Coll v. John/Jane Doe
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:20-cv-05790
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Coll v. John/Jane Doe, Judge McMahon ordered Brian Coll to pay filing fees or submit required forms within 30 days.
Brian Coll, who had to pay the fees or submit the required forms within 30 days for the case to proceed.
What happened
In Coll v. John/Jane Doe, Brian Coll filed a civil action without paying the required fees or submitting the forms needed to request permission to proceed without paying upfront. The opinion says he was incarcerated and representing himself.
The court gave Coll 30 days to either pay $400 or submit a signed application and authorization allowing filing-fee payments to be deducted from his prisoner account. The court also directed the Clerk to mail him the order, and no summons would issue at that time.
Judge Colleen McMahon ordered that the case proceed through the Clerk’s Office if Coll complied and stated that the action would be dismissed if he did not. Judge McMahon also denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees.
The detailed version
- Coll v. John/Jane Doe · No. 1:20-cv-05790
- Colleen McMahon
- Aug. 14, 2020
Background
Brian Coll filed this civil action while incarcerated and without a lawyer. He did not pay the filing fees and did not submit a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees or the required prisoner authorization.
Payment or fee-waiver requirement
The court explained that a prisoner filing a civil action must either pay $400 in fees—$350 for the filing fee and $50 for the administrative fee—or request permission to proceed without prepaying fees. If that request is granted, the $350 filing fee is collected in installments from the prisoner’s account. The prisoner authorization permits those deductions and requires certified account statements for the preceding six months.
Order
The court ordered Coll, within 30 days of the order, to either pay the $400 or submit the attached application and prisoner authorization, labeled with docket number 20-CV-5790 (CM). The Clerk was directed to mail him a copy of the order and record service on the docket. No summons was to issue at that time. If Coll complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures; if he failed to comply within the allowed period, the action would be dismissed.
Appeal and warning
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees. The court also cautioned that a later dismissal for frivolousness or failure to state a claim could count as a strike under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), potentially limiting Coll’s ability to file future actions without prepaying fees. Judge Colleen McMahon did not decide the underlying claims in this order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.