Caldwell v. Cohen
- Laura Swain
- 1:21-cv-05039
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Caldwell v. Cohen, Judge Swain ordered the pro se plaintiff to pay fees or submit an application to proceed without prepayment.
BOISEY CALDWELL, the unrepresented plaintiff, must either pay the required fees or submit an application to proceed without prepayment within 30 days to avoid dismissal of the action.
What happened
In Caldwell v. Cohen, BOISEY CALDWELL filed a civil action without paying the required fees or submitting an application to proceed without prepayment.
The court ordered Caldwell, within 30 days, to either pay $402 or submit a signed application to proceed without prepayment. The $402 consists of a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee.
Judge Swain directed the Clerk to mail the order to Caldwell and said no summons would issue yet. If Caldwell does not comply on time, the action will be dismissed; the court also denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees.
The detailed version
- Caldwell v. Cohen · No. 1:21-cv-05039
- Laura Swain
- June 8, 2021
Background
BOISEY CALDWELL brought the action without a lawyer. The complaint was submitted without the required filing fees and without an application to proceed without prepayment of fees. The opinion does not describe the underlying claims.
Order
The court explained that a civil action requires either payment of $402—consisting of a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee—or a signed application to proceed without prepayment under 28 U.S.C. § 1915. The court gave Caldwell 30 days from the date of the order to make one of those submissions. If the court grants the application, Caldwell may proceed without paying the fees in advance.
The Clerk was directed to mail the order to Caldwell 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 Office procedures if Caldwell complied, and that the action would be dismissed if Caldwell did not comply within the allowed time. The court also certified that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees.
Classification
This is a procedural order concerning payment of filing fees and an application to proceed without prepayment. It does not decide the merits of Caldwell’s claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.