Calloway v. Department of Corrections
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:20-cv-09494
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Calloway v. Brann, Judge McMahon ordered a detained pro se plaintiff to pay filing fees or submit applications to proceed without prepayment.
Shamar Calloway, a detained prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, was required to pay the filing fees or submit the documents needed to request permission to proceed without prepaying them.
What happened
In Shamar Calloway v. Commissioner Cynthia Brann, et al., Calloway filed a civil action while detained at the Vernon C. Bain Center on Rikers Island. He filed the complaint without paying the fees or submitting the required applications.
The court gave Calloway 30 days to either pay $400 in fees or submit a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees and a prisoner authorization. The authorization would allow filing-fee payments to be deducted from his account in installments and would require certified account statements. No summons would issue at that time.
Chief United States District Judge Colleen McMahon ordered the Clerk to mail Calloway the order and stated that the action would be dismissed if he did not comply on time. Judge McMahon also denied fee-free status for any appeal from the order because the appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Calloway v. Department of Corrections · No. 1:20-cv-09494
- Colleen McMahon
- Nov. 18, 2020
Background
Shamar Calloway brought this civil action without a lawyer while detained at the Vernon C. Bain Center on Rikers Island. The opinion states that Calloway originally filed the complaint with 49 other detainees and that the claims were later separated into individual cases. In this case, Calloway submitted the complaint without paying the required fees and without a completed application to proceed without prepayment of fees or a prisoner authorization.
Filing-fee requirements
The court explained that a prisoner bringing a civil action must either pay $400: a $350 filing fee and a $50 administrative fee; or request permission to proceed without prepaying fees by submitting a signed application and a prisoner authorization. If permission is granted, the $350 filing fee is collected in installments from the prisoner's account. The authorization also directs the facility to send the court certified account statements covering the previous six months.
Order
The court ordered Calloway, within 30 days, to either pay the $400 in fees or submit the required application and prisoner authorization labeled with docket number 20-CV-9494 (CM). The Clerk was directed to mail him a copy of the order and record service on the docket. No summons was to issue at that time. The order states that the case would be processed under the Clerk's procedures if Calloway complied and would be dismissed if he did not comply within the allowed period.
Chief United States District Judge Colleen McMahon certified that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for that appeal. The order did not decide the underlying claims. It also warned that a future dismissal of a prisoner's action as frivolous, malicious, or failing to state a claim could count as a strike under the prisoner-filing statute, and that three strikes generally prevent a prisoner from proceeding without prepaying fees unless the prisoner faces imminent danger of serious physical injury.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.