a prisoner authorization.
Diaz described his filing as a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. The court explained that the relief he sought—money damages and an order vacating his federal conviction—is not available under that statute. The court also stated that a challenge to his conviction must generally be brought under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, but declined to treat this filing as a § 2255 motion because Diaz had recently filed such a motion and it had been denied as premature.
Order
The court ordered Diaz, within 30 days of the order, to do one of two things:
- Pay $405 in fees, consisting of a $350 filing fee and a $55 administrative fee; or - Submit the court’s application to proceed without prepaying fees and a prisoner authorization directing installment withdrawals of the $350 filing fee from his prison account and providing the required account statements.
The court instructed Diaz to label any submitted forms with docket number 25-CV-7103 (LTS). No summons would issue at that time. The court stated that, if Diaz complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures; if he failed to comply within the allowed time, the action would be dismissed.
Disposition and effect
This was a procedural order about filing fees and permission to proceed without prepayment; it did not decide the merits of Diaz’s claims. The court certified that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees. Judge Laura Taylor Swain signed the order on August 29, 2025.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.