Payton v. Total by Verizon
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-05880
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Jonathan Payton v. Total by Verizon, Chief Judge Swain dismissed the complaint without prejudice after Payton failed to submit a required original signature.
Jonathan Payton’s complaint was dismissed without prejudice; Total by Verizon and Verizon were no longer required to respond in this action unless it was refiled.
What happened
Jonathan Payton sued Total by Verizon and Verizon. The opinion does not describe the underlying claims.
The court had ordered Payton to resubmit the signature page of his application to proceed without paying court fees, using an original signature. The order warned that failing to do so within 30 days would result in dismissal.
Payton did not submit the signed page, so Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed the complaint without prejudice. The court also denied fee-free status for any appeal and certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Payton v. Total by Verizon · No. 1:25-cv-05880
- Laura Swain
- Oct. 23, 2025
Background
The court had previously directed Jonathan Payton to resubmit the signature page of his application to proceed without paying the filing fee. The court required an original signature and gave him 30 days to comply. It warned that failure to comply would result in dismissal of the complaint.
Court’s Ruling
Payton did not submit the signed signature page. Chief United States District Judge Laura Taylor Swain therefore dismissed the complaint without prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(a). The order does not address the merits of Payton’s claims against Total by Verizon or Verizon.
The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Payton permission to proceed without paying fees for purposes of an appeal.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.