Sivak v. Fletcher
- Martinez-Olguin
- 3:23-cv-06014
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Sivak v. Fletcher, Judge Martinez-Olguin granted Sivak’s motion to reopen, vacated the dismissal and judgment, and ordered payment or a fee-waiver application.
The ruling affects Lacey Sivak and reopens his case, but requires him to pay the full filing fee or submit a completed application to proceed without paying it within twenty-eight days.
What happened
In Sivak v. Fletcher, Lacey Sivak, a state prisoner representing himself, asked the court to reopen his closed civil-rights case. The court had dismissed the case after Sivak did not timely pay the filing fee or submit an application to proceed without paying it.
Sivak said he never received the Clerk’s notice explaining that requirement and its twenty-eight-day deadline. The court found that this allegation was enough under Rule 60(b)(1), which allows relief from an order because of mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect.
Judge Martinez-Olguin granted the motion, reopened the case, vacated the dismissal order and judgment, and reinstated Sivak’s petition for a writ of mandamus. Sivak must pay the full filing fee or submit a completed application to proceed without paying it within twenty-eight days, or the case will be dismissed without prejudice.
The detailed version
- Sivak v. Fletcher · No. 3:23-cv-06014
- Martinez-Olguin
- June 11, 2024
Background
Lacey Sivak, a state prisoner representing himself, filed this civil-rights action, which included a petition for a writ of mandamus. On February 5, 2024, the court dismissed the action because Sivak had not timely paid the full filing fee or submitted a completed application to proceed without paying the fee. The Clerk had sent a notice on November 20, 2023, giving Sivak twenty-eight days to meet that requirement.
Sivak moved to reopen the case. The court treated that motion as a request for relief from the prior order under Rule 60(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Sivak stated that he never received the Clerk’s November 20 notice.
Court’s Analysis
Rule 60(b)(1) permits a court to provide relief from a final order or judgment based on mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect. The court found that the record showed Sivak failed to respond to the Clerk’s notice because he never received it. The court concluded that these allegations were sufficient to relieve Sivak from both the dismissal order and the judgment entered against him.
Ruling
The court granted Sivak’s motion to reopen, construed as a motion for relief from an order. It ordered the Clerk to reopen the action, vacated the February 5, 2024 Order of Dismissal Without Prejudice and the judgment, and reinstated Sivak’s petition for a writ of mandamus filed on November 20, 2023.
The court also ordered Sivak, within twenty-eight days of the order, either to pay the filing fee in full or to file a completed application to proceed without paying the fee. The court stated that failure to meet that deadline would result in dismissal of the action without prejudice. The order terminated Docket No. 17.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.