Mercado v. Orange County Courts
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:19-cv-11905
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Mercado v. Orange County Courts, Judge McMahon ordered Mercado to pay filing fees or submit an application to proceed without prepayment.
Matthew Louis Mercado, who must either pay the required fees or submit the required application and prisoner authorization materials within 30 days to avoid dismissal of the action.
What happened
In Mercado v. Orange County Courts, Matthew Louis Mercado, who is incarcerated at the Orange County Jail and representing himself, filed a civil action against Orange County Courts and other defendants.
The court said Mercado must, within 30 days of the order, either pay $400 in filing and administrative fees or submit a completed application to proceed without paying fees upfront. He had submitted a prisoner authorization but not the required application.
Judge Colleen McMahon directed the Clerk to mail the order to Mercado, and no summons would issue at that time. The case would be processed if he complied, but the action would be dismissed if he did not. The court also denied fee-free status for any appeal from the order.
The detailed version
- Mercado v. Orange County Courts · No. 1:19-cv-11905
- Colleen McMahon
- Jan. 6, 2020
Background
Matthew Louis Mercado filed this civil action while incarcerated at the Orange County Jail. The opinion states that he proceeded without a lawyer. He submitted a complaint and a prisoner authorization, but he did not submit a completed application to proceed without prepayment of fees.
Court’s Order
The court ordered Mercado, within 30 days of the order, to do one of two things: pay the $400 required to file a civil action, consisting of a $350 filing fee and a $50 administrative fee; or submit a completed application to proceed without prepaying the fees. If he submitted the application, the court directed him to label it with docket number 19-CV-11905 (CM).
The court explained that if it granted the application, the Prison Litigation Reform Act would require collection of the $350 filing fee in installments from Mercado’s account. The prisoner authorization permits those deductions and requires the facility to send the court certified account statements for the preceding six months. The $50 administrative fee does not apply to a person granted this fee waiver status.
Further Directions and Disposition
The Clerk was directed to mail Mercado a copy of the order and note service on the docket. No summons would issue at that time. The court stated that the case would be processed under the Clerk’s procedures if Mercado complied with the order, and that the action would be dismissed if he failed to comply within the allowed time. Judge Colleen McMahon also certified that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal. The order warned that a later dismissal for being frivolous or for failing to state a claim could count as a strike under the prisoner litigation statute, subject to the statute’s exception for imminent danger of serious physical injury.
The order addressed filing-fee and filing-status requirements; it did 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.