Ward v. Department of Corrections
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:20-cv-09498
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Ward v. Department of Corrections, Judge McMahon ordered Timothy Ward to pay fees or submit forms to proceed.
Timothy Ward, an incarcerated plaintiff proceeding without a lawyer, was required to pay the filing fees or submit the forms needed to request payment without prepaying them.
What happened
Ward v. Department of Corrections concerns Timothy Ward’s civil action, which he filed while incarcerated and without a lawyer. He submitted the complaint without paying the required fees or completing the required forms.
The court gave Ward 30 days to pay $400 or submit an application to proceed without paying the fees upfront, along with authorization for installment payments from his prisoner account. No summons would issue at that time.
Judge McMahon ordered the Clerk to mail the order to Ward and stated that the case would be processed if he complied, but would be dismissed if he did not. She also denied payment-free status for any appeal from the order.
The detailed version
- Ward v. Department of Corrections · No. 1:20-cv-09498
- Colleen McMahon
- Nov. 16, 2020
Background
Timothy Ward brought this civil action while incarcerated at the Vernon C. Bain Center and proceeding without a lawyer. He originally filed the complaint with 49 other detainees. The court states that a magistrate judge later separated the claims and directed the Clerk of Court to open a separate case for each plaintiff.
Ward submitted the complaint without paying the filing fees and without submitting a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees or a prisoner authorization.
Order
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 submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees and a prisoner authorization. If the court grants that application, the $350 filing fee must be collected in installments from the prisoner’s account. The authorization directs the correctional facility to deduct those installments and provide certified copies of the prisoner’s account statements for the previous six months.
The court ordered Ward, within 30 days of the order, to either pay the $400 or submit the required application and authorization, labeled with docket number 20-CV-9498 (CM). The Clerk was directed to mail Ward a copy of the order and record service on the docket. No summons was to issue at that time. The order states that, if Ward complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk’s procedures; if he failed to comply within the allowed time, the action would be dismissed.
Appeal and Prisoner-Filing Warning
Judge Colleen McMahon certified that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied payment-free status for purposes of an appeal. The court also warned that a prisoner action dismissed as frivolous or for failing to state a claim can count as a strike under the federal prisoner-litigation statute. After three strikes, a prisoner generally cannot proceed without prepaying fees in new actions unless he faces imminent danger of serious physical injury, and must pay the filing fee when filing a new action.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.