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S.D.N.Y.Procedural orderFiled Oct. 19, 2020

Onatolu v. Court Fees

Judge
Colleen McMahon
Docket
1:20-cv-07598
Court
U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
Pages
1
Civil Procedure
In one sentence

In Onatolu v. Court Fees, Judge McMahon denied leave to file and denied appeal-related fee waiver because of a prior filing restriction.

Who this affects

Adekunle A. Onatolu was not granted permission to file this action without first complying with the court's prior filing restriction, and he was denied permission to appeal without paying fees.

What happened

In Onatolu v. Court Fees, the court denied Adekunle A. Onatolu permission to file the action because he had not followed an earlier order requiring him to obtain permission before filing a new action without paying fees.

The court also said that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying fees. Onatolu had submitted several appeal-related documents, but the court did not address them because no order in this case existed when he filed the complaint.

Judge Colleen McMahon entered the order on October 19, 2020. The order did not decide the underlying merits of the action.

The detailed version

For law students, journalists, and other readers who want the full reasoning

Case
Onatolu v. Court Fees · No. 1:20-cv-07598
Judge
Colleen McMahon
Date
Oct. 19, 2020

Background

Adekunle A. Onatolu sought to file this action without paying the required filing fees. The court stated that an earlier order barred him from filing any new action without paying fees unless he first obtained permission from the court. The court found that he had not complied with that requirement.

Rulings

The court denied Onatolu leave to file this action. It also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying fees for purposes of an appeal.

Onatolu attached a notice of appeal, a motion for an extension of time to file a notice of appeal, a motion for permission to appeal without paying fees, and an application to appeal without paying fees. The court did not address those documents because, when Onatolu filed the complaint, no order in this action existed from which to appeal.

Effect of the Order

The order resolved the filing-permission and appeal-fee issues. It did not reach the merits of the underlying action.

The authoritative version

Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.

Open opinion PDF →
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