Magee v. The Walt Disney Company
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:19-cv-10274
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Magee v. The Walt Disney Company, Chief Judge McMahon ordered a pro se plaintiff to submit an original signature or face dismissal.
Quincy Magee, who must provide an original signature for the fee application within 30 days to avoid dismissal; the case was not otherwise decided on its merits.
What happened
In Magee v. The Walt Disney Company, Quincy Magee brought the action without a lawyer and submitted an application to proceed without paying court fees. The application was unsigned.
The court directed Magee to resubmit the application’s signature page with an original, handwritten or personally placed signature within 30 days. The court also ordered that no summons issue at that time and said it would process the case if Magee complied.
Chief Judge Colleen McMahon stated that the action would be dismissed if Magee did not comply within the allowed time. She also denied fee-waiver status for any appeal from this order, certifying that such an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Magee v. The Walt Disney Company · No. 1:19-cv-10274
- Colleen McMahon
- Nov. 27, 2019
Background
Quincy Magee filed this action without a lawyer. Magee submitted an application to proceed without prepaying court fees, but the application did not contain a signature.
Signature requirement
The court relied on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(a) and Local Civil Rule 11.1(a), which require an unrepresented party to personally sign pleadings, motions, and other papers. The court explained that the required signature must be handwritten or otherwise personally placed, rather than merely reproduced.
Order
The court directed Magee to submit the signature page of the fee application with an original signature within 30 days of the order. The Clerk of Court was directed to assign the matter to Judge McMahon’s docket, mail the order to Magee, and record service. No summons was to issue at that time. If Magee complied, the Clerk’s Office would process the case under its procedures; if Magee did not comply within the permitted time, the court stated that it would dismiss the action.
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 fee-waiver status for purposes of an appeal. The order did not decide the underlying claims against The Walt Disney Company.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.