Osias v. Department of Correction
- Paul Engelmayer
- 1:22-cv-00869
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Osias v. Department of Correction, Judge Swain ordered Ruddy Osias to pay fees or submit forms within 30 days before the case could proceed.
Ruddy Osias, who must either pay the required fees or submit the specified forms within 30 days for the action to proceed; the underlying claims and the defendants’ positions were not addressed.
What happened
In Osias v. Department of Correction, Ruddy Osias filed a civil action without paying the required fees or submitting the forms needed to ask to proceed without paying upfront. The order states that Osias was detained on Rikers Island and was representing himself.
The court gave Osias 30 days to either pay $402 in fees or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees and a prisoner authorization. The authorization would allow deductions from his account in installments. No summons would issue at that time, and the court warned that the action would be dismissed if he did not comply.
Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain issued the order. She also denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith; the order did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Osias v. Department of Correction · No. 1:22-cv-00869
- Paul Engelmayer
- Feb. 1, 2022
Background
Ruddy Osias filed this civil action without paying the filing fees and without completing an application to proceed without prepaying fees or a prisoner authorization. The opinion states that Osias was detained on Rikers Island and was proceeding without a lawyer.
Order
The court explained that a prisoner bringing a civil action must either pay $402 in fees—a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee—or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees and a prisoner authorization. If the court grants that application, the Prison Litigation Reform Act requires the $350 filing fee to be collected in installments from the prisoner’s account. The authorization also directs the facility to deduct those payments and provide certified copies of the prisoner’s account statements for the prior six months.
The court ordered Osias, within 30 days of the order, to either pay the $402 or submit the completed application and authorization using docket number 22-CV-0869 (LTS). The Clerk of Court was directed to mail the order to Osias and record service on the docket. No summons was to issue at that time. The court stated that the action would be dismissed if Osias failed to comply within the allowed period.
Disposition
Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain did not decide the merits of Osias’s claims. She certified that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees. The order also warned that a later dismissal for frivolousness, maliciousness, or failure to state a claim could count as a filing “strike” under federal law, but this order did not impose such a strike.
Classification basis
This is a procedural order because it addresses payment and filing requirements before the action can proceed and does not reach the underlying claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.