Louis v. Morley
- Nelson Roman
- 7:22-cv-10094
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Louis v. Morley, Judge Swain ordered Kevin Louis to pay fees or submit prisoner authorization within 30 days before the case proceeds.
Kevin Louis and the progress of his civil action. The order requires him to pay the stated fees or submit a completed prisoner authorization before the case can be processed.
What happened
Kevin Louis filed this civil action without a lawyer and submitted an application to proceed without paying court fees upfront. He did not submit the required prisoner authorization, which allows deductions from his prison account and provides account statements.
The court gave Louis 30 days to either pay the $402 in fees or complete and submit the prisoner authorization. No summons will issue yet, and the case will be processed if he complies; otherwise, the action will be dismissed.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ruled that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees.
The detailed version
- Louis v. Morley · No. 7:22-cv-10094
- Nelson Roman
- Dec. 6, 2022
Background
Kevin Louis, who is incarcerated at Woodbourne Correctional Facility, filed this civil action without a lawyer. He submitted an application to proceed without prepayment of fees, commonly called an application to proceed in forma pauperis, but he did not submit the required completed prisoner authorization.
Court’s Order
The court explained that a prisoner must either pay $402 in fees or submit the required documents to seek permission to proceed without prepaying fees. If permission is granted, the $350 filing fee must be collected in installments from the prisoner’s account. The prisoner authorization permits the facility holding the prisoner to provide certified account statements for the preceding six months and deduct the required payments.
The court ordered Louis, within 30 days of December 6, 2022, to either pay the $402 in fees or complete and submit the attached prisoner authorization, labeled with docket number 22-CV-10094 (LTS). No summons will issue at this time. If Louis complies, the Clerk’s Office will process the case under its procedures. If he does not comply within the allowed time, the action will be dismissed.
Appeal and Other Notice
The court certified that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees. The order also cautioned that certain dismissals of prisoner actions can count as “strikes” under the federal prisoner-filing statute, and that three such strikes generally limit a prisoner’s ability to proceed without prepaying fees unless an imminent danger exception applies.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.