Falls v. County of Orange
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-04528
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Falls v. County of Orange, Judge Swain ordered payment or an IFP application within 30 days, warning the case would otherwise be dismissed.
Raiquan K. Falls, an incarcerated plaintiff representing himself, and the pending federal action against County of Orange.
What happened
In Falls v. County of Orange, Raiquan K. Falls, who is incarcerated at Orange County Jail and is representing himself, filed the complaint without paying the required fees or submitting the forms needed to request permission to proceed without prepayment. The complaint was captioned for New York state court and called a “notice of claim,” so the court noted that Falls may have intended to pursue the matter there.
The court gave Falls 30 days to either pay $402 in fees or submit a signed application to proceed without prepayment and a prisoner authorization. The authorization would allow installment deductions from his account for the $350 filing fee. The court did not issue a summons and said the action would be dismissed if Falls did not comply.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees, finding that any appeal would not be taken in good faith. The order did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Falls v. County of Orange · No. 1:23-cv-04528
- Laura Swain
- May 31, 2023
Background
Raiquan K. Falls filed this action without paying the required filing fees and without submitting a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees or a prisoner authorization. The opinion states that Falls is incarcerated at Orange County Jail and is proceeding without a lawyer.
The complaint is captioned for the Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County, and is titled “notice of claim.” The court noted that Falls may be pursuing the matter in state court. It stated that, if he did not intend to start a new federal lawsuit, he did not need to return the documents authorizing payment of the filing fee for a new federal suit.
Order
The court explained that a prisoner seeking to proceed with a federal civil action must either pay $402 in fees—a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee—or submit a signed application to proceed without prepayment and a prisoner authorization. If the court grants the application, the Prison Litigation Reform Act requires the $350 filing fee to be collected in installments from the prisoner’s account. The prisoner authorization permits those deductions and requires certified copies of account statements for the previous six months to be sent to the court.
Within 30 days of the order, Falls was required to either pay the $402 or submit the application and authorization, labeled with docket number 23-CV-4528 (LTS). No summons was to be issued at that time. The court stated that, if Falls complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures; if he failed to comply within the allowed time, the action would be dismissed.
Other Ruling and Significance
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 therefore denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees. The opinion also cautioned that certain dismissals of prisoner actions can count as “strikes” under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), which may limit a prisoner’s ability to proceed without prepaying fees in future federal civil actions.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain’s order addressed filing requirements and the possible state-court nature of the submission; it did not decide the merits of Falls’s claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.