Reyes v. City of New York
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-00541
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Reyes v. City of New York, Judge Swain ordered Dequan Reyes to pay fees or submit required forms within 30 days before the case could proceed.
Dequan Reyes, who must either pay the required fees or submit the required IFP application and prisoner authorization for the case to proceed.
What happened
In Reyes v. City of New York, Dequan Reyes filed a civil case without paying the required fees or submitting a completed application to proceed without paying them in advance.
The court gave Reyes 30 days to either pay $402 or submit the required application and authorization allowing payments from his inmate account. No summonses will issue yet, and the action will be dismissed if he does not comply within the deadline.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees, finding that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Reyes v. City of New York · No. 1:23-cv-00541
- Laura Swain
- Jan. 27, 2023
What the order concerns
Dequan Reyes filed this civil action without paying the filing fees and without submitting a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees or costs, commonly called an IFP application, and a prisoner authorization. The opinion states that Reyes is incarcerated at Rikers Island and is representing himself.
Payment options
The court ordered Reyes, within 30 days of the order, to do one of two things:
1. Pay $402 in fees, consisting of a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee; or 2. Submit the attached IFP application and prisoner authorization, labeled with docket number 23-CV-0541 (LTS).
If the court grants the IFP application, the $350 filing fee must still be collected in installments from Reyes’s inmate account under the Prison Litigation Reform Act. The $52 administrative fee does not apply to a person granted IFP status. The prisoner authorization would allow the facility holding Reyes to deduct the required payments and send the court certified account statements for the previous six months.
Effect on the case
No summonses will issue at this time. If Reyes complies with the order, the Clerk’s Office will process the case under its procedures. If he does not comply within the 30-day period, the action will be dismissed.
The order also notes that a later dismissal for being frivolous, malicious, or failing to state a claim could count as a “strike” under the federal prisoner-litigation statute. A prisoner who receives three such strikes generally cannot proceed without prepaying fees in future federal civil actions unless the prisoner faces an imminent danger of serious physical injury.
Appeal ruling
The court certified that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied IFP status for purposes of an appeal. This order addresses filing-fee and case-processing requirements; it does not decide the merits of Reyes’s claims.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.