Christenson v. White
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:20-cv-01623
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Christenson v. White, Judge McMahon dismissed the case without prejudice because Christenson violated a prior filing-permission order.
Mark C. Christenson’s case was dismissed without prejudice because he did not obtain the required permission or pay the filing fees. The court also denied him permission to appeal without paying fees.
What happened
Mark C. Christenson filed Christenson v. White as a new case without a lawyer. A 2018 court order had barred him from filing new cases without paying filing fees or first obtaining the court’s permission to proceed without payment.
Christenson did not request that permission and did not pay the filing fees. The court assumed he wanted to proceed without paying the fees.
Judge Colleen McMahon dismissed the case without prejudice because Christenson failed to follow the 2018 order. She also denied permission to appeal without paying fees, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Christenson v. White · No. 1:20-cv-01623
- Colleen McMahon
- Feb. 26, 2020
Background
Mark C. Christenson filed this case without a lawyer. The opinion states that, on June 20, 2018, the court barred him from filing any new action without paying the filing fees unless he first received the court’s permission to proceed without paying them. The court treated this case as one in which Christenson sought to proceed without paying the fees, even though he did not expressly request that status.
Reasoning
Christenson neither asked for permission to file this action nor paid the filing fees. The court therefore found that he had not complied with the June 20, 2018 order.
Ruling
Chief Judge Colleen McMahon dismissed the case without prejudice under 28 U.S.C. § 1651 for failure to comply with the prior order. The court directed the Clerk of Court to mail Christenson a copy of the order and record service on the docket. The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying fees.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.