No v. USPS/USPO
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:19-cv-11672
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Jeong-Suk No v. USPS/USPO, Judge McMahon ordered the pro se plaintiff to pay fees or file an amended fee-waiver application within 30 days.
Jeong-Suk No, who was proceeding without a lawyer, must either pay the $400 in fees or submit a complete amended application to proceed without prepaying them.
What happened
Jeong-Suk No sued USPS/USPO and sought permission to proceed without paying the court’s fees in advance.
No’s application stated that he was unemployed but did not answer questions about his income or financial situation. The court therefore could not determine whether he lacked enough money to pay the required fees.
Judge Colleen McMahon ordered No, within 30 days, either to pay $400 or submit an amended application with complete financial information. The court also stated that the action would be dismissed if he failed to comply and denied fee-waiver status for any appeal from the order.
The detailed version
- No v. USPS/USPO · No. 1:19-cv-11672
- Colleen McMahon
- Jan. 23, 2020
Background
Jeong-Suk No brought this action without a lawyer. To proceed in the district court, he had to either pay $400 in fees—a $350 filing fee and a $50 administrative fee—or submit a signed application asking to proceed without paying the fees in advance.
The Fee-Waiver Application
No submitted an application to proceed without prepaying the fees. Although he stated that he was unemployed, he did not answer the questions about his income and financial situation. The court said that the application did not provide enough information about his income, expenses, assets, or how he supported himself to establish that he could not pay the fees.
Order
The court ordered No, within 30 days of the order, either to pay the $400 in fees or submit an amended application. The amended application had to answer every question, list all sources of income and monthly expenses, and describe how he was able to support himself. The court stated that, if it granted the amended application, No could proceed without prepaying the fees. It also stated that the action would be dismissed if No failed to comply within the allotted time.
The court certified that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for purposes of an appeal. The order did not decide the merits of the underlying action.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.