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Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 17-3579

SHAUNTAE ROBERTSON,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

GLENDAL FRENCH, LIEUTENANT, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Central District of Illinois.

No. 1:14-cv-01272-CSB — Colin S. Bruce, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 10, 2019 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 4, 2020

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and KANNE and BRENNAN, Circuit Judges.

WOOD, Chief Judge. Hoping to find an effective way to curb 

frivolous lawsuits by prisoners, Congress enacted the Prison 

Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”) in 1996. Central to the law is 

its requirement that a prisoner who cannot pay a federal 

court’s filing fee at the time he files a case must pay the fee in 

installments out of his future income. 

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The PLRA painstakingly spells out the procedure for assessing and collecting those payments. When a prisoner who 

believes that he is eligible to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP) 

files his case, he must submit an affidavit to the court, 28 

U.S.C. § 1915(a); his affidavit must provide a detailed account 

of all his assets, along with a copy of his prison trust-fund account statement. Id. Through the affidavit and account statement, the prisoner must be able to demonstrate that he does 

not have sufficient assets to pay the court’s filing fee. Id.

§ 1915(a)(1). If the court is persuaded that the prisoner has 

met this burden, it so certifies. At that point, the PLRA requires the prison having custody over the prisoner to forward 

20% of the income credited to the prisoner’s trust account to 

the court each month (subject to a floor not pertinent here)

until the full amount of the filing fee has been paid. Id. 

§ 1915(b)(2). If at any time the court discovers that the prisoner’s “allegation of poverty [was] untrue,” the court must 

dismiss the case. Id. § 1915(e)(2)(A).

The case before us requires us to decide whether a prisoner must disclose an expectation of future income on an IFP 

application, and if so, whether a failure to do so automatically 

makes an allegation of poverty “untrue” for purposes of the 

PLRA, or if instead only deliberate misrepresentations have 

that effect. We conclude that the best reading of the statute 

requires only disclosure of assets that may currently be used 

to pay the filing fee, and in the alternative, even if expected 

payments should have been included, the affidavit is “untrue” only if the prisoner’s statement was a deliberate misrepresentation. 

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I

Shauntae Robertson is a state prisoner at the Pontiac Correctional Center in Pontiac, Illinois. While he was incarcerated 

there, he alleges, the guards confined him in deplorable conditions. He says that he was isolated in a filthy cell, which was 

covered with urine and human feces and infested with insects 

and mice. Robertson further contends that the guards refused 

to give him his prescription medications and denied his repeated requests for supplies to clean the cell. After six days of 

confinement, Robertson attempted suicide. He received medical care and survived. Once he recovered, he brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the guards who allegedly

had violated his constitutional rights.

Along with his complaint, Robertson submitted a motion

for leave to proceed IFP. He furnished a handwritten affidavit 

in which he attested that he had no assets apart from $219.36 

in his prison trust account and that he had no income apart 

from an occasional allowance from his mother. Because the 

filing fee at the time was $350, the court found that he was 

indigent and granted his motion to proceed IFP. After several 

years of pre-trial proceedings, the court denied the state’s motion for summary judgment and set a date for a jury trial.

Eleven days before trial, the state moved to dismiss the 

case because it had just discovered that Robertson had not disclosed in his affidavit a $4,000 settlement agreement he had 

reached with the state. This was not a failure to disclose actual 

dollars; it was a failure to disclose the fact that the state had 

agreed to a future payment of $4,000 to resolve four earlier

cases Robertson had filed. At the time Robertson filed his IFP

affidavit, the settlement agreement had been finalized, but he 

had not yet received the money. It showed up in his prison 

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trust account some 12 months after he filed his IFP affidavit. 

The state’s motion to dismiss came along three-and-a-half 

years after the affidavit. Robertson had neither disclosed the 

expectation of receiving that money, nor the actual receipt 

when it happened. 

For reasons that are unclear on this record, there were bigger problems with Robertson’s payments—problems not of 

Robertson’s making. It seems that the prison neither sent 

along the initial filing fee nor any of the required later payments. (That initial fee should probably have been 20% of the 

$219 Robertson had, see § 1915(b)(1)(B), or approximately 

$44.) According to the district court’s docket, once the court 

granted Robertson’s IFP application, it entered the usual order directing the prison to pay the initial filing fee out of the 

income in Robertson’s trust account. The court directed the 

court clerk to mail a copy of that order to the Trust Fund Office of the Pontiac Correctional Center. Somehow that does 

not seem to have happened. In their motion to dismiss, the 

defendants submitted a declaration from Kimberly Verdun, 

an employee in the Trust Fund Office, who stated that she had 

performed a “diligent search” but “could not locate find [sic] 

any record that the Illinois Department of Corrections was 

served with the Court’s July 14, 2014 Order.”

