Grajales v. Eli Lilly and Company
- James Oetken
- 1:23-cv-06972
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Grajales v. Eli Lilly, Judge Swain ordered the Clerk to return five unnecessary certified checks and denied appeal fee-waiver status.
Jose Antonio Grajales, who was directed to receive the five additional certified checks, and the Clerk of Court, who was directed to return them.
What happened
In Grajales v. Eli Lilly and Company, Jose Antonio Grajales paid the court’s $402 filing fee and also submitted five additional certified checks for smaller amounts. The opinion says those additional checks were unnecessary because the full filing fee had already been paid.
The court directed the Clerk of Court to return the five additional checks, totaling $.03, $.05, $.08, $.10, and $.25, to Grajales.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ruled that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-waiver status for an appeal. The order did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Grajales v. Eli Lilly and Company · No. 1:23-cv-06972
- James Oetken
- Aug. 18, 2023
Background
On August 8, 2023, Jose Antonio Grajales filed a complaint and paid the $402 filing fee required for a civil action in the court by submitting a certified check. He also submitted five additional certified checks in the amounts of $.03, $.05, $.08, $.10, and $.25.
Court’s Action
Because Grajales had already paid the full filing fee, the court determined that the five additional checks were unnecessary. It directed the Clerk of Court to return those checks to him.
The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith. As a result, it denied permission to proceed without paying the required fees for an appeal. The order addressed the filing checks and appeal-fee status; it did not decide the merits of the complaint.
Disposition
The Clerk of Court was directed to return the five additional certified checks. Permission to proceed without paying appeal fees was denied. This is a procedural order.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.