Gil-Cabrera v. Department of Corrections
- Laura Swain
- 1:20-cv-09493
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Gil-Cabrera v. Department of Corrections, Judge McMahon ordered Ricardo Gil-Cabrera to pay fees or submit forms to proceed.
Ricardo Gil-Cabrera, who was required to pay the filing fees or submit an application and prisoner authorization within 30 days to continue pursuing the action.
What happened
In Gil-Cabrera v. Department of Corrections, Ricardo Gil-Cabrera, who was incarcerated and representing himself, filed a civil action without paying the required fees or submitting the forms needed to request permission to proceed without prepayment.
The court gave him 30 days from November 16, 2020, to either pay $400 or submit a signed application and authorization allowing installment payments from his prisoner account. The order said no summons would issue at that time and warned that the action would be dismissed if he did not comply.
Judge McMahon directed the Clerk of Court to mail the order to Gil-Cabrera and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith. The order did not dismiss the action at that time.
The detailed version
- Gil-Cabrera v. Department of Corrections · No. 1:20-cv-09493
- Laura Swain
- Nov. 16, 2020
Background
Ricardo Gil-Cabrera filed this civil action while incarcerated in the Vernon C. Bain Center and proceeded without a lawyer. The opinion states that he originally filed the complaint with 49 other detainees, after which a magistrate judge severed the claims and directed the Clerk of Court to open separate cases. Gil-Cabrera submitted the complaint without paying the filing fees and without a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees or a prisoner authorization.
Required filing or payment
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 request permission to proceed without prepaying fees by submitting a signed application and prisoner authorization. If permission is granted, the $350 filing fee is collected in installments from the prisoner's account. The authorization also directs the correctional facility to deduct those payments and provide certified account statements for the preceding six months.
The court ordered Gil-Cabrera, within 30 days of the order, to either pay the $400 or submit the required application and authorization. The order states that those forms should be labeled with docket number 20-CV-9424 (CM), although the case caption identifies this action as No. 20-CV-9493 (CM). The Clerk was directed to mail the order to Gil-Cabrera and note service on the docket. No summons was to issue at that time.
Disposition
The court did not dismiss the action in this order. Instead, it directed Gil-Cabrera to pay the fees or submit the required forms and stated that the action would be dismissed if he failed to comply within the allowed period. The court also 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 appeal without prepaying fees. The order cautioned that a later dismissal as frivolous or for failure to state a claim could count as a “strike” under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). Colleen McMahon, Chief United States District Judge, signed the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.