After the state brought the settlement to the court’s attention, the court dismissed Robertson’s case with prejudice. It

concluded that “[t]he failure of a prisoner proceeding IFP to 

disclose subsequently received income has been viewed as a 

fraud upon the court.” 

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II

This case presents several questions about a prisoner’s 

duty to inform a court about assets he does not yet possess at 

the time he files his application to proceed IFP. In addition, 

we consider whether a prisoner has a continuing obligation to 

update the court about income he later receives if that income 

is deposited in his prison trust account. (We do not address 

new income that is held outside the prison; that situation is 

materially different, for purposes of the PLRA, from the one 

in which the prison itself knows exactly how much money the 

prisoner has in his trust fund at any given time. No one alleges 

that Robertson had any such outside income or assets.)

A

As we noted, the PLRA requires a prisoner applying to 

proceed IFP to disclose all his assets to the court. 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1915(a)(1). To facilitate that process, all of the nation’s district courts provide IFP application forms that are designed to 

guide that disclosure. Because the PLRA stipulates that a 

court must dismiss an IFP plaintiff’s case whenever it discovers that the plaintiff’s claim of poverty was untrue, a misrepresentation on an IFP application form is enough to support 

dismissal of the case.

Turning to our first question—whether income or assets 

expected in the future must be disclosed—we begin by looking at the language of the statute. There we find the present 

tense: the prisoner must furnish “a statement of all assets such 

prisoner possesses.” Id. § 1915(a)(1). In addition, to ensure 

that this snapshot of present assets is an accurate reflection of 

the prisoner’s financial situation, the PLRA calls for a sixmonth look-back. The prisoner must submit a “certified copy 

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of the trust fund account statement (or institutional equivalent) for the prisoner for the 6-month period immediately preceding the filing of the complaint.” Id. § 1915(a)(2). Although 

one could imagine statutory language that also requires information about anticipated future receipts, the PLRA is silent 

on that point. 

Bearing in mind the fact that many people filling out IFP 

applications are unsophisticated, we think that this is a time 

to stick with the literal language of the Act. Even though an 

agreement to pay an amount in settlement of a case is a contract, it is not the same as cash in hand. At the time he filled 

out his initial affidavit, Robertson did not “possess” the $4,000

in any sense relevant for the PLRA. He could not use that 

money to pay the court’s filing fee, because he did not yet 

have it. And it is highly unrealistic to think that someone in 

Robertson’s position could treat that contract the same way a 

business might treat accounts receivable, which can serve as 

collateral for a loan. As a practical matter, Robertson had no 

ability to convert his settlement award into cash. The PLRA 

requires the affidavit in order to establish whether the prisoner-plaintiff is able to pay the filing fee at the time he begins 

litigation. Robertson had no ability to use his anticipated settlement for that purpose, and so the award was not relevant 

to whether he could proceed IFP.

Although neither party suggested that we look to other 

laws for guidance, we note that such an inquiry reveals that 

each statute takes its own approach to the treatment of income 

that has yet to be received. Under the bankruptcy laws, for 

instance, debtors are expressly required to disclose “any reasonably anticipated increase in income ... over the 12-month 

period following the date of filing the petition.” 11 U.S.C. 

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§ 521(a). See also Official Form 106A/B, Schedule A/B: Property (requesting disclosure of “money or property owed to 

you”). In contrast, cash-basis taxpayers must include in their 

reported gross income only “items of income you actually or 

constructively received during the tax year,” I.R.S. Pub. 538 

(Jan. 2019), and it defines constructive receipt to include only 

income that “is credited to your account or made available to 

you without restriction.” Id. The PLRA contains nothing like 

the command in bankruptcy law to include future expected 

income. Moreover, since it is designed to inform the court 

both about the person’s indigence and about the proper 

amount of the initial payment, it makes sense to look at actual 

income.

If, contrary to our conclusion, the PLRA should be construed to require the disclosure of future income, then Robertson erred by failing to disclose his anticipated $4,000 payment. But that would not be the end of the matter. We would 

then need to decide whether his omission made his affidavit 

of poverty “untrue” within the meaning of Section 1915(e)(2)(A). The answer would depend on what the 

word “untrue” means. It could cover only a deliberate lie, or

it might sweep in an inaccuracy that was the product of confusion or misunderstanding. We review a district court’s finding that a plaintiff lied on an IFP application for clear error. 

