Sacchetti v. Dobbs Ferry Police Department
- Vincent Briccetti
- 7:22-cv-03793
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Sacchetti v. Dobbs Ferry Police Department, Judge Swain ordered the incarcerated plaintiff to pay fees or submit forms to proceed without prepayment.
Tobia Sacchetti, an incarcerated plaintiff representing himself, must either pay the required fees or submit the required application and prisoner authorization within 30 days to continue the action.
What happened
In Sacchetti v. Dobbs Ferry Police Department, Tobia Sacchetti filed a civil case without paying the required fees or submitting a completed application to proceed without prepaying them. The order says Sacchetti is incarcerated at Westchester County Jail and is representing himself.
The court gave Sacchetti 30 days to either pay $402 in fees or submit the required application and authorization for payments to be deducted from his account. The court did not issue a summons at that time and said the case would be processed if he complied. If he did not comply, the action would be dismissed.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also certified that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees. The order did not decide the underlying claims against the Dobbs Ferry Police Department or the other defendants.
The detailed version
- Sacchetti v. Dobbs Ferry Police Department · No. 7:22-cv-03793
- Vincent Briccetti
- May 10, 2022
Background
Tobia Sacchetti filed this civil action against the Dobbs Ferry Police Department and other defendants. The opinion states that Sacchetti was incarcerated at Westchester County Jail and brought the action without a lawyer. He submitted the complaint without paying the filing fees and without a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees or a prisoner authorization.
Order
The court ordered Sacchetti, within 30 days, to do one of two things: pay $402 in fees, consisting of a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee, or submit the required application and prisoner authorization. The authorization would allow the facility holding him to deduct the $350 filing fee from his account in installments and provide certified copies of his account statements for the preceding six months. The order explains that the $52 administrative fee does not apply if the court grants permission to proceed without prepaying fees.
No summons was to issue at that time. The court stated that, if Sacchetti complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures. If he failed to comply within the allowed time, the action would be dismissed.
Appeal and warning
The court 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 proceed without prepaying fees for an appeal. The order also cautioned that a later dismissal for frivolousness or failure to state a claim could count as a statutory “strike” affecting a prisoner’s ability to proceed without prepaying fees in future cases. The court did not address the merits of Sacchetti’s claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.