Parker v. Haaland
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-08107
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Parker v. Haaland, Judge Swain ordered Parker to pay filing fees or submit an IFP application within 30 days.
Jamal Parker must either pay the required fees or submit an application to proceed without prepaying them within 30 days; otherwise, the action will be dismissed. The case will not proceed to summons issuance unless he complies.
What happened
In Parker v. Haaland, Jamal Parker filed a lawsuit without paying the required fees or submitting an application to proceed without prepaying them. The court had previously ordered him to do one of those things.
Parker instead filed another document, an amended complaint, and a notice of appeal. The court ruled that the appeal was defective because it challenged a nonfinal order that had not been approved for an immediate appeal, so the district court kept authority over the case.
The court ordered Parker to pay $402 or submit a completed application within 30 days. Judge Laura Taylor Swain also directed that no summons issue at that time and said the action would be dismissed if Parker did not comply; the court denied fee-free status for an appeal from the order.
The detailed version
- Parker v. Haaland · No. 1:22-cv-08107
- Laura Swain
- Oct. 3, 2022
Background
Jamal Parker brought this action without a lawyer. To proceed, he had to either pay $402 in filing and administrative fees or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees. He submitted neither with his complaint.
In an earlier order, the court gave Parker 30 days to pay the fees or submit a completed application. Parker instead filed a document titled “Master Bill of Lading, Ships Manifest Non-Negotiable Bill of Exceptions,” an amended complaint, and a notice of interlocutory appeal.
Jurisdiction
The court first considered whether Parker’s notice of appeal prevented it from acting. It ruled that the notice was plainly defective because Parker was attempting to appeal a nonfinal order that had not been certified for an immediate, or interlocutory, appeal. The court therefore retained authority over the action.
Order
The court ruled that Parker’s submission did not respond to the earlier order. It directed him, within 30 days of the order, to either pay $402 or submit the attached application to proceed without prepaying fees, labeled with docket number 22-CV-8107 (LTS).
The court ordered that no summons issue at that time. It stated that, if Parker complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures, and that, if he failed to comply within the allowed time, the action would be dismissed. The court also certified that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal. The order did not decide the underlying merits of Parker’s claims.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.