Lee v. Cooper
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:21-cv-01160
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Lee v. Cooper, Judge McMahon dismissed Lee’s complaint without prejudice because he neither paid the filing fee nor submitted an application to waive it.
Steven Lee’s complaint was dismissed without prejudice because he did not pay the $402 filing fee or submit the required application to proceed without paying fees. Permission to proceed without paying fees on appeal was also denied.
What happened
In Lee v. Cooper, the court required Steven Lee to either pay the filing fee or submit an application to proceed without paying it.
The court had ordered Lee to take one of those steps within 30 days, but he did neither. The court therefore dismissed his complaint without prejudice, meaning the dismissal did not bar refiling. The opinion does not describe the underlying claims.
Judge Colleen McMahon also ruled that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Lee permission to proceed without paying the filing costs for an appeal.
The detailed version
- Lee v. Cooper · No. 1:21-cv-01160
- Colleen McMahon
- May 24, 2021
Background
On March 26, 2021, the court directed Steven Lee to submit a completed application to proceed without paying court fees, or to pay the $402 filing fee required to bring a civil action in the court. The order warned that failing to comply would result in dismissal of the complaint.
Lee did not submit the application or pay the filing fee.
Ruling
The court dismissed the complaint without prejudice under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1914 and 1915. The opinion does not state what claims Lee brought or address their merits.
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. It therefore denied permission to proceed without paying fees for an appeal. The Clerk of Court was directed to mail Lee a copy of the order and record service on the docket.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.