El Dey v. Board of Correction
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-02600
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In El Dey v. Board of Correction, Judge Swain ordered a prisoner to pay fees or submit authorization within 30 days.
Abdullah Spencer Nimham El Dey and the defendants in his civil action; the order required El Dey to pay the fees or submit the prisoner authorization before the case could proceed.
What happened
In El Dey v. Board of Correction, Abdullah Spencer Nimham El Dey filed a civil lawsuit without a lawyer and asked to proceed without paying the fees upfront. He submitted the required financial application but did not submit the separate authorization required from prisoners.
The court gave him 30 days to either pay $402 in fees or complete, sign, and submit the prisoner authorization. That authorization would allow installment payments from his prison account and require account statements. The court said no summons would issue yet, and warned that the case would be dismissed if he did not comply.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ruled that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees. The order did not address the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- El Dey v. Board of Correction · No. 1:22-cv-02600
- Laura Swain
- Apr. 1, 2022
Background
Abdullah Spencer Nimham El Dey brought this civil action without a lawyer. The opinion states that he was being held at the North Infirmary Command on Rikers Island. He submitted an application to proceed without prepaying court fees, commonly called an application to proceed without prepayment of fees, but did not submit the required prisoner authorization.
Required Filing or Payment
The court explained that a prisoner must either pay $402 in fees—a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee—or submit the required application and authorization to proceed without prepaying fees. The administrative fee does not apply to a person who is granted permission to proceed without prepaying fees. If permission is granted, the $350 filing fee must be collected in installments from the prisoner's account. The authorization also directs the correctional facility to make those deductions and send the court certified copies of the prisoner's account statements for the previous six months.
The court ordered El Dey, within 30 days of the order, to either pay the $402 or complete, sign, and submit the attached prisoner authorization, labeled with docket number 1:22-CV-2600 (LTS). No summons would issue at that time. The court stated that the action would be processed under the Clerk's Office procedures if he complied and would be dismissed if he did not comply within the allowed period.
Other Ruling and Effect
Judge Laura Taylor Swain certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees. The order addressed filing requirements and did not decide the merits of El Dey's claims. The opinion also cautioned that certain future dismissals could count as strikes under the prisoner filing-fee statute, but it did not state that this action had received a strike.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.