Espinal v. Department of Corrections
- Valerie Caproni
- 1:20-cv-10129
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Espinal v. Department of Corrections, Judge McMahon ordered payment or forms to proceed and denied fee-waiver status for an appeal.
Mario Espinal, an incarcerated plaintiff representing himself, must either pay the required fees or submit the forms needed to request permission to proceed without prepayment. The case had not yet been allowed to proceed to summons issuance.
What happened
In Mario Espinal v. Department of Corrections, Mario Espinal filed a civil action without paying the required fees or submitting the forms needed to request permission to proceed without prepaying them. The opinion says he was incarcerated and represented himself.
The court gave Espinal 30 days to either pay $400 or submit a completed application and authorization allowing installment payments from his account. The court also said no summons would issue yet and warned that failure to comply would result in dismissal.
Judge Colleen McMahon ordered the Clerk to mail the order and denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees on any appeal from the order, certifying that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Espinal v. Department of Corrections · No. 1:20-cv-10129
- Valerie Caproni
- Dec. 3, 2020
Background
Mario Espinal filed this civil action while incarcerated and without a lawyer. He did not pay the required filing fees and did not submit a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees or a prisoner authorization form.
The court explained that a prisoner filing a civil action must either pay $400 in fees or request permission to proceed without prepayment. The $400 consists of a $350 filing fee and a $50 administrative fee. If the court grants the request to proceed without prepayment, the $350 filing fee must be collected in installments from the prisoner’s account. The authorization form permits those deductions and requires submission of certified account statements for the previous six months.
Order
The court ordered Espinal, within 30 days of December 3, 2020, to either pay the $400 in fees or submit the completed application and prisoner authorization forms, labeled with docket number 20-CV-10129 (CM). The court directed the Clerk to mail him the order and record service on the docket. No summons would issue at that time.
The court stated that, if Espinal complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures. If he failed to comply within the permitted time, the action would be dismissed. The court also warned that a later dismissal for frivolousness or failure to state a claim could count as a “strike” under the prisoner litigation statute.
Disposition
Judge Colleen McMahon ordered payment of the fees or submission of the required forms. The court 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. This order did not decide the underlying claims against the defendants.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.