Brewton v. Department of Corrections
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:20-cv-10125
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Brewton v. Department of Corrections, Judge McMahon ordered Joe Brewton to pay filing fees or submit forms, and denied fee-free status for an appeal.
Joe Brewton, a prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, had to pay the required fees or submit the specified fee-waiver and prisoner-authorization forms within 30 days to avoid dismissal of the action.
What happened
In Brewton v. Department of Corrections, Joe Brewton, who was incarcerated and represented himself, filed a civil action without paying the required fees or submitting the forms needed to request permission to proceed without paying fees upfront.
The court gave Brewton 30 days to pay $400 or submit a completed fee-waiver application and authorization allowing payments to be deducted from his prison account. No summons would issue yet, and the action would be processed if he complied; if he did not, the action would be dismissed. The court also denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees.
Judge Colleen McMahon signed the order on December 3, 2020. The order did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Brewton v. Department of Corrections · No. 1:20-cv-10125
- Colleen McMahon
- Dec. 3, 2020
Background
Joe Brewton filed this civil action while incarcerated in the Vernon C. Bain Center. The opinion states that he filed the complaint without paying the filing fees and without submitting a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees or a prisoner authorization. The action had originally been filed with 49 other detainees, but a magistrate judge had directed that the claims be separated into individual cases.
Order
The court directed Brewton, within 30 days of the order, to do one of two things: pay $400 in fees, consisting of a $350 filing fee and a $50 administrative fee, or submit the attached application to proceed without prepaying fees and the prisoner authorization. If the court grants that application, the $350 filing fee must be collected in installments from Brewton's prison account. The authorization also directs the facility to deduct those installments and provide certified account statements covering the previous six months.
The court directed the Clerk of Court to mail the order to Brewton and record service on the docket. No summons was to issue at that time. The order states that, if Brewton 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.
Appeal and Filing-Status Warning
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees. The court also cautioned that a later dismissal for frivolousness or failure to state a claim could count as a strike under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), and that three such strikes generally prevent a prisoner from proceeding without prepaying fees unless the prisoner faces imminent danger of serious physical injury.
Disposition
The order directed payment of the fee or submission of the required forms. It did not dismiss the action at that time and did not decide the merits of Brewton's claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.