Hussey v. "John Doe" Licenses Plate HLD 8446 of the owner Mazda, Vehicle
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-03562
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Hussey v. “John Doe,” Judge Swain ordered the custody agency to collect and send Hussey’s required filing-fee payments.
Yessuh Suhyes Hussey and the agency having custody of him, identified in the order as the New York City Department of Correction or any agency to which he is transferred.
What happened
Yessuh Suhyes Hussey filed Hussey v. “John Doe” without a lawyer while in custody, and the court allowed him to proceed without paying fees upfront. He was later released and then returned to custody while the case was pending.
The court explained that Hussey remains responsible for the full filing fee because he was incarcerated when he filed the case. Because he had returned to custody, the court directed the agency holding him to provide his recent account statement and send the required payments from his facility account.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain ordered the Clerk to send the relevant documents to the custody agency and required that agency to forward the payments to the court. The order did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Hussey v. "John Doe" Licenses Plate HLD 8446 of the owner Mazda, Vehicle · No. 1:23-cv-03562
- Laura Swain
- May 19, 2023
Background
Yessuh Suhyes Hussey filed this case without a lawyer while he was held in the Anna M. Kross Center on Rikers Island. He applied to proceed without paying court fees upfront and submitted an authorization allowing the custody agency to provide his account information and deduct required payments. The case was transferred from the Eastern District of New York to the Southern District of New York. The Southern District granted Hussey permission to proceed without prepaying fees on April 28, 2023.
Hussey was released from custody on March 2, 2023, while the case was pending. He was later returned to custody on or about May 9, 2023, and was being held at the Eric M. Taylor Center when this order was issued.
Court’s reasoning
The court explained that under 28 U.S.C. § 1915 and the Prison Litigation Reform Act, a person incarcerated when filing a federal civil case remains responsible for the full $350 filing fee, even if the court permits payment without prepayment. The law ordinarily requires an initial partial payment and later monthly payments from the person’s facility trust account when funds are available.
The court noted that payments cannot be collected while a released person has no facility trust account. Because Hussey was incarcerated when he filed the case and had later returned to custody, the court concluded that his obligation to make the required payments had effectively resumed.
Order and effect
The court directed the agency currently holding Hussey to send the court a certified copy of his facility trust-account statement for the previous six months and to send the payments required by Section 1915. The Clerk was directed to send the agency a copy of this order, the earlier order granting Hussey permission to proceed without prepaying fees, and Hussey’s prisoner authorization. The order also requires the current facility to send a copy of the order to any facility receiving Hussey after a transfer.
Hussey must promptly notify the court in writing of any address change. The court stated that it may dismiss the case if he fails to do so. This order addressed filing-fee collection and administrative requirements; it did not decide the merits of Hussey’s underlying claims.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.