Sinja v. Friederich
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-05948
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Sinja v. Friederich, Judge Swain ordered Wesley Sinja to pay $402 or apply to proceed without prepaying fees within 30 days.
Wesley Sinja must either pay $402 in fees or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees within 30 days. If he does not comply, the action will be dismissed; no summons will issue at that time.
What happened
In Sinja v. Friederich, Wesley Sinja filed a civil action without paying the required fees or submitting an application to proceed without prepaying them. The opinion does not describe the claims.
The court gave Sinja 30 days to pay $402, consisting of a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee, or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees. No summons would issue at that time.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain ordered Sinja to meet one of those requirements. If he did not comply within the allowed time, the action would be dismissed. The court also denied fee-free status for any appeal from the order.
The detailed version
- Sinja v. Friederich · No. 1:23-cv-05948
- Laura Swain
- July 18, 2023
Background
Wesley Sinja filed this civil action without paying the required fees and without submitting an application to proceed without prepaying fees. The opinion does not describe the underlying claims or provide any ruling on their merits. Sinja was proceeding without a lawyer.
Order
The court explained that a plaintiff must either pay $402 in fees—a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee—or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees, commonly called an IFP application. The court directed Sinja, within 30 days of the order, to do one of those two things. If the court grants the application, Sinja may proceed without paying the fees in advance.
The court ordered that no summons issue at that time. It stated that, if Sinja complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures, but if he failed to comply within the allowed time, the action would be dismissed.
Appeal and disposition
Judge Laura Taylor Swain certified that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal. The order addressed filing fees and the application to proceed without prepaying fees; it did not decide the underlying legal claims.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.