Garcia v. David
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:21-cv-00633
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Garcia v. David, Judge McMahon ordered the prisoner to pay filing fees or submit forms requesting payment without prepayment.
Daniel Garcia Jose, whose civil action could proceed only if he paid the required fees or submitted the required application and prisoner authorization within 30 days.
What happened
In Garcia v. David, Daniel Garcia Jose filed a civil action while held in the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward and did so without paying the required fees or submitting the forms needed to request payment without prepayment.
The court gave him 30 days to either pay $402 in fees or submit a signed application and authorization allowing installment payments from his prison account. The court directed the Clerk to mail him the order, and no summons was issued at that time.
Judge Colleen McMahon stated that the case would proceed through the Clerk’s Office if Garcia complied, but would be dismissed if he did not. She also denied payment without prepayment for any appeal from this order, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Garcia v. David · No. 1:21-cv-00633
- Colleen McMahon
- Jan. 26, 2021
Background
Daniel Garcia Jose, proceeding without a lawyer, filed this civil action against David from Community Access Housing Supportive and other defendants. The opinion states that Garcia was being held in the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward. He filed the complaint without paying the required fees and without submitting a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees or the required prisoner authorization.
Court’s instructions
The court explained that filing a federal civil action ordinarily requires $402: a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee. A prisoner who cannot prepay may submit an application to proceed without prepayment of fees. If that application is granted, the $350 filing fee is collected in installments from the prisoner’s prison trust account. The prisoner authorization permits those deductions and requires submission of certified account statements for the previous six months. The $52 administrative fee does not apply to a person granted this status.
Within 30 days of the order, Garcia had to either pay the $402 or submit the attached application and prisoner authorization forms labeled with docket number 1:21-CV-0633 (CM). The Clerk was directed to mail him the order and record service on the docket. No summons was to issue at that time.
Disposition
The court ordered Garcia to comply with one of the two filing-fee options. It stated that, if he complied, the action would be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures; if he failed to comply within the allowed time, the action would be dismissed. The order did not decide the underlying claims against the defendants.
Judge Colleen McMahon certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied payment without prepayment of fees for purposes of an appeal. The court also cautioned that a future dismissal of a prisoner’s federal civil action as malicious, frivolous, or for failure to state a claim could count as a strike under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g).
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.