Brickhouse v. DuBois
- Louis Stanton
- 1:20-cv-04759
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Brickhouse v. DuBois, Judge McMahon ordered a detained plaintiff to pay fees or submit federal forms before the case could proceed.
Raheem J. Brickhouse was required to pay the fees or submit the federal fee-waiver and prisoner-authorization forms within 30 days for his case to proceed. The Clerk of Court and the facility holding Brickhouse could be involved in processing the forms and any authorized account deductions. The order did not decide the claims against the named defendants.
What happened
In Brickhouse v. DuBois, Raheem J. Brickhouse, who was detained in the Orange County Jail and represented himself, filed a federal civil action without paying the required fees or submitting the required federal paperwork.
Judge McMahon ordered Brickhouse, within 30 days, either to pay $400 in fees or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees and a prisoner authorization. The order stated that the case would be processed if he complied and that the court would dismiss the action if he did not.
Judge McMahon also directed the Clerk to mail the order to Brickhouse, stated that no summons would issue at that time, denied fee-free status for any appeal from the order, and warned about possible filing restrictions after repeated qualifying dismissals.
The detailed version
- Brickhouse v. DuBois · No. 1:20-cv-04759
- Louis Stanton
- July 1, 2020
Background
Raheem J. Brickhouse filed a civil action against Carl E. DuBois, identified as Sheriff of the Orange County Jail; Commissioner Anthony J. Annucci; and the New York State Department of Corrections. The opinion states that Brickhouse was detained in the Orange County Jail and was proceeding without a lawyer.
Brickhouse submitted the complaint without paying the required fees and without a completed federal application to proceed without prepaying fees or a prisoner authorization. The opinion explains that a prisoner must either pay $400—the $350 filing fee and $50 administrative fee—or submit the federal forms. If the court grants the fee-waiver application, the $350 filing fee is collected in installments from the prisoner's account. The opinion also states that a state-court fee-waiver application and prisoner authorization attached to Brickhouse's complaint were not sufficient for this federal case.
Order
The court ordered Brickhouse to do one of two things within 30 days of the order: pay the $400 in fees, or submit the attached federal application to proceed without prepaying fees and prisoner authorization. The documents were to identify docket number 20-CV-4759 (CM).
The Clerk of Court was directed to mail Brickhouse a copy of the order and record service on the docket. No summons was to issue at that time. The order stated that, if Brickhouse complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk's Office procedures; if he failed to comply within the allowed time, the court would dismiss the action.
Additional Rulings and Warning
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal. The court also warned that a dismissal of a federal civil action as frivolous, malicious, or for failure to state a claim can count as a filing “strike” under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). After three such strikes, a prisoner generally cannot proceed without prepaying fees in new federal civil actions unless the prisoner faces imminent danger of serious physical injury.
The opinion does not decide the merits of Brickhouse's claims against the defendants.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.