Mercado v. Kitsos
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-01529
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Mercado v. Kitsos, Judge Swain ordered Matthew L. Mercado to pay fees or submit forms within 30 days, without deciding his claims.
Matthew L. Mercado, a self-represented incarcerated plaintiff, and the defendants named in his action, including Det. J. Kitsos.
What happened
In Mercado v. Kitsos, Matthew L. Mercado, who is incarcerated and representing himself, filed a civil action without paying the required fees or submitting the forms needed to request permission to proceed without paying those fees in advance.
The court gave Mercado 30 days to either pay $402 or submit a completed application and authorization allowing installment payments from his account. The court also said that no summons would issue at that time and that the action would be dismissed if he did not comply.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain did not decide the claims against Det. J. Kitsos or the other defendants. She also denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees, finding that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Mercado v. Kitsos · No. 1:22-cv-01529
- Laura Swain
- Feb. 24, 2022
Background
Matthew L. Mercado filed this civil action while incarcerated in the Orange County Jail. The opinion states that he was proceeding pro se, meaning without a lawyer. He filed the complaint without paying the required filing fees and without submitting a completed application to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP), meaning without prepaying the fees, or a prisoner authorization.
Fees and required forms
The court explained that a prisoner must either pay $402 in fees—a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee—or submit a signed IFP application and prisoner authorization. If IFP status is granted, the $350 filing fee must be collected in installments from the prisoner’s account. The prisoner authorization permits those deductions and requires the facility to send certified copies of the prisoner’s account statements for the preceding six months. The $52 administrative fee does not apply to a person granted IFP status.
Order
The court ordered Mercado, within 30 days of the order’s date, to either pay the $402 in fees or submit the attached IFP application and prisoner authorization, labeled with docket number 22-CV-1529 (LTS). No summons would issue at that time. If Mercado complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk’s Office’s procedures; if he failed to comply within the permitted time, the action would be dismissed.
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 and denied IFP status for purposes of an appeal. The order cautioned that a future dismissal for frivolousness or failure to state a claim could count as a strike under the prisoner litigation statute, and that three strikes generally prevent a prisoner from proceeding IFP in later actions unless the prisoner faces imminent danger of serious physical injury. The order did not address the merits of Mercado’s claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.