Perez v. Bryant
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:20-cv-00079
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Perez v. Bryant, Judge McMahon ordered Perez to pay filing fees or submit forms to request payment without prepaying.
Felipe Perez, the incarcerated plaintiff representing himself, must either pay the required fees or submit the specified application and authorization within 30 days to avoid dismissal of the action.
What happened
In Perez v. Bryant, Felipe Perez, who is incarcerated at Sing Sing Correctional Facility and is representing himself, filed a civil lawsuit without paying the required fees or submitting the forms needed to request payment without prepaying.
The court gave Perez 30 days from January 8, 2020, to either pay $400 or submit a completed fee-waiver application and authorization for deductions from his prison account. The court said no summons would issue at that time and warned that failing to comply would result in dismissal of the action.
Judge Colleen McMahon directed the Clerk of Court to assign the case to her docket and mail Perez the order. She also denied payment-without-prepayment status for any appeal, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Perez v. Bryant · No. 1:20-cv-00079
- Colleen McMahon
- Jan. 8, 2020
Background
Felipe Perez, who is incarcerated at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, filed this civil action without a lawyer. The opinion does not describe the underlying claims. Perez submitted the complaint without paying the filing fees and without a completed application to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP), meaning without paying the fees in advance, or a prisoner authorization.
Payment or fee-waiver requirements
The court explained that a prisoner filing a civil action must either pay $400 in fees—a $350 filing fee and a $50 administrative fee—or submit a signed IFP application and prisoner authorization. If IFP status is granted, the $350 filing fee is collected in installments from the prison trust-fund account. The prisoner authorization allows those deductions and requires certified copies of the account statements for the previous six months to be sent to the court. The $50 administrative fee does not apply to a person granted IFP status.
The order gave Perez 30 days from its date to pay the $400 or submit the completed IFP application and prisoner authorization, labeled with docket number 20-CV-0079 (CM). It stated that if Perez complied, the court would process the case under the Clerk’s Office procedures. If he did not comply within the allowed time, the court would dismiss the action.
Court’s actions
Judge Colleen McMahon directed the Clerk of Court to assign the matter to her docket, mail Perez a copy of the order, and note service on the docket. The court ordered that no summons issue at that time. 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 IFP status for purposes of an appeal.
The order did not decide the merits of Perez’s underlying claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.