Kruppenbacher v. Griffin
- Cathy Seibel
- 7:20-cv-00108
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Kruppenbacher v. Griffin, Chief Judge McMahon ordered payment or fee-waiver paperwork before the incarcerated plaintiff’s case could proceed.
Joseph Kruppenbacher, an incarcerated plaintiff representing himself, must either pay the filing fees or submit the required fee-waiver and prisoner-authorization forms for his case to proceed.
What happened
In Kruppenbacher v. Griffin, Joseph Kruppenbacher, who is incarcerated and representing himself, filed a civil case without paying the required fees or submitting the paperwork needed to seek a fee waiver.
The court gave him 30 days to either pay $400 or submit a completed application to proceed without paying the fees upfront, along with authorization for installment deductions from his prison account. No summons would issue while he completed this requirement.
Chief Judge McMahon ordered the Clerk to send the paperwork and said the action would be dismissed if Kruppenbacher did not comply. The court also denied fee-waiver status for an appeal from this order.
The detailed version
- Kruppenbacher v. Griffin · No. 7:20-cv-00108
- Cathy Seibel
- Jan. 8, 2020
Background
Joseph Kruppenbacher, who was incarcerated at Clinton Correctional Facility and proceeding without a lawyer, filed a civil action without paying the required fees or submitting a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees and a prisoner authorization.
Court’s Order
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 the required application and authorization forms. If the court grants the fee-waiver application, the $350 filing fee is collected in installments from the prisoner’s prison trust account. The $50 administrative fee does not apply to a person granted fee-waiver status.
The court ordered Kruppenbacher, within 30 days of the order, to choose one of those options. If he submitted the application and authorization, the documents were to identify docket number 20-CV-0108 (CM). The Clerk was directed to assign the matter to the judge’s docket, mail the order to Kruppenbacher, and record service on the docket. The court directed that no summons issue at that time. The order states that the action will be dismissed if Kruppenbacher does not comply within the permitted time.
Appeal and Prisoner-Filing Warning
The court certified that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-waiver status for purposes of an appeal. The court also warned that a later dismissal of a prisoner’s federal civil action as malicious, frivolous, or failing to state a claim can count as a strike under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), and that three strikes generally prevent a prisoner from proceeding without prepaying fees unless the prisoner faces imminent danger of serious physical injury.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.