Cesareo v. Town of Cortlandt
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:20-cv-02003
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Cesareo v. Town of Cortlandt, Judge McMahon ordered the pro se plaintiff to pay $400 or submit an application to proceed without prepaying fees.
Carl Cesareo, the pro se plaintiff, must either pay the stated fees or submit the required application within 30 days for the action to proceed under the court’s stated procedures.
What happened
In Cesareo v. Town of Cortlandt, Carl Cesareo filed a civil action without paying the required fees or submitting an application to proceed without prepaying them. The order identifies him as representing himself.
The court gave Cesareo 30 days to either pay $400 or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees. No summons would issue at that time. If he did not comply within the deadline, the action would be dismissed.
Judge Colleen McMahon also denied permission to appeal without paying fees, certifying that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Cesareo v. Town of Cortlandt · No. 1:20-cv-02003
- Colleen McMahon
- Mar. 10, 2020
Background
Carl Cesareo brought this action without a lawyer. The complaint was submitted without the required filing fees and without an application to proceed without prepaying fees. The defendants named in the caption are the Town of Cortlandt, Supervisor Linda D. Puglisi, and Chris Kehoe, AICP.
Order
The court explained that a plaintiff must either pay $400—consisting of a $350 filing fee and a $50 administrative fee—or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees. The court ordered Cesareo, within 30 days of the order, to make one of those submissions. If he submitted the application, it was to identify docket number 20-CV-2003 (CM). The court stated that, if it granted the application, Cesareo would be permitted to proceed without prepaying fees.
The Clerk of Court was directed to mail the order to Cesareo and record service on the docket. No summons was to issue at that time. The order stated that the action would be processed under the Clerk’s procedures if Cesareo complied, and that the action would be dismissed if he failed to comply within the allowed time.
Appeal-Fee Certification and Disposition
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith. It therefore denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees. Judge Colleen McMahon entered the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.