Kang v. United States
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:20-cv-06206
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Kang v. United States, Judge McMahon required Kai Kang to pay filing fees or submit a complete application to proceed without prepayment.
Kai Kang, whose request to proceed without prepayment of fees could not be evaluated until he paid the fees or submitted a complete amended application.
What happened
In Kang v. United States, Kai Kang, representing himself, asked to start a civil case without paying the filing fees. His application did not clearly provide several required financial details, including his bank-account balance, assets, expenses, financial dependents, and other obligations.
The court ordered Kang, within 30 days, either to pay the $400 required fees or submit an amended application that fully answers every financial question. No summons would issue yet, and the order did not address the underlying claims.
Judge McMahon stated that the case would be processed if Kang complied, but that the court would dismiss it if he did not. The court also denied permission to proceed without fees for an appeal from this order, finding that such an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Kang v. United States · No. 1:20-cv-06206
- Colleen McMahon
- Aug. 17, 2020
Background
Kai Kang filed this civil action while representing himself and requested permission to proceed without paying the filing fees. The court explained that starting a civil action required either payment of $400—consisting of a $350 filing fee and a $50 administrative fee—or an application to proceed without prepayment under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1914 and 1915.
Kang submitted an application, but the court found it incomplete and unclear. He indicated that he was unemployed and that neither he nor anyone living at his residence had received more than $200 from specified sources during the prior 12 months. He did not clearly state how much money he had in a bank account, the value of his property or other assets, his monthly expenses, the people he financially supported, or his other financial obligations. For those questions, he either wrote “n/a” or provided no answer.
Order
Because the application did not provide enough information for the court to evaluate Kang’s financial status, the court ordered him, within 30 days of the order, to do one of two things: pay the $400 in required fees or complete and submit the attached amended application. The amended application had to clearly answer all questions and disclose his full financial status, and it had to identify docket number 1:20-CV-6206 (CM). The court stated that if the amended application showed that Kang had enough money to pay the fees, he could be required to pay them.
No summons was to issue at that time. If Kang complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures. If he failed to comply within the permitted time, the court stated that it would dismiss the action. The order did not decide the underlying claims.
Appeal and Disposition
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 prepayment of fees for purposes of an appeal. The order therefore directed payment of fees or submission of an amended application; it did not grant Kang permission to proceed without prepayment at that stage.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.