Schulte v. United States of America
- Jesse Furman
- 1:21-cv-05213
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Schulte v. United States of America, Chief Judge Swain ordered payment or an application to proceed without prepaying fees within 30 days.
Joshua Adam Schulte, an incarcerated plaintiff proceeding without a lawyer, was required to pay the fees or submit the required IFP and prisoner-authorization documents. The action's defendants were the United States of America and wardens of the Metropolitan Correctional Center serving from October 2018 through June 2021.
What happened
In Schulte v. United States of America, Joshua Adam Schulte filed a civil action while incarcerated and without paying the required fees or submitting the paperwork needed to request permission to proceed without prepaying them.
The court explained that the total fees were $402: a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee. If Schulte requested and received permission to proceed without prepayment, the $350 filing fee would be collected from his account in installments.
The court ordered Schulte to pay the fees or submit the required applications within 30 days. Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain directed that no summons issue yet and stated that the action would be dismissed if he did not comply; the order did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Schulte v. United States of America · No. 1:21-cv-05213
- Jesse Furman
- June 11, 2021
What the order addressed
Joshua Adam Schulte filed this civil action pro se, meaning without a lawyer, while incarcerated at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. The complaint was submitted without the required filing fees, a completed application to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP), or a prisoner authorization.
Fees and required paperwork
The court stated that a prisoner must either pay $402 to begin a civil action—$350 for the filing fee and $52 for the administrative fee—or submit a signed IFP application and prisoner authorization. IFP means proceeding without paying the fees in advance. If the court grants a prisoner's IFP application, the Prison Litigation Reform Act requires the $350 filing fee to be collected in installments from the prisoner's account. The prisoner authorization permits those withdrawals and requires certified account statements for the prior six months.
Order
Within 30 days of the order, Schulte had to either pay the $402 in fees or submit the IFP application and prisoner authorization. The order instructed him to label those documents with docket number 21-CV-5173, although the action's docket number is shown as 21-CV-5213 (LTS). The Clerk was directed to mail Schulte a copy of the order and note service on the docket. No summons was to issue at that time.
If Schulte complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk's Office procedures. If he failed to comply within the allowed period, the action would be dismissed. The court also certified that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied IFP status for purposes of an appeal. The order did not address the merits of Schulte's claims. A footnote warned that certain future dismissals could count as strikes under the federal prisoner-litigation statute.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.