Thomas v. General Motors Acceptance Corp., 288 F.3d 305, 308 

(7th Cir. 2002).

The PLRA does not define the word “untrue,” but the fact 

that the penalty for an “untrue” allegation of poverty is not 

simply an order requiring full payment, but instead is dismissal of the entire action, suggests to us that Congress meant 

something like “dishonest” or “false,” rather than simply 

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“inaccurate.” We have so understood the term in the past. See, 

e.g., Kennedy v. Huibregtse, 831 F.3d 441, 442 (7th Cir. 2016) (deliberate failure to disclose $1400 in trust account outside the 

prison); Thomas, 288 F.3d at 306 (deliberate misrepresentation 

about expected ERISA distribution); Mathis v. New York Life 

Ins. Co., 133 F.3d 546, 547 (7th Cir. 1998) (knowing provision 

of inaccurate information). Other circuits also understand it 

this way. See, e.g., Nottingham v. Warden, Bill Clements Unit, 837 

F.3d 438, 441 (5th Cir. 2016) (initial IFP application contained 

misrepresentations); Romesburg v. Trickey, 908 F.2d 258, 259 

(8th Cir. 1990) (intentional misrepresentation in affidavit). For 

the sake of completeness, we examine whether Robertson’s 

failure to disclose the expected payment was a deliberate attempt to conceal relevant information from the court.

The record evidence indicates that Robertson was not trying to conceal anything. First, he did not fill out the form himself; because (as he alleges) he can neither read nor write, he 

relied on another prisoner to fill out his affidavit for him. This 

prisoner apparently relied upon the short form IFP application that the Central District of Illinois makes available. The 

short form requires that the applicant list “[a]ny automobile, 

real estate, stock, bond, security, trust, jewelry, art work, or 

other financial instrument or thing of value that I own.” Robertson did not at that time have $4,000, and at the rate some 

states pay their bills, he had no idea when he would ever see 

it. There is no reason to assume that a prisoner of limited financial literacy understands that assets he has not yet received qualify as assets he “owns.” Additionally, in previous 

IFP cases Robertson had filed, he used the short form and disclosed settlement funds he already had received. The fact that 

Robertson had disclosed received settlement monies in the 

past further suggests that he did not intentionally mislead the 

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court about his financial circumstances here. On the basis of 

this record, we conclude that the district court clearly erred in 

concluding that Robertson engaged in an intentional misrepresentation.

The state contends that Robertson must have known that 

the settlement agreement was itself a “thing of value” and 

thus that his failure to disclose it was a deliberate lie. But that 

argument would be correct only if the PLRA follows the bankruptcy model, rather than the cash-taxpayer model, and we 

have concluded that it does not. Even under the bankruptcy 

laws, a debtor who makes a good faith omission on her petition may turn her claim over to the bankruptcy trustee. 

Metrou v. M.A. Mortenson Co., 781 F.3d 357 (7th Cir. 2015). The 

state also faults Robertson for failing to use the long form IFP 

application, which requires a plaintiff to identify “every person, business, or organization owing you ... money, and the 

amount owed.” But the PLRA does not require the use of the 

long form, and Robertson is not responsible for any discrepancies between the short and long forms. 

To recap, our primary conclusion is that the PLRA calls 

only for disclosure of current income that can be used to defray the filing costs. Any further income that is deposited in 

the prison trust account will automatically be available to the 

custodian for later installment payments under section 

1915(b)(2), and so no evasion is possible. While a prisoner 

may incur additional disclosure obligations by using something akin to the Central District’s long form IFP application, 

the statute itself does not require the disclosure of future income. In the alternative, we conclude that dismissal is proper 

only if the prisoner deliberately misrepresents his assets. At 

this juncture, it does not appear that Robertson did so. 

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B

If we are correct in holding that the PLRA does not require 

immediate disclosure of expected future payments, we must 

also reach the question whether it imposes a continuing obligation on a prisoner proceeding IFP to update the court about 

changes in his financial condition. As long as any such new 

assets are deposited in the prisoner’s institutional trust account, we conclude that the act of deposit is enough disclosure to satisfy the statute. Although we do not need to address 

what might happen if the assets were held outside the institution, we freely acknowledge that this would present a materially different problem.

