Delo v. JPMorgan Chase & Co.
- Denise Cote
- 1:20-cv-10039
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Delo v. JP Morgan Chase, Judge McMahon ordered the pro se plaintiff to pay fees or submit an application to proceed without prepayment.
Benjamin J. Delo, who must either pay the required fees or submit a signed application to proceed without prepayment within 30 days to avoid dismissal of the action.
What happened
Benjamin J. Delo brought this case against JP Morgan Chase & Co. and others without a lawyer. He submitted the complaint without paying the required fees or submitting an application to proceed without prepayment of fees.
The court ordered Delo, within 30 days, to pay $400 or submit a signed application requesting permission to proceed without prepayment. The court also directed the Clerk to mail him the order, and no summons would issue at that time. If he did not comply, the action would be dismissed.
Chief Judge Colleen McMahon also ruled that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without prepayment for an appeal.
The detailed version
- Delo v. JPMorgan Chase & Co. · No. 1:20-cv-10039
- Denise Cote
- Dec. 16, 2020
Background
Benjamin J. Delo filed this civil action without a lawyer. He submitted his complaint without paying the required fees and without submitting an application to proceed without prepayment of fees.
Order
The court explained that a plaintiff must either pay $400 in fees—a $350 filing fee and a $50 administrative fee—or submit a signed application to proceed without prepayment of fees under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1914 and 1915. The court gave Delo 30 days from the date of the order to do one of those two things.
If Delo submitted the application, he was instructed to label it with docket number 20-CV-10039 (CM). The court stated that, if it granted the application, Delo could proceed without paying the fees in advance. The Clerk was directed to mail Delo a copy of the order and record service on the docket. No summons was to issue at that time. The court stated that the action would be dismissed if Delo failed to comply within the allowed time.
Disposition
This was an administrative filing-fee and fee-waiver order, not a decision on the claims. The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without prepayment of fees for an appeal. Chief Judge Colleen McMahon signed the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.