Nieves v. Martir
- Louis Stanton
- 1:20-cv-09839
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Nieves v. Martir, Judge Stanton ordered a corrected prisoner authorization or payment before the case could proceed.
Michael Nieves was required to pay the fees or submit a complete, signed prisoner authorization within 30 days. The case could be dismissed if he failed to comply, and the case was not yet permitted to proceed to service of a summons.
What happened
In Nieves v. Martir, Michael Nieves, who is incarcerated and representing himself, submitted an application to proceed without paying court fees upfront and a prisoner authorization. The authorization was incomplete and unsigned.
The court ordered Nieves, within 30 days, either to pay $400 in fees or complete, sign, and submit the attached authorization. The authorization would allow installment deductions from his account for the filing fee and provide required account statements. The court said no summons would issue yet and warned that failure to comply would result in dismissal of the action.
Judge Louis Stanton denied permission to appeal without paying fees, certifying that an appeal would not be taken in good faith. The order did not decide the underlying claims against Carlos Martir.
The detailed version
- Nieves v. Martir · No. 1:20-cv-09839
- Louis Stanton
- Dec. 1, 2020
Background
Michael Nieves filed this civil action against Carlos Martir, Esq. Nieves is incarcerated in the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward and is proceeding without a lawyer. He submitted an application to proceed without prepaying filing fees and a prisoner authorization.
Court’s analysis
Under federal law, a prisoner who seeks to proceed without prepaying fees must submit 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 correctional facility to provide certified account statements for the preceding six months. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(a) requires an unrepresented party to personally sign a filing.
The court found that Nieves’s prisoner authorization was incomplete and unsigned. The order therefore directed him to correct the authorization rather than allowing the case to proceed immediately.
Order
Within 30 days of the order, Nieves had to either pay the $400 in fees or complete, sign, and submit the attached prisoner authorization, labeling it with docket number 20-CV-9839 (CM). The Clerk was directed to mail him the order and record service on the docket. No summons was to issue at that time. If Nieves complied, the Clerk’s Office would process the case under its procedures; if he did not comply within the allowed time, the court stated that it would dismiss the action.
The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) 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 Nieves’s claims against Martir.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.