Blanding v. Department of Corrections
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:20-cv-09421
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Blanding v. Brann, Chief Judge McMahon ordered Johnny Blanding to pay fees or submit documents to proceed.
Johnny Blanding, who had filed the action without paying the required fees or submitting the documents needed to request permission to proceed without prepaying them.
What happened
Blanding v. Department of Corrections concerns Johnny Blanding’s federal civil action, which he filed without paying the required fees or submitting the documents needed to request permission to proceed without prepaying them. He was detained and represented himself.
The court gave Blanding 30 days to either pay $400 in fees or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees and an authorization allowing installment withdrawals from his account. The court said the case would be processed if he complied and would be dismissed if he did not.
Chief Judge Colleen McMahon directed the Clerk to mail the order, said no summons would issue yet, and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees because any appeal would not be taken in good faith. The order did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Blanding v. Department of Corrections · No. 1:20-cv-09421
- Colleen McMahon
- Nov. 19, 2020
Background
Johnny Blanding filed this civil action without paying the filing fees and without submitting a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees or a prisoner authorization. The order states that Blanding was detained at the Vernon C. Bain Center and was representing himself. The complaint had originally been filed with complaints from 49 other detainees; those claims were separated into individual cases.
Payment or application requirement
The court explained that a prisoner must either pay $400 in fees—a $350 filing fee and a $50 administrative fee—or request permission to proceed without prepaying fees. To make that request, Blanding had to submit a signed application and a prisoner authorization. The authorization would allow the facility to deduct the $350 filing fee from his account in installments and would require certified copies of his account statements for the previous six months.
The court ordered Blanding, within 30 days of the order, to choose one of those options. If he complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures. If he failed to comply within the allowed time, the action would be dismissed. The court also directed the Clerk to mail him the order and note service on the docket. No summons would issue at that time.
Ruling
Chief United States District Judge Colleen McMahon issued the order directing payment of fees or submission of the application and prisoner authorization. The court certified that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees. The order did not address the merits of Blanding’s underlying claims. It also cautioned that a future dismissal of a prisoner’s federal civil action as frivolous, malicious, or for failure to state a claim may count as a strike under the prisoner filing-fee statute, and that three strikes generally limit a prisoner’s ability to proceed without prepaying fees unless there is an imminent danger of serious physical injury.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.