Robertson v. French

Federal 7th Circuit Court
Civil Court
Prisoners
Citation
Case Number: 
No. 17-3579
Decision Date: 
February 4, 2020
Federal District: 
C.D. Ill.
Holding: 
Reversed and remanded

Dist. Ct. erred in dismissing with prejudice plaintiff-prisoner’s lawsuit, where plaintiff had been granted his petition for leave to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP) under Prison Litigation Reform Act based on contention that he had only $219.36 in assets under circumstances where plaintiff had failed to disclose that he had reached $4,000 settlement with state that had yet to be deposited in plaintiff’s prison trust account. While Dist. Ct. concluded that plaintiff’s failure to disclose $4,000 settlement amounted to fraud upon court, Ct. of Appeals found that dismissal of plaintiff’s lawsuit was improper, because: (1) plaintiff truthfully disclosed all of his assets at time of his IFP application; (2) any failure to report expected $4,000 settlement was at best inadvertent, which did not make IFP application untrue; and (3) actual deposit of $4,000 into plaintiff’s prison trust account approximately one year later constituted adequate disclosure to prison authorities of change in plaintiff’s income. As such, there should not have been any dismissal based on untrue allegations of poverty.