Reyes v. Gomez
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-08421
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Reyes v. Gomez, Judge Swain denied reopening without prejudice to a new action and denied fee status for an appeal.
The order directly affected Juan D. Reyes, who was representing himself, by preventing reopening of the closed action while leaving him free to file a new separate civil action and by denying fee-free status for an appeal.
What happened
Juan D. Reyes, who was representing himself and held at the Anna M. Kross Center, filed this case against Loidairis Gomez without the required prisoner authorization form for his request to proceed without paying filing fees. The court gave him 30 days to pay the fees or submit the form.
Reyes did neither within the deadline, so the court dismissed the action without prejudice. After that dismissal, the court received his completed authorization form, but the opinion gives no explanation for why it arrived late.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied Reyes’s request to reopen the closed case, without prejudice to his filing a new civil action. The court also denied his request to proceed without paying fees on an appeal, finding that any appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Reyes v. Gomez · No. 1:22-cv-08421
- Laura Swain
- Jan. 20, 2023
Background
Juan D. Reyes, who appeared without a lawyer, filed this action while held at the Anna M. Kross Center on Rikers Island. He submitted a request to proceed without paying the filing fees, but did not submit the required prisoner authorization form.
In an October 4, 2022 order, the Court gave Reyes 30 days to either pay the $402 filing fees or complete and submit the authorization form. The Court warned that failing to comply would result in dismissal. Reyes did not pay the fees or submit the form within the allowed period.
Prior dismissal and later filing
The Court dismissed the action without prejudice in an order and judgment dated December 6, 2022, and entered on December 8, 2022. Four days later, the Court received a completed and signed prisoner authorization form from Reyes. The form indicated that he was still held at the Anna M. Kross Center, and the opinion states that it arrived in an envelope from the Bronx Supreme Court Clerk’s Office. The opinion does not explain why the form was submitted late.
Ruling
To the extent Reyes submitted the authorization form in an effort to reopen the closed action, the Court denied that request. It explained that the request did not fall within the Court’s authority to reopen a closed action under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 59(e) or 60(b), or Local Civil Rule 6.3.
The Court denied Reyes’s request without prejudice to his refiling the matter as a new, separate civil action. The Court’s footnote stated that, if Reyes filed a new action while incarcerated, he would have to pay the filing fees or submit an application to proceed without paying fees together with a completed and signed prisoner authorization form.
The Court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and therefore denied permission to proceed without paying fees for an appeal.
Classification
This is a procedural order. The Court addressed whether the closed case could be reopened and whether Reyes could proceed without paying fees for an appeal; it did not decide the underlying claims against Loidairis Gomez.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.