Ganiyu v. Lopez
- Louis Stanton
- 1:19-cv-11605
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Ganiyu v. Lopez, Chief Judge McMahon required payment of $400 or a complete amended fee-waiver application within 30 days.
Bashiru Ganiyu, who must either pay the required fees or submit a complete amended fee-waiver application within 30 days to avoid dismissal of the action.
What happened
In Ganiyu v. Lopez, Bashiru Ganiyu sued Anthony Lopez and others and asked to file without paying the court’s fees. He filed a fee-waiver application but did not answer questions about his bank account, property, assets, monthly expenses, financial dependents, and other obligations.
The court said it could not approve the fee waiver because the application was incomplete. It gave Ganiyu 30 days to either pay the $400 required to start the case or submit an amended application that fully discloses his financial situation. No summons would issue at that time.
Chief Judge Colleen McMahon ordered the Clerk of Court to mail the order to Ganiyu and record service. The order said the case would be dismissed if he did not comply, and denied fee-waiver status for any appeal because an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Ganiyu v. Lopez · No. 1:19-cv-11605
- Louis Stanton
- Jan. 3, 2020
Background
Bashiru Ganiyu brought this pro se action against Anthony Lopez and others. He asked to proceed without prepaying court fees, a status commonly called proceeding without paying fees in advance. Ganiyu stated that he was unemployed, but his application did not answer questions about his bank-account funds, the value of his property or other assets, his monthly expenses, people he supports financially, or other financial obligations.
Order
The court held that it could not grant Ganiyu’s fee-waiver request at that time because he had not fully disclosed his financial status. The court ordered him, within 30 days of the order, to either pay $400 in filing and administrative fees or submit the attached amended application, answering every question completely. The order stated that the court could require payment if it found that Ganiyu had funds to pay the fees.
The court directed the Clerk of Court to assign the matter to its docket, mail Ganiyu a copy of the order, and record service. No summons was to issue at that time. The action would proceed through the Clerk’s Office if Ganiyu complied; if he failed to comply within the allowed time, the court said it would dismiss the action. The court also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-waiver status for purposes of an appeal.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.