Dixon v. Biden
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-00748
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Dixon v. Biden, Judge Swain ordered a pro se plaintiff to submit an original signature before the case could proceed.
Yusuf F. Dixon, who must submit an original signature on his fee-waiver application within 30 days for the case to proceed.
What happened
Dixon v. Biden was brought by Yusuf F. Dixon without a lawyer. His application to proceed without paying court fees in advance was submitted without a signature.
The court ordered Dixon to resubmit the application’s signature page with an original signature within 30 days. The court said no summons would issue yet; if he complied, the case would be processed, but if he did not, the action would be dismissed.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ruled that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for an appeal from this order. The order did not address the underlying claims against Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris.
The detailed version
- Dixon v. Biden · No. 1:23-cv-00748
- Laura Swain
- Jan. 30, 2023
Background
Yusuf F. Dixon brought the action without a lawyer and submitted an application to proceed without prepaying filing fees. The application did not contain a signature. The court cited Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(a) and the related local rule, which require an unrepresented party to personally sign court papers.
Order
The court directed Dixon to submit the application’s signature page with an original signature within 30 days of the order. The court stated that no summons would issue at that time. If Dixon complied, the Clerk’s Office would process the case under its procedures. If he failed to comply within the allowed period, the action would be dismissed.
Appeal and disposition
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal. This was an administrative and procedural order concerning the signature on the fee-waiver application; it did not decide the merits of Dixon’s claims against Joseph Biden or Kamala Harris.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.