Caines v. Pacheco
- Nelson Roman
- 7:20-cv-00878
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Caines v. Pacheco, Judge McMahon directed Caines to submit a corrected prisoner authorization within 30 days or face dismissal without prejudice.
Kamieo Caines, whose case must receive a proper prisoner authorization before it can be processed; the action may be dismissed without prejudice if he does not comply.
What happened
Caines v. Pacheco is a civil action brought by Kamieo Caines, who is incarcerated and representing himself. The court had directed him to pay the required fees or submit documents requesting permission to proceed without paying them upfront.
Caines submitted a prisoner authorization, but he did not use the court’s form or include all of the required language. The court therefore gave him another 30 days to submit the proper form and instructed him to include the case’s docket number.
Judge McMahon ordered the Clerk to mail Caines the order and form, and no summons will issue at this time. If Caines does not comply, the action will be dismissed without prejudice, meaning he may refile it. The court also denied permission to proceed without paying fees on any appeal from this order.
The detailed version
- Caines v. Pacheco · No. 7:20-cv-00878
- Nelson Roman
- Feb. 12, 2020
Background
Kamieo Caines, who is incarcerated at Elmira Correctional Facility and is proceeding without a lawyer, brought this action against Sgt. Pacheco and other defendants. To start a civil action, a prisoner must either pay the required fees or submit an application to proceed without prepaying fees and a signed prisoner authorization.
The court had previously ordered Caines to pay $400 in fees or submit a prisoner authorization within 30 days. Caines submitted an authorization concerning the filing fee, but he did not use the court’s form and did not include all of the language required by that form.
Order
The court extended Caines’s time to submit the proper prisoner authorization and directed him to do so within 30 days from February 12, 2020. The court attached its prisoner authorization form and instructed Caines to label the submission with docket number 20-CV-878 (CM).
The Clerk of Court was directed to mail Caines a copy of the order and note service on the docket. No summons was to issue at that time. The court stated that, if Caines complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk’s procedures; if he failed to comply within the allowed time, the action would be dismissed without prejudice to refiling.
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 underlying claims against the defendants.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.