Could a Louisiana clerk withhold a pauper plaintiff's signed divorce judgment until court costs were paid?

Plain-English summary

A divorce plaintiff had valid pauper status, and a signed judgment cast court costs on the defendant. The Iberia Parish clerk wanted to withhold processing and filing the judgment until the costs were paid. In Opinion 03-0060, the Louisiana Attorney General said the clerk could not do that. He read the plaintiff's right to proceed without prepaying costs as extending through processing the signed judgment.

The AG distinguished a clerk's statutory power to refuse some work after an advance deposit was exhausted. This plaintiff had not been required to make an advance deposit because of pauper status, so the opinion said that power did not apply. It relied on Louisiana court decisions protecting meaningful access to judgments for litigants proceeding in forma pauperis. The letter allowed the clerk to pursue costs from the defendant after processing the judgment, because the judgment charged that defendant with them.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 2003. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

What the opinion meant at issuance

Court clerks

For the properly certified pauper plaintiff described, the AG said the clerk had to process the signed judgment without conditioning that step on prepayment. He distinguished the rule for an exhausted advance deposit from a case in which no deposit was required.

Litigants with pauper status

The opinion treated access to the signed judgment as part of the protected ability to pursue the case. Its answer depended on the plaintiff's valid pauper status. The defendant being charged with costs mattered to whom the clerk could seek payment from afterward.

Common questions

Q: Could the clerk hold the signed divorce judgment until someone paid court costs? A: The AG said no for the properly certified pauper plaintiff in the request. The plaintiff's waiver meant there was no advance deposit to exhaust.

Q: Did pauper status erase the defendant's obligation for costs? A: The opinion did not say so. It said the clerk could seek costs from the defendant after processing the judgment because the judgment cast costs against the defendant.

Q: Did the clerk's power to refuse work after a deposit runs out apply? A: The AG said it did not apply here: the plaintiff had not been required to pay an advance deposit in the first place.

Background and statutory framework

The letter discussed LA. R.S. 13:842 on an exhausted advance deposit and LA. C.C.P. 5181 on proceeding without payment of costs. It cited Louisiana Supreme Court reasoning in Benjamin v. National Supermarkets, 351 So.2d 138, and a state appellate decision, Carline v. Carline, 644 So.2d 835, concerning a pauper litigant's access to a divorce judgment. The first-page date stamp reads "FEB 8 2003."

Citations and references

Authorities in the opinion: LA. C.C.P. 5181; LA. R.S. 13:842; Benjamin v. National Supermarkets, 351 So.2d 138; Carline v. Carline, 644 So.2d 835. The letter also cited a third Louisiana Supreme Court case on rules that conflict with pauper-procedure statutes; its party names are OCR-damaged, so they are omitted here.

Source

• Landing page: https://www.ag.state.la.us/Opinions
• Original PDF: https://www.ag.state.la.us/Opinion/Download/03-0060

Original opinion text

Best-effort transcription from a scanned PDF. Minor errors may remain — the linked PDF is authoritative.

One American Place
301 Main Street, Suite 600
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
P.O. Box 9400.5
clv=, DW~S,ON
TEL.: (22.5) 342-7013
BATON ROUGE
FAX: (225) 342-2090

RICHARD P. I£YOUB
70804-9005
AT’rORNEY GENERAL

FEB 8 2003
OPINION NUMBER 03-0060

10 - CLERK OF COURTS - Compensation & Fees; Powers & Duties, General
15 o COURTS
Lynn A. DeRouen
LA. C.C.P. 5181
DeRouen & Wattigny
LA. R.S. 13:842
LA. Attorney General Opinion No. 77-1574
103 East Main Street
The right of propedy certified pauper plaintiffs to have their
New Iberia, LA 70560 judgments processed, after such judgments are
appropriately signed, cleady outweighs and holds invalid any attempt by the clerk of court to infringe on this dght in retum
Dear Mr. DeRouen: for payment of court costs.

You have requested an opinion from our office on whether the Clerk of Court for Iberia Parish ("Clerk") must process and file a judgment before court costs are paid.
Specifically your question is formed in the context where a plaintiff filed and received a petition for divorce as a pauper. Subsequently a judgment was entered in favor of the plaintiff during her valid status as a pauper, charging the defendant with costs.

