Garnes v. Pritchard Industries, Inc.
- Paul Engelmayer
- 1:20-cv-03843
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Garnes v. Pritchard Industries, Judge McMahon denied reconsideration and fee-waiver status, leaving the action closed unless Garnes pays or reapplies.
Mark Garnes’s case remains closed, and he must either pay the $400 filing fee or submit a sufficient amended fee-waiver application within 30 days for the court to reopen it. Pritchard Industries, Inc. is affected because the case will not proceed or issue a summons unless that condition is met.
What happened
In Garnes v. Pritchard Industries, Mark Garnes sued Pritchard Industries, Inc. without a lawyer. The court had dismissed the action after Garnes did not timely pay the filing fee or submit a request to proceed without prepaying it. Garnes later submitted that request and asked the court to reconsider the dismissal.
The court found that Garnes had good cause for missing the deadline because the Clerk received his application on the deadline but did not docket it until the next day. The court nevertheless found that his application did not show he was unable to pay the $400 filing fee, because he reported annual earnings of about $52,320 and $1,200 in a checking account.
Judge Colleen McMahon denied Garnes’s motion for reconsideration and denied his application to proceed without prepaying the filing fee. The action remains closed unless, within 30 days, Garnes pays the $400 fee or submits an amended application showing that he cannot afford it; if he does either, the court will reopen the action.
The detailed version
- Garnes v. Pritchard Industries, Inc. · No. 1:20-cv-03843
- Paul Engelmayer
- Feb. 10, 2021
Background
Mark Garnes filed the action without a lawyer. On May 19, 2020, the court ordered him within 30 days either to pay the $400 filing fee or request permission to proceed without paying the fee in advance. On June 23, 2020, the court dismissed the complaint because it had not received a response by the deadline.
The Clerk received Garnes’s fee-waiver application on June 23, but the application was not entered on the docket until June 24, after the action had been closed. Garnes then filed an amended complaint in the closed action and moved for reconsideration of the dismissal. The court treated that motion as seeking relief under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e), Local Civil Rule 6.3, and, alternatively, Rule 60(b). Garnes also filed an application to withdraw the reconsideration motion, but the court understood him to continue seeking reconsideration.
Court’s Analysis
The court found good cause for Garnes’s failure to submit the fee-waiver application within the original deadline. However, after reviewing the application, the court found that Garnes had not shown that he was unable to afford the cost of the case. The application stated that he was employed, earned approximately $52,320 annually, and had $1,200 in a checking account.
Ruling
The court denied Garnes’s application to proceed without prepaying the filing fee and denied his motion for reconsideration. The court gave him 30 days to either pay the $400 filing fee or submit an amended application with additional details showing that he could not afford the fee. If the court receives either the payment or a sufficient amended application within that period, it will reopen the action. Until then, the action remains closed, and no summons will issue. The court also certified that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-waiver status for an appeal.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.