Lombard v. WinWest Shelters
- Laura Swain
- 1:24-cv-00853
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Lombard v. WinWest Shelters, Chief Judge Swain ordered Jennifer Lombard to pay $405 or file a fee-waiver application within 30 days.
Jennifer Lombard must either pay the $405 in fees or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees within 30 days. The case will be dismissed if she does not comply, and no summons will issue at this time.
What happened
Lombard v. WinWest Shelters concerns Jennifer Lombard’s lawsuit, which she filed without a lawyer and without paying the required fees or submitting an application to proceed without prepaying them.
The court ordered Lombard, within 30 days, either to pay $405 or submit a signed application showing that she cannot afford the fees. No summons will issue yet. If she does not comply, the action will be dismissed; if the court approves her application, she may proceed without paying the fees in advance.
Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ruled that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for an appeal. The order did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Lombard v. WinWest Shelters · No. 1:24-cv-00853
- Laura Swain
- Feb. 7, 2024
Background
Jennifer Lombard filed this civil action without a lawyer. The opinion states that she submitted the complaint without paying the required fees and without an application to proceed without prepaying fees, commonly called an application to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP). The opinion does not describe the underlying claims.
Order
The court explained that filing a civil action required either payment of $405—consisting of a $350 filing fee and a $55 administrative fee—or submission of a signed IFP application under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1914 and 1915.
The court ordered Lombard to do one of the following within 30 days of the order’s date:
- pay the $405 in fees; or - submit the attached signed IFP application, labeled with docket number 24-CV-0853 (LTS).
The court stated that, if it grants the IFP application, Lombard will be allowed to proceed without paying the fees in advance. No summons would issue at that time. If Lombard did not comply within the allowed period, the action would be dismissed. The opinion does not state that the court ruled on the merits of Lombard’s claims.
Appeal
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith. It therefore denied IFP status for purposes of an appeal.
Disposition
Judge Laura Taylor Swain directed Lombard to pay the required fees or submit an IFP application within 30 days. The order also denied IFP status for an appeal. It did not dismiss the action at that time.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.