Hayes v. ASCAP
- Laura Swain
- 1:24-cv-01883
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Hayes v. ACAP, Judge Swain ordered a legible signed complaint and fee-waiver application, warning the action would otherwise be dismissed without prejudice.
The order directly affects Arika A. Hayes and potentially Vavsh Pu, the plaintiffs listed in the caption, by requiring a legible signed complaint and fee-waiver application before the case proceeds. It also affects the named defendants because no summons will issue at this time.
What happened
In Hayes v. ACAP, the court said Arika A. Hayes’s complaint and application to proceed without paying filing fees were unsigned, malformed, or largely unreadable. The caption also lists Vavsh Pu as a plaintiff.
The court ordered the plaintiff to submit a legible, signed complaint and fee-waiver application within 30 days, preferably by mail. It said no summons would issue yet and explained that the action would be dismissed without prejudice if the plaintiff did not comply or again submitted an unreadable complaint.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also denied fee-waiver status for any appeal by certifying that an appeal would not be taken in good faith. The order did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Hayes v. ASCAP · No. 1:24-cv-01883
- Laura Swain
- Mar. 25, 2024
Background
The caption lists Arika A. Hayes and Vavsh Pu as plaintiffs and ACAP (NFPO) and John Does 1–10 as defendants. The order states that Arika Hayes was proceeding without a lawyer. The original complaint and the application to proceed without paying filing fees were submitted without signatures. The court also found that both documents were malformed or corrupted and largely unreadable on the docket.
Hayes resubmitted the complaint by email on March 25, 2024, but the court found that version unreadable as well. The court explained that an unrepresented party must sign a pleading under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(a). For mailed or hand-delivered filings, the signature must be handwritten. For an emailed filing by a self-represented party, the court said the filing may use an electronic signature or a typed name preceded by “/s/” in the signature block, consistent with the Southern District of New York’s electronic-filing rules.
Order
The court directed the plaintiff to resubmit a legible, signed complaint and fee-waiver application within 30 days of the order’s date. The documents must include docket number 24-CV-1883 (LTS). The court recommended regular mail because of the plaintiff’s difficulties submitting an adequate electronic document.
No summons shall issue at this time. The court stated that, if the plaintiff complies, the case shall be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures. If the plaintiff fails to comply within the allowed time, or again submits an unreadable complaint by email, “the action will be dismissed without prejudice,” meaning the order did not bar refiling.
The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying filing fees for an appeal. The order did not address the merits of the claims.
Result
Judge Laura Taylor Swain entered a procedural order requiring corrected filings; she did not dismiss the action at that time. The order warned that the action would be dismissed without prejudice if the filing requirements were not met.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.