Gentile v. Latona
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-08411
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Gentile v. Latona, Judge Swain ordered return of a $350 filing fee and denied fee-free appeal status.
Joseph J. Gentile, Jr., whose $350 filing-fee payment must be returned and who was denied fee-free status for an appeal; and the Clerk of Court, who was directed to return the payment.
What happened
In Gentile v. Latona, claims from Joseph J. Gentile, Jr.’s 2021 case were transferred from the Western District of New York, creating this separate action in the Southern District of New York. The court later dismissed this action for failure to state a claim.
The court had previously ruled that it would not collect this action’s filing fee because Gentile had not been asked to authorize withdrawals from his prison account. After the court received a $350 check from Mohawk Correctional Facility, it directed the Clerk of Court to return the check.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Gentile fee-free status for an appeal. The order addressed the filing fee and appeal status, not the merits of the already-dismissed claims.
The detailed version
- Gentile v. Latona · No. 1:22-cv-08411
- Laura Swain
- Oct. 6, 2023
Background
Joseph J. Gentile, Jr. originally filed an action in the Western District of New York in 2021. Some claims were severed and transferred to the Southern District of New York, where this action was opened under docket number 22-CV-8411. The opinion says that the action in this district was later dismissed for failure to state a claim on which relief may be granted.
Under federal law, a prisoner generally must pay the $350 filing fee even when proceeding without prepaying fees. The court had previously determined that it would not collect the fee for this action because Gentile had never been asked to submit the required authorization for withdrawals from his prison account.
Ruling
In October 2023, the court received a $350 check from Mohawk Correctional Facility for this action. Relying on its earlier order, the court directed the Clerk of Court to return the filing fee.
The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith. It therefore denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal. This order did not reconsider the dismissal of the claims or decide their underlying merits.
Name clarification
The opinion identifies the earlier Western District proceeding as Gentile v. Latona, while the current case caption lists Edward Burnett, et al. as defendants. The supplied case name is used in the metadata above.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.