Clervrain v. Dayton
- Wilhelmina Wright
- 0:19-cv-00965
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 5
In Clervrain v. Dayton, Judge Wright denied Clervrain’s request to appeal without paying fees and denied his late appeal motion.
Manetirony Clervrain’s request to appeal without prepaying fees and his attempted appeal were denied; the defendants were not otherwise ruled against in this order.
What happened
Manetirony Clervrain sued Mark Dayton, Steve Simon, Lori R. Swanson, and John Sandweg, alleging violations of constitutional rights and federal statutes. The case was previously dismissed without prejudice after Clervrain did not pay the filing fee.
Clervrain later asked to appeal without paying fees and filed an unclear motion that the court treated as a notice of appeal. The court denied the fee request because Clervrain had three or more qualifying prior dismissals and did not show that he faced imminent danger of serious physical injury. It also denied the motion because it was filed after the deadline for appealing and after the deadline for requesting more time.
Judge Wilhelmina M. Wright ordered the clerk to notify the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit that the fee request had been denied.
The detailed version
- Clervrain v. Dayton · No. 0:19-cv-00965
- Wilhelmina Wright
- Jan. 22, 2021
Background
Manetirony Clervrain filed this action in April 2019, alleging that the defendants violated various constitutional rights and federal statutes. Clervrain also asked to proceed without paying the filing fee. A magistrate judge denied that request after finding that Clervrain had accumulated three qualifying dismissals, known as “strikes,” under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). Clervrain did not pay the fee by the required deadline. The court later adopted a recommendation to dismiss the action for failure to prosecute and entered judgment on August 12, 2019. That dismissal was without prejudice.
Motions at Issue
Clervrain filed an application to proceed without prepaying fees on appeal and a document titled “MOTION FOR INTERLOCUTOR [sic] APPEALS AS [‘REASONING POWER’] FOR CONTROVERSY BY [‘THE ANT’] VICTIM MULTIPLICITY ACT (‘TAVMA’).” The court found the motion unintelligible but construed it as a notice of appeal from the August 12, 2019 judgment.
Analysis and Rulings
The court denied the application to proceed without prepaying fees on appeal. Section 1915(g) generally bars a prisoner with three or more qualifying prior dismissals from proceeding without prepaying fees unless the prisoner shows imminent danger of serious physical injury. The court found that Clervrain had more than three qualifying prior dismissals and that the pending motion did not demonstrate imminent danger of serious physical injury.
The court also denied the motion because it was an untimely notice of appeal. The deadline to appeal was September 11, 2019, thirty days after entry of judgment. Clervrain filed the motion on October 2, 2020. The court explained that the deadline to request an extension of the appeal deadline was October 11, 2019, and concluded that it lacked authority to grant additional time.
Disposition
The court denied both Clervrain’s application to proceed without prepaying fees on appeal and the TAVMA motion. Under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 24(a)(4)(A), the clerk was directed to notify the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit that the application had been denied. Judge Wilhelmina M. Wright signed the order.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.