Seabrooks v. Annucci
- Cathy Seibel
- 7:23-cv-06919
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Seabrooks v. Annucci, Judge Swain ordered Ivan Seabrooks to pay filing fees or submit required forms within 30 days before his case could proceed.
Ivan Seabrooks’s civil action is affected: he must pay the required fees or submit the specified forms within 30 days for the case to proceed, and no summons will issue yet.
What happened
Seabrooks v. Annucci concerns a civil action filed by Ivan Seabrooks, who is incarcerated and representing himself. He submitted his complaint without paying the required fees or completing the forms needed to request permission to proceed without prepaying them.
The court ordered Seabrooks, within 30 days, either to pay $402 in fees or submit a completed application and authorization allowing installment deductions from his prison account. The court directed that no summons be issued yet and stated that the action will be dismissed if he does not comply within the allowed time.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for any appeal from this order, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith. The order did not decide the claims in the civil action.
The detailed version
- Seabrooks v. Annucci · No. 7:23-cv-06919
- Cathy Seibel
- Aug. 8, 2023
Background
Ivan Seabrooks, who the opinion says is incarcerated at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, filed this civil action representing himself. The defendants listed in the caption are Anthony Annucci, Joseph Sergeant, and two individuals identified as John Doe. The order does not address the substance of Seabrooks’s claims.
Filing-fee requirements
A prisoner filing a federal civil action must either pay the required fees or request permission to proceed without prepaying them. The court explained that the total payment is $402: a $350 filing fee and a $52 administrative fee. If the court permits a prisoner to proceed without prepaying fees, the $350 filing fee must still be collected in installments from the prisoner’s account.
To request that status, Seabrooks had to submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees and a prisoner authorization. The authorization would allow the facility holding him to deduct installments from his account and provide certified account statements for the preceding six months.
Ruling
Because Seabrooks submitted the complaint without the fees, a completed application, or a prisoner authorization, the court ordered him to do one of the following within 30 days of the order: pay $402 or submit the required application and authorization labeled with docket number 23-CV-6919 (LTS). The court stated that no summons would be issued at that time. It further stated that, if Seabrooks failed to comply within the allowed period, the action would be dismissed.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain certified that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for that appeal. The order did not grant or deny permission to proceed without prepaying fees in the underlying action, and it did not rule on the merits of Seabrooks’s claims.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.