The Code of Civil Procedure avoids a precise measurement of applicant indigency, preferring to describe the effect rather than the nature of the impoverishment and declining to impose any specific income threshold. An applicant is entitled to the privilege when “unable to pay the costs of court in advance, or as they accrue, or to furnish security therefor, because of the applicant’s poverty and lack of means . . . .”1 Louisiana courts stress that IFP statutes individually and as a whole should be “interpreted liberally in favor of giving indigent persons their day in court.”2 Nonetheless, the applicant bears the burden of making a showing of indigency.
- 1La. C.C.P. art. 5183.
- 2Benjamin v. Nat'l Super Markets, Inc., 351 So. 2d 138, 141 (La. 1977); see also State v. Young, 22-454, p. 3 (La. App. 5 Cir. 10/14/22), 2022 WL 7935147 (noting the “intended liberal application of the status”); Hudson v. Williams Olefins Dev., LLC, 2017-0705, p. 1 (La. App. 1 Cir. 7/11/17), 2017 WL 2981869 (“This statutory privilege is to be interpreted liberally in favor of giving indigent persons their day in courts.”); Butler v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 2017-0696, p. 1 (La. App. 1 Cir. 7/10/17), 2017 WL 2929557 (same); Gebre v. City of New Orleans, 2014-0904, p. 10 (La. App. 4 Cir. 10/7/15), 177 So. 3d 723, 732 (same); Jackson v. Aetna Life & Cas. Co., 392 So. 2d 1073, 1075 (La. App. 3 Cir. 1980) (confirming the “general notion that this statutory privilege is to be interpreted liberally”); Roy v. Gulf States Utilities Co., 307 So. 2d 758, 760 (La. App. 3 Cir. 1975) (“[A] liberal construction should be applied in close or questionable cases to make sure that a litigant who is entitled to such a privilege is not deprived of it.”).