Harewood-Bey v. Biden
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-01472
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Harewood-Bey v. Biden, Judge Swain ordered Diana Harewood-Bey to pay filing fees or submit an application to proceed without prepayment within 30 days.
Diana Harewood-Bey and the federal action she filed; the order required her to pay the federal filing fees or submit an application to proceed without prepayment.
What happened
In Harewood-Bey v. Biden, Diana Harewood-Bey filed a federal case without paying the required filing fees or submitting an application to proceed without prepayment because of inability to pay. The case had been transferred from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to the Southern District of New York.
Harewood-Bey responded to the court’s earlier order by saying she did not have to pay because she had paid a fee in a related state-court matter. The court explained that paying a state-court fee did not eliminate the federal filing-fee requirement.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain gave Harewood-Bey 30 days to pay $402 or submit the required application. The court said the action would be dismissed if she did not comply and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees.
The detailed version
- Harewood-Bey v. Biden · No. 1:22-cv-01472
- Laura Swain
- May 27, 2022
Background
Diana Harewood-Bey, proceeding without a lawyer, filed this action individually and on behalf of two other plaintiffs. She originally filed it in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. On January 24, 2022, Judge Gerald A. McHugh transferred the complaint to the Southern District of New York.
Harewood-Bey filed the complaint without paying the required fees and without requesting permission to proceed without prepaying them. On April 11, 2022, the court directed her either to pay $402—the $350 filing fee and $52 administrative fee—or to submit a completed application to proceed without prepayment because of inability to pay.
In response, Harewood-Bey sent a letter stating that she did not have to pay the federal fees. She referred to a $210 fee paid in a related Westchester County Supreme Court matter and included copies of state-court documents.
Court’s Analysis
The court explained that federal law generally requires parties starting a civil action in a federal district court to pay $402 in fees. A case may proceed without prepayment only if the court grants permission under the federal fee-waiver statute. The court also explained that a person does not have to be completely destitute to qualify, but must show that paying the fees would prevent the person from providing the necessities of life for herself and her dependents.
The court rejected Harewood-Bey’s position that payment of a fee in a related state-court case gave her free access to federal court. Because she was proceeding without a lawyer, the court gave her another opportunity to satisfy the federal filing requirement.
Order and Effect
The court granted Harewood-Bey 30 days to either pay the $402 filing fees or submit an application to proceed without prepayment. The court stated that the action would be dismissed if she failed to comply within that period. The court also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees. This order did not decide the underlying claims against the defendants.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.