Brown v. Department of Corrections
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:20-cv-09407
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Brown v. Brann, Judge McMahon ordered Deryck Brown to pay fees or submit forms, warning the action would be dismissed for noncompliance.
Deryck Brown, an incarcerated plaintiff representing himself, was required to pay the fees or submit the specified forms within 30 days; the case could be dismissed if he failed to comply.
What happened
In Brown v. Brann, Deryck Brown, who was incarcerated and representing himself, filed a complaint without paying the required fees or submitting the forms needed to request payment without prepayment. The complaint had originally been filed with 49 other detainees, whose claims were separated into individual cases.
The court gave Brown 30 days to either pay $400 in fees or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees and a prisoner authorization form. The authorization would allow installment deductions from his prison account. The court also directed the Clerk to mail him the order and said no summons would issue yet.
Judge Colleen McMahon ordered that the case would be processed if Brown complied and dismissed if he did not. She also denied payment without prepayment for any appeal from the order, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Brown v. Department of Corrections · No. 1:20-cv-09407
- Colleen McMahon
- Nov. 14, 2020
Background
Deryck Brown filed this civil action while incarcerated and proceeding without a lawyer. He initially filed the complaint with 49 other detainees. The opinion states that a magistrate judge later separated the claims and directed the Clerk of Court to open a separate case for each plaintiff.
Brown filed his complaint without paying the required fees and without submitting a completed application to proceed in forma pauperis, meaning without prepaying the filing fees, or a prisoner authorization. The court explained that a prisoner granted this status must still pay the $350 filing fee in installments under the Prison Litigation Reform Act. The $50 administrative fee does not apply to a person granted this status.
Order
The court ordered Brown, within 30 days of the order, to either pay $400 in fees or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees and a prisoner authorization. The authorization would direct the facility holding him to deduct the $350 filing fee from his account in installments and send the court certified copies of his account statements for the previous six months.
The court directed the Clerk to mail Brown a copy of the order and note service on the docket. No summons was to issue at that time. The court stated that the case would be processed under the Clerk’s procedures if Brown complied and that the action would be dismissed if he failed to comply within the permitted time.
Ruling and Appeal
Chief United States District Judge Colleen McMahon issued the payment-or-application order. She 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 order also warned that a dismissal for frivolousness or failure to state a claim would count as a statutory “strike” affecting a prisoner’s ability to proceed without prepaying fees in future cases.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.