Dubose v. Walden
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-05783
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Dubose v. Walden, Chief Judge Swain ordered payment or fee-waiver paperwork within 30 days and denied fee-waiver status for an appeal.
Tyrek Dubose and the processing of his civil action; the order requires him to pay the fees or submit the specified forms before the case proceeds.
What happened
In Dubose v. Walden, Tyrek Dubose, who is incarcerated and representing himself, filed a civil action without paying the required fees or submitting completed forms to request permission to proceed without prepaying them.
The court gave Dubose 30 days to either pay $402 or submit a signed fee-waiver application and prisoner authorization. The authorization would allow installment payments from his prisoner account. The court said the action will be dismissed if he does not comply, while compliance will allow the case to be processed by the Clerk’s Office.
Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ruled that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for an appeal. The order did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Dubose v. Walden · No. 1:22-cv-05783
- Laura Swain
- July 11, 2022
Background
Tyrek Dubose filed a civil action against C.O. Walden and other defendants. The opinion states that Dubose is currently incarcerated at Green Haven Correctional Facility and is proceeding without a lawyer. He submitted the complaint without paying the required filing fees and without submitting a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees or a prisoner authorization.
Court’s 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 $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 provide the court with certified account statements for the preceding six months.
Within 30 days of the order, Dubose must either pay the $402 or submit the required application and authorization forms, labeled with docket number 22-CV-5783 (LTS). If he complies, the case will be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures. If he does not comply within the allowed time, the action will be dismissed.
Appeal and disposition
Judge Laura Taylor Swain certified that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for purposes of an appeal. The order is a filing-fee and paperwork directive; it does not decide the merits of Dubose’s claims. The court also cautioned that a later dismissal for frivolousness or failure to state a claim could count as a strike under the prisoner litigation statute, but this order did not make such a dismissal.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.