Reaves v. John/Jane Doe
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-10328
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Reaves v. John/Jane Doe, Judge Swain ordered payment or a legible fee-waiver application and a signed complaint page within 30 days.
Larry D. Reaves, whose case could be dismissed if he did not pay the fees or submit the required documents within 30 days.
What happened
In Reaves v. John/Jane Doe, Larry D. Reaves filed the case without a lawyer and submitted an application to waive the filing fees. The court found that the application was completely illegible and that his complaint was unsigned.
The court gave Reaves 30 days to either pay $402 in fees or submit a completed, signed, legible application showing he could not pay. He also had to submit a complaint signature page bearing his original signature. If he did not comply, the action would be dismissed.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain ordered these procedural steps and said the case would proceed through the Clerk’s Office if Reaves complied. She also denied fee-waiver status for any appeal from the order because the appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Reaves v. John/Jane Doe · No. 1:22-cv-10328
- Laura Swain
- Dec. 16, 2022
Background
Larry D. Reaves brought this action without a lawyer. To proceed, he had to pay $402 in fees—consisting of a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee—or request permission to proceed without paying the fees in advance through an application for leave to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP), meaning without prepaying court fees.
Reaves submitted an IFP application, but the court found it wholly illegible. As a result, the responses did not establish that he was unable to pay the filing fees. His complaint also lacked a personal signature. The court explained that an unrepresented party must personally sign a pleading, and that the signature must be handwritten or another mark placed by the person.
Order
The court ordered Reaves, within 30 days of the order, to do both of the following:
1. Either pay the $402 in fees or submit an amended, signed, and legible IFP application showing that he was unable to pay; and 2. Submit the complaint’s signature page with an original signature.
The submissions were to identify docket number 22-CV-10328 (LTS). If Reaves complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures. If he failed to comply within the permitted time, the action would be dismissed.
The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied IFP status for purposes of an appeal.
Classification
This was a procedural order concerning payment of filing fees, an IFP application, and a required signature. The court did not decide the underlying claims against John/Jane Doe.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.