Blackwood v. Westchester County Jail
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-02656
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Blackwood v. Westchester County Jail, Judge Swain ordered Phillip Blackwood to pay court fees or submit a complete fee-waiver application within 30 days.
Phillip Blackwood, the self-represented plaintiff, must either pay the $402 in fees or submit a complete and signed amended application to proceed without prepaying fees within 30 days. If he does not comply, the action will be dismissed.
What happened
In Blackwood v. Westchester County Jail, Phillip Blackwood, who is held at the Westchester County Jail and represents himself, submitted an incomplete application asking to proceed without paying court fees. He filed only one of the application’s two pages and did not sign it.
The court ordered Blackwood, within 30 days, either to pay $402 in filing and administrative fees or to submit a fully completed and signed amended application. No summonses will issue yet. If he does not comply within the deadline, the action will be dismissed; if he submits an amended application, the court will decide whether to allow him to proceed without paying the fees in advance.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees. This order did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Blackwood v. Westchester County Jail · No. 1:23-cv-02656
- Laura Swain
- Apr. 21, 2023
Background
Phillip Blackwood, who is currently held in the Westchester County Jail, brought this civil action without a lawyer. Federal law requires a person filing a civil action to pay $402 in fees—$350 for filing and $52 for administration—or submit an application to proceed without prepaying those fees. This application is commonly called an in forma pauperis, or IFP, application.
In an earlier order, the court directed Blackwood to pay the fees or submit an IFP application and a prisoner authorization. The court received a completed and signed prisoner authorization, but the IFP application was incomplete and unsigned: Blackwood submitted only one of its two pages and omitted the signature page. The court therefore could not determine whether he was unable to pay the fees.
Order
The court ordered Blackwood to do one of two things within 30 days of April 21, 2023: pay the $402 in fees or submit an amended IFP application. The amended application must be fully completed, signed, and labeled with docket number 1:23-CV-2656 (LTS).
The court stated that, if it grants the amended IFP application, Blackwood may proceed without prepaying the fees. No summonses will issue at this time. If Blackwood does not comply with the order within the allowed period, the action will be dismissed. The order did not resolve the merits of Blackwood’s underlying claims.
Appeal
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 IFP status for purposes of an appeal. In other words, the court denied permission to appeal without prepaying appellate fees.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.