Banks et al v. Chicago Police Department et al

Filing 8

MEMORANDUM Opinion and Order, Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 8/20/2012.(ea, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
LARRY BANKS,
Plaintiff,
v.
CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT,
et al.,
Defendants.

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Case No. 12 C 4999

MEMORANDUM ORDER
This Court's June 26, 2012 memorandum order in this case began in this fashion:
Although multiple filer Larry Banks ("Banks") seeks in forma pauperis status in
connection with this putative 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ("Section 1983") lawsuit, he has
not complied with the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(2) that require him to
provide a certified copy of his trust fund account statements for the six-month
period that preceded the filing of his Complaint. That makes it impossible for this
Court to determine whether he is enabled to pay the $350 filing fee in
installments or is required instead to pay that fee up front.
Some three weeks later Banks responded with what he captioned "Plaintiff Motion To Take
Judicial Notice," in which he reported:
1.

At that point he had been at the Pinckneyville Correctional Center
("Pinckneyville") for less than 90 days (hence less than the
statutory six-month period).

2.

Before that he had been housed at the Cook County Jail from
April 2011 forward.

3.

Because he had filed earlier lawsuits that he claimed contained the
necessary information about the transactions in his account while
at the Cook County Jail, he asked this Court to retrieve the required
information from those earlier cases.

This Court essayed to do Banks' work for him without success, because the records filed

in those earlier actions did not provide the missing information from the portion of the relevant
six-month period preceding the filing of this lawsuit (see 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(2)1) before he was
transferred to Pinckneyville. But more significantly, this Court's search on Banks' behalf turned
up Judge Edmond Chang's July 5, 2012 minute order dismissing an action (12 C 4997) that
Banks had filed immediately before this one, which order stated that it constituted Banks' third
"strike" under Section 1915(g).
That being the case, there is no need to search on Banks' behalf any longer. Instead
Section 1915(g) dictates that Banks must pay the $350 filing fee in this case in full and up front.
Because he admittedly cannot do that, this action is dismissed.2

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Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date: August 20, 2012

1

Further citations to Title 28 provisions will simply take the form "Section --."

2

This dismissal is not of course on the merits of Banks' claim (a subject on which this
Court expresses no view). It is accordingly entered without prejudice.
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