Here, the district court concluded that the “failure of a 

prisoner proceeding IFP to disclose subsequently received income has been viewed as a fraud upon the court.” The court 

relied upon our decision in Thomas v. General Motors Acceptance Corp., supra, but that case is distinguishable. It did not 

involve a prisoner, and it did involve a deliberate, material lie 

on an IFP application. The IFP form Thomas used expressly 

required him to disclose any assets he was expecting to receive. He failed to reveal that just nine days earlier he had directed his former employer to distribute $73,714 to him from 

his retirement account. 288 F.3 at 306. We have no quarrel with 

that holding, but it sheds little light on the question whether 

the deposit of new funds into a prison account can suffice to 

prove disclosure.

The system established by the PLRA envisions that after 

the prisoner-plaintiff’s initial IFP affidavit, the prison administrator will pay the filing fee in increments out of the prisoner’s trust fund. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(2). These monthly payments are not the responsibility of the prisoner. The custodial 

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agency simply calculates the monthly payment due—20% of 

any income received the previous month—and forwards payment to the appropriate clerk of court each time that amount 

exceeds $10, until the full filing fee is paid. Id.

We grant that in Robertson’s case, this procedure broke 

down. Though it is not clear whether the court or the prison 

made the error, no one says that Robertson did. Indeed, the 

Trust Fund Office at Pontiac never forwarded any payment to 

the court, either initial or later, in clear violation of the statute. 

If this lapse had not occurred, then the moment Robertson’s 

$4,000 in settlement funds landed in his account, the Pontiac 

authorities would have forwarded whatever remained of the 

balance of Robertson’s filing fee—substantially less than the 

$800 representing 20% of the new income—to the court. Robertson should not lose the right to pursue his case because of 

someone else’s mistake.

The state insists that, despite the PLRA’s procedures, the 

prisoner still bears the burden of ensuring payment of the filing fee. It relies primarily on our decision in Lucien v. DeTella, 

141 F.3d 773 (7th Cir. 1998). In Lucien, a prison failed to remit 

the monthly 20% of a prisoner’s income, and in the meantime, 

the prisoner spent a good deal of the balance of his trust account. We held that, in light of his own role in depleting the 

account, the prisoner had to pay all of his income to the court

until the filing fee was satisfied, even if the payments exceeded 20% of his monthly account balance. Id. at 776. We reasoned that he should have watched his account more carefully 

and should have “refrain[ed] from spending the funds on personal items until they [could] be applied properly.” Id. But 

Lucien concerned only continued liability for the fee, not the 

right to litigate a case at all. Moreover, Lucien said nothing 

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about a prisoner’s duty to update the court when new income 

is deposited into his prison account. It held only that he 

should watch his expenditures when he is already liable for a 

filing fee. 

Nothing in this opinion abrogates our earlier decisions 

holding that a court has the power to monitor a prisoner’s financial situation in order to ensure that the prisoner does not 

deplete his trust account in order to avoid paying the filing 

fee. See Sultan v. Fenoglio, 775 F.3d 888, 891 (7th Cir. 2015) 

(“Our view would be different if there were evidence that Sultan was intentionally depleting his trust account to avoid paying his filing fee. If that were happening, the district court 

would be entitled to deny in forma pauperis status.” (citation 

omitted)). While a court may maintain this oversight role to 

prevent a prisoner from evading his obligation to pay, the 

prisoner’s obligation to disclose is satisfied once he makes a 

truthful statement of his financial condition at the time of filing.

We stress again that we have no comment on any ongoing 

duty to disclose assets received outside of his prison trust account—assets that are not automatically disclosed by virtue 

of their deposit in the prison’s own account. See Kennedy v. 

Huibregtse, supra (holding that dismissal under the PLRA was 

appropriate when a prisoner failed to disclose that he held 

$1400 in a trust account outside the prison). We address only 

assets that are promptly placed in the inmate’s prison trust 

fund.

III

The critical question under the PLRA is the prisoner-litigant’s financial position at the time he files his complaint. 

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Robertson truthfully disclosed all funds to which he had access at the time he filed his IFP application. Moreover, taking 

the current record in the light most favorable to Robertson, 

any failure to disclose the expected $4,000 was at best inadvertent, which is not enough to make it “untrue.” Finally, 

with respect to funds that are deposited into the prison trust 

account, we are satisfied that this deposit is, in itself, adequate 

disclosure to the prison authorities of changes in the prisoner’s income. We thus conclude that the district court should 

not have dismissed Robertson’s case for an “untrue” allegation of poverty. We REVERSE the judgment of the district 

court and REMAND this case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

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