Urena v. The City of New York
- Jesse Furman
- 1:24-cv-01886
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Urena v. The City of New York, Judge Swain ordered Amaury Urena to pay fees or submit forms within 30 days before the case could proceed.
Amaury Urena, who must either pay the required fees or submit the specified IFP application and prisoner authorization within 30 days for the action to proceed.
What happened
In Urena v. The City of New York, Amaury Urena filed a civil action without paying the required fees or submitting the forms needed to ask to proceed without paying them upfront. The order states that Urena is incarcerated and is representing himself.
Judge Swain ordered Urena, within 30 days, either to pay $405 in fees or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees and a prisoner authorization. The authorization would allow installment payments from his prison account and require certified account statements.
The order states that no summons would issue yet and that the case would be processed if Urena complied. If he did not comply within the deadline, the action would be dismissed. Judge Swain also denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees.
The detailed version
- Urena v. The City of New York · No. 1:24-cv-01886
- Jesse Furman
- Mar. 14, 2024
Background
Amaury Urena filed this civil action without paying the required filing fees and without submitting a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees or the required prisoner authorization. The order states that Urena is incarcerated at Rikers Island—Rose M. Singer Enhanced Supervised Housing and is proceeding without a lawyer.
Required filings and fees
The court explained that a prisoner starting a civil action must either pay $405—$350 for the filing fee and $55 for the administrative fee—or submit an application to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP), meaning without paying the fees upfront, together with a prisoner authorization. If the IFP application is granted, the $350 filing fee must still be collected in installments from the prisoner's account. The prisoner authorization permits the facility to make those deductions and requires certified copies of the prisoner's account statements for the preceding six months.
Ruling
The court ordered Urena to do one of the following within 30 days of the order: pay the $405 in fees, or submit the attached IFP application and prisoner authorization labeled with docket number 24-CV-1886 (LTS). No summons would issue at that time. The order states that, if Urena complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk's Office procedures; if he failed to comply within the allowed time, the action would be dismissed.
The court also certified that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied IFP status for purposes of an appeal. The order further cautioned that certain future dismissals of prisoner actions may count as “strikes” under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g).
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.