Reeder v. McCabe
- Laura Swain
- 1:21-cv-04324
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Reeder v. McCabe, Chief Judge Swain ordered an incarcerated pro se plaintiff to pay fees or submit corrected forms within 30 days.
Raszell Reeder, an incarcerated plaintiff proceeding without a lawyer, must either pay the required fees or submit corrected fee-waiver and prisoner-authorization forms for the action to proceed.
What happened
Reeder v. McCabe involves Raszell Reeder, who the order says is incarcerated at Upstate Correctional Facility and brought the action without a lawyer. His submitted fee-waiver application was for a different court, and his prisoner authorization form was outdated.
Chief Judge Swain gave Reeder 30 days to either pay $402 in filing and administrative fees or submit the attached application to proceed without paying fees upfront and a current prisoner authorization. The authorization would allow filing-fee payments to be deducted from his prison account in installments.
Chief United States District Judge Laura Taylor Swain directed the Clerk to mail the order to Reeder and said no summons would issue at that time. If Reeder does not comply, the action will be dismissed; the court also denied permission to appeal without paying fees.
The detailed version
- Reeder v. McCabe · No. 1:21-cv-04324
- Laura Swain
- May 14, 2021
Background
Raszell Reeder brought this action without a lawyer and is currently incarcerated at Upstate Correctional Facility. The opinion addresses the filing-fee requirements for a prisoner starting a civil action. It does not decide the underlying claims against Andrew McCabe or the other defendants.
Filing-fee options
The court explained that a prisoner must either pay $402—consisting of a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee—or request permission to proceed without paying the fees upfront. To make that request, Reeder had to submit a signed application and a prisoner authorization. If permission is granted, the Prison Litigation Reform Act requires the $350 filing fee to be collected in installments from the prisoner's account.
Reeder had submitted an application captioned for a different court and an outdated prisoner authorization. The court ordered him, within 30 days of the order's date, either to pay the $402 or to submit the attached application and authorization form, labeled with docket number 21-CV-4324 (LTS).
Order and consequences
Chief United States District Judge Laura Taylor Swain directed the Clerk to mail Reeder a copy of the order and record service on the docket. No summons was to issue at that time. If Reeder complied, the Clerk's Office would process the case under its procedures; if he failed to comply within the allowed time, the action would be dismissed.
The court 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 appeal without prepayment of fees. The court also cautioned that a later dismissal for frivolousness or failure to state a claim could count as a filing “strike” under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), affecting a prisoner's ability to proceed without prepaying fees in future cases.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.