Liverpool v. The City of New York
- Edgardo Ramos
- 1:20-cv-04664
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Liverpool v. The City of New York, Judge McMahon ordered payment or fee-waiver forms and denied fee-waiver status for an appeal.
Anton L. Liverpool’s civil action was affected: he had 30 days to pay the filing fees or submit the required forms, and the court denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for an appeal.
What happened
In Liverpool v. The City of New York, Anton L. Liverpool filed a civil case without paying the required fees or submitting the forms needed to ask to proceed without paying them upfront. The order says he was being held at the Anthony P. Travisono Intake Service Center and was representing himself.
The court gave Liverpool 30 days to either pay $400 or submit a completed fee-waiver application and prisoner authorization. No summons would issue at that time, and the case would be processed if he complied. If he did not comply within the deadline, the action would be dismissed.
Chief Judge Colleen McMahon also ruled that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-waiver status for an appeal. The order also explained that certain future dismissals could count as “strikes” affecting a prisoner’s ability to proceed without paying fees in later federal civil cases.
The detailed version
- Liverpool v. The City of New York · No. 1:20-cv-04664
- Edgardo Ramos
- July 2, 2020
Background
Anton L. Liverpool filed this civil action without paying the required fees and without submitting a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees or a prisoner authorization. The opinion states that Liverpool was being held at the Anthony P. Travisono Intake Service Center in Cranston, Rhode Island, and that he was proceeding without a lawyer.
Fees and required forms
The court explained that a prisoner filing a civil action must either pay $400 in fees—a $350 filing fee and a $50 administrative fee—or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees and a prisoner authorization. If the court grants that application, the $350 filing fee must generally be collected in installments from the prisoner’s trust account. The authorization also directs the correctional facility to deduct those payments and provide certified account statements for the previous six months.
Order
The court ordered Liverpool, within 30 days of the order, to either pay the $400 in fees or complete and submit the required application and prisoner authorization, identifying docket number 20-CV-4664 (CM). The Clerk was directed to mail him a copy of the order and record service on the docket. No summons would issue at that time. The order states that the action would be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures if Liverpool complied, and that the action would be dismissed if he did not comply within the permitted time.
Appeal and strike warning
Chief Judge Colleen McMahon certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for an appeal. The court also cautioned that a prisoner’s later civil action dismissed as malicious, frivolous, or for failure to state a claim may count as a “strike” under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). After three strikes, a prisoner generally cannot proceed without prepaying fees in later federal civil actions unless the statutory imminent-danger exception applies.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.