La Spina v. U.S. Attorney's Office
- John Koeltl
- 1:21-cv-01556
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In La Spina v. U.S. Attorney's Office, Judge McMahon ordered the pro se plaintiff to pay $402 or submit an application to proceed without paying, or face dismissal.
Lawrence La Spina, whose case must satisfy the payment or application requirement before it can proceed; the order also affects any appeal from this order by denying permission to proceed without prepaying fees.
What happened
In La Spina v. U.S. Attorney's Office, Lawrence La Spina filed a civil action without a lawyer, but did not pay the required fees or submit an application to proceed without paying them.
The order gives La Spina 30 days to pay $402, consisting of a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee, or submit a signed application to proceed without prepayment. No summons will issue yet. If he does not comply, the action will be dismissed.
Judge Colleen McMahon directed the Clerk to mail the order to La Spina and stated that an appeal from the order could not proceed without payment because it would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- La Spina v. U.S. Attorney's Office · No. 1:21-cv-01556
- John Koeltl
- Mar. 5, 2021
Background
Lawrence La Spina brought the action without a lawyer. The opinion says he submitted his complaint without paying the required fees and without an application to proceed without prepaying those fees.
Order
The court explained that starting a civil action requires either payment of $402—made up of a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee—or a signed application to proceed without prepayment under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1914 and 1915. The court ordered La Spina, within 30 days of the order, to choose one of those options. If he submits the application, it must identify docket number 21-CV-01556 (CM). The court stated that, if the application is granted, La Spina may proceed without prepaying the fees.
The Clerk was directed to mail La Spina a copy of the order and record service on the docket. No summons was to issue at that time. The court stated that the case would be processed under the Clerk's procedures if La Spina complied, and that the action would be dismissed if he did not comply within the allowed time.
Appeal and classification
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 permission to proceed without prepaying fees for an appeal. This was an administrative and filing-fee order; it did not decide the underlying claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.