Utah v. MTA Cooperation
- Louis Stanton
- 1:19-cv-10671
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Paul Utah v. MTA Cooperation, Judge Stanton ordered payment or an IFP application within 30 days and warned noncompliance would lead to dismissal.
Paul Utah, who must either pay the required fees or submit a signed application to proceed without prepayment within 30 days to avoid dismissal of the action.
What happened
Paul Utah v. MTA Cooperation, et al. is a lawsuit filed by Paul Utah without a lawyer. He submitted the complaint without paying the required fees or filing an application to proceed without paying them upfront.
The court ordered Utah, within 30 days, either to pay $400 in fees or submit a signed application to proceed without prepayment. The court also said that no summons would issue yet and warned that failure to comply would result in dismissal of the action.
Judge Louis L. Stanton directed the clerk to assign the case to his docket and stated that any appeal from the order could not proceed without prepayment because it would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Utah v. MTA Cooperation · No. 1:19-cv-10671
- Louis Stanton
- Dec. 16, 2019
Background
Paul Utah brought this civil action without a lawyer. The opinion states that he submitted the complaint without paying the required fees and without submitting an application to proceed without prepayment of fees. The required fees were $400 total: a $350 filing fee and a $50 administrative fee.
Order
The court ordered Utah to do one of two things within 30 days of the order: pay the $400 in fees or submit a signed application to proceed without prepayment of fees. If the court granted the application, Utah would be allowed to proceed without paying the fees in advance. The application was to identify docket number 19-CV-10671 (LLS).
The clerk was directed to assign the matter to Judge Stanton's docket and note service on the docket. The court stated that no summons would issue at that time. If Utah complied with the order, 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.
Appeal determination
Judge Louis L. Stanton certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith. The court therefore denied permission to proceed without prepayment of fees for an appeal. The opinion does not decide the underlying claims against the defendants.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.