In support of the Clerk’s desire to withhold the judgment until payment is received, you have noted LA. R.S. 13:842 and Louisiana Attorney General Opinion No. 77-1574.
While LA. R.S. 13:842 does give the Clerk some power to "refuse to perform" certain functions, this power is clearly stipulated on the condition that the original advance deposit has been exhausted. Since the plaintiff’s costs are waived due to pauper status, no original advance deposit was required nor could be exhausted. I_A. R.S.
13:842 is evidently targeted towards parties who have the ability to pay and have not, and is inapplicable to the plaintiff’s situation. Louisiana Attorney General Opinion No.
77-1574 is also inapplicable because it recognizes the Clerk’s power to withhold functions for plaintiffs and interveners who are able to pay but have not.

LA. C.C.P. 5181 grants a right to this plaintiff to have her claim adjudicated and propedy executed without having to pay court costs. The Louisiana Supreme Court has protected the rights of paupers to have their claims adjudicated, and withholding the processing of their judgments would interfere with this right. In Benjamin v. National Supermarkets, the Supreme Court states, "[t]he purpose of these (in forma pauperis) articles is to enable indigent persons to assert their causes in the courts of this state.
This statutory privilege is to be interpreted liberally in favor of giving indigent persons their day in court." Benjamin v. National Supermarkets, 351 So.2d 138, at 140,141 (La.
Oct. 10, 1977). In furthering this theory, the court elaborates, "the grant of the privilege to litigate in forma pauperis is founded upon the view that in effect, the governmental bodies are merely furnishing without prepayment of cost its resources to the financially embarrassed litigant, in order to prevent his losing his day in court merely because of the financial expense to the government of entertaining his claim." /d at 141. Not allowing a properly qualified pauper plaintiff access to the courts, throughout the

Page 2

OPINION NUMBER 03-0060
Lynn A. DeRouen
Page - 2 -

complete process, would be an infringement of this protected right to assert his / her claim.

This point was further emphasized in Carline v. Carline, 644 So.2d 835, (La.App. 1 Cir. 1994). Here the Clerk of Court for Livingston Parish withheld a certified copy of the judgment of divorce because the properly certified pauper plaintiff could not pay court costs. Id. The court agreed with the plaintiff’s argument that she was entitled to a certified copy of the judgment in her divorce proceedings. Id. The court recognized the rights of poor litigants to assert their causes of action by stating, "The privilege of litigating without the paying of costs ...surely includes for the pauper the certification of a copy of a portion of the public record in the judicial proceeding." Id at 836. The court went further to criticize the conduct of the clerk of court by stating that, "It was improper to require [a pauper plaintiff] to pay the court costs before providing her with a single certified copy of the judgment contained in the public record of the instant proceedings." Id at 837. It is the opinion of this office that it would be equally improper for the Clerk of Court for Iberia Parish to hold a signed judgment of a pauper plaintiff.

Even in the case where a local rule delegated to the clerk of court the power to interrogate pauper plaintiffs on their ability to pay or not to pay, the courts have continued to protect the rights of pauper plaintiffs to receive their judgments. In this case of B. Futch v. B. Coumes, 347 So.2d 1121, (La. July, 1 1977), the court decided that the, "[local rule] ... is invalid because it is in conflict with the procedures provided by statute to permit persons with lack of sufficient means to proceed in forma pauperis." Id at 1124.

It is therefore the conclusion of this office that the right of properly certified pauper plaintiffs to have their judgments processed, after such judgments are appropriately signed, clearly outweighs and holds invalid any attempt by the Clerk of Court of Iberia Parish to infringe on this right in return for payment of court costs. It would be acceptable, after the judgment is completely processed, to proceed to collect court costs from the defendant since these fees were in fact cast against him and not the plaintiff. We trust that this answers your inquiry. Please contact our office if you have any further questions or concerns.

Very truly yours,

RICHARD P. IEYOUB
ATTORNEY GENERAL

By:
CHARLES H. BRAUD,
Assistant Attorney General

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