Stubbs v. Hill
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-08023
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Stubbs v. Hill, Judge Swain ordered Stubbs to pay fees or submit required forms within 30 days or face dismissal.
Cornelius Stubbs must either pay the required fees or submit the required IFP application and prisoner authorization within 30 days; otherwise, his action will be dismissed.
What happened
In Stubbs v. Hill, Cornelius Stubbs filed a civil case without a lawyer while incarcerated at Orange County Jail. He submitted the complaint without paying the required fees or completing the forms needed to request permission to proceed without paying fees upfront.
The court gave Stubbs 30 days to either pay $402 in fees or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees and a prisoner authorization. The authorization would allow the filing fee to be deducted from his account in installments. The court said no response from the defendants was required at that time.
If Stubbs complies, the case will be processed under the court’s procedures; if he does not, the action will be dismissed. Judge Laura Taylor Swain also denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Stubbs v. Hill · No. 1:22-cv-08023
- Laura Swain
- Sept. 22, 2022
Background
Cornelius Stubbs filed this civil action without a lawyer while incarcerated at Orange County Jail. The opinion does not describe the claims against Renee C. Hill, Esq., and the other defendants. Stubbs submitted his complaint without paying the required fees and without submitting a completed application to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP), meaning without prepaying fees, or a prisoner authorization.
Court’s order
The court explained that a prisoner filing a civil action must either pay $402—consisting of a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee—or submit a signed IFP application and prisoner authorization. If the court grants IFP status, the $350 filing fee must still be collected from the prisoner’s account in installments. The authorization also directs the correctional facility to provide certified account statements for the previous six months and make the required deductions.
The court ordered Stubbs, within 30 days of the order, to either pay the $402 in fees or submit the completed IFP application and prisoner authorization, labeled with docket number 22-CV-8023 (LTS). The court stated that no answer from the defendants was required at that time. If Stubbs complies, the case will be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures; if he fails to comply within the allowed time, the action will be dismissed.
Disposition
This is a procedural order concerning payment of filing fees and the materials needed to request IFP status. It does not decide the merits of Stubbs’s claims. Judge Laura Taylor Swain certified that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied IFP status for purposes of an appeal. The order also cautioned that certain future dismissals could count as strikes under the prisoner-filing statute, but it did not state that Stubbs had received a strike in this case.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.