Harvard v. John or Jane Doe, M.D.
- Louis Stanton
- 1:20-cv-09838
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
Harvard v. John or Jane Doe, M.D.: Judge McMahon ordered payment or fee-waiver forms before the case could proceed.
Lowell Harvard, who filed the action while incarcerated and without a lawyer, must either pay the required fees or submit the specified forms for the case to proceed. The defendants are not required to respond at this stage because no summons has issued.
What happened
In Lowell Harvard v. John or Jane Doe, M.D., Lowell Harvard filed a civil action without paying the required fees or submitting completed forms to request permission to proceed without prepaying them. The opinion says he was incarcerated and represented himself.
The court gave Harvard 30 days to either pay $400 or submit a completed fee-waiver application and authorization allowing installment payments from his prison account. The court also directed the Clerk to mail him the order, and no summons would issue yet.
Judge McMahon ordered that the case be processed if Harvard complied and stated that the action would be dismissed if he did not. The court also denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees, finding that any appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Harvard v. John or Jane Doe, M.D. · No. 1:20-cv-09838
- Louis Stanton
- Nov. 23, 2020
Background
Lowell Harvard filed this civil action while incarcerated at Bare Hill Correctional Facility and without a lawyer. He submitted the complaint without paying the required fees and without submitting a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees or a prisoner authorization.
Required Filing or Payment
The court explained that a prisoner must either pay $400 in filing and administrative fees or submit the required application and authorization. If the court grants the application to proceed without prepaying fees, the $350 filing fee is collected in installments from the prisoner's account. The authorization also directs the correctional facility to make those deductions and provide certified account statements for the previous six months.
The court gave Harvard 30 days from the date of the order to pay the $400 or submit the application and authorization. The documents were to identify docket number 20-CV-9838 (CM). The Clerk was directed to mail the order to Harvard and record service on the docket. No summons was to issue at that time.
Ruling
Judge McMahon ordered that the case would be processed under the Clerk's procedures if Harvard complied. The order states that the action would be dismissed if he failed to comply within the allowed time. The court also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees. The order did not decide the underlying claims against the defendants. It additionally warned that a later dismissal as frivolous or for failure to state a claim could count as a strike under the prisoner litigation statute.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.