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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. 15-1729

RAHIM MCWILLIAMS,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division

No. 15 C 0053 — Samuel Der-Yeghiayan, Judge.

____________________

SUBMITTED DECEMBER 12, 2016 — DECIDED JANUARY 5, 2017*

____________________

Before KANNE, WILLIAMS, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM. Rahim McWilliams, who is now incarcerated in the Illinois Department of Corrections, broke a bone 

in his right hand after slipping and falling on a wet floor 

 * We have agreed unanimously to decide this case without oral argument because the appellant’s brief and the record adequately present 

the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not significantly 

aid the court. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

Case: 15-1729 Document: 49 Filed: 01/05/2017 Pages: 5
2 No. 15-1729

while detained at the Cook County jail in Chicago. In this 

action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Illinois law, McWilliams 

claims that employees at both the county jail and the state 

Department of Corrections deliberately ignored his injury 

until after it was too late to prevent permanent disfigurement and pain. McWilliams also claims that his fall resulted 

from staff negligence at the county jail. His operative complaint identifies the intended defendants to include Cook 

County and unnamed physicians and guards, but the lawsuit never proceeded because the district court, after twice 

denying an application from McWilliams to proceed 

in forma pauperis (“IFP”), dismissed the action for failure to 

pay the filing fee. We authorized McWilliams to proceed 

with this appeal IFP, and we agree with him that the district 

court abused its discretion in denying leave to proceed IFP.

I. Background

For both of his IFP applications in the district court, 

McWilliams used a form provided by the clerk’s office for 

the Northern District of Illinois. That form includes a line, 

with checkboxes, constituting the applicant’s representation 

that the form is his or her “application □ to proceed without 

full prepayment of fees, or □ in support of my motion for 

appointment of counsel, or □ both.” The form, which says 

nothing about the need to file a separate motion if the assistance of counsel is desired, also asks prisoner applicants to 

provide an inmate identification number, the name of the

applicant’s institution, and records from the applicant’s inmate trust account. McWilliams checked the third box, indicating that his application was in support of “both” leave to 

proceed IFP and appointment of counsel. He answered all of 

the questions on the form, except that he omitted his identiCase: 15-1729 Document: 49 Filed: 01/05/2017 Pages: 5
No. 15-1729 3

fication number and the name of the prison (both of which 

appear prominently on his complaint submitted contemporaneously with the IFP application, as well as in the trust officer’s certification incorporated into the IFP application). On 

the IFP form, where McWilliams was asked if he or anyone 

living in the same residence had received “more than $200” 

from “other sources” not specifically listed on the form, he 

checked “yes” and explained that “Brittany Smith” had “received” a “donation” of $188. The district court denied IFP 

with the explanation, first, that McWilliams, by omitting his 

prisoner number and the name of the facility, had “failed to 

provide sufficient or accurate information.” The court also 

faulted McWilliams because, according to the court, he had 

“received $188 in gifts,” yet the statement from his prison 

trust fund “does not reflect any such income.” The district 

court did not acknowledge that McWilliams actually had 

said on his application that the $188 (an amount below the 

reporting threshold) was donated to Brittany Smith, not to 

him, and neither did the court explain its apparent belief that 

the $188, even if received in a lump sum by Smith, had been, 

or was required to be, deposited into McWilliams’s trust account. The court ordered McWilliams either to pay the filing 

fee or submit an “accurately and properly completed” application for IFP within the next month to avoid dismissal. In 

addition, the court said that it was denying McWilliams’s 

“motion for attorney assistance,” even though no such motion had been filed. 

McWilliams then submitted a second IFP application, 

along with a first motion for appointment of counsel. This 

time he provided his inmate identification number and the 

name of the prison where he was incarcerated, but instead of 

checking “no” in response to every question about sources of 

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funds, he said that he was not employed and wrote “N/A” 

across the remaining questions. On the IFP application the 

prison trust officer certified that McWilliams had $106.85 in 

his account and had received an average of $73.73 in the four 

months since his transfer to that facility. In his motion for 

appointment of counsel, McWilliams explained that he “has 

limited formal education of a fourth grader” and was dependent on help from other inmates. He also submitted a list 

of the law firms and legal-aid organizations he had asked to 

represent him. The district court denied the IFP application 

because McWilliams had written “N/A” instead of answering “no” to each specific question. The court then struck 

McWilliams’s motion for appointment of counsel as moot 

and dismissed the action.

II. Analysis

The district court erred. As we have noted, the information purportedly missing from McWilliams’s first IFP application was already in the court’s hands, not only on his 

contemporaneously filed complaint but also in the trust officer’s certification incorporated into the IFP application. 

And the court’s conclusion that the application was inaccurate simply because McWilliams’s trust account did not 

show a deposit of $188 is unpersuasive; even if that amount 

was donated to McWilliams and not to Brittany Smith (as the 

form says), nothing suggests that the funds were received in 

a lump sum. More importantly, we are not aware of any requirement that all financial resources available to an inmate 

be deposited into his or her trust account. What matters is 

disclosure; a district court may dismiss a complaint if a 

plaintiff's allegation of poverty is untrue, 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1915(e)(2)(A), but the court here did not point to anything 

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No. 15-1729 5

untruthful about McWilliams’s submission. See Arzuaga v. 

Quiros, 781 F.3d 29, 34 (2d Cir. 2015) (noting that § 1915 

“does not mandate that a prisoner proceeding IFP must disclose every deposit he or she receives in her prisoner trust 

account”). In this instance the plaintiff disclosed an amount 

below the $200 reporting threshold listed on the form—and 

for that candor he was penalized. As for McWilliams’s second application, moreover, the meaning of “N/A” on the 

form could not have been unclear given his first application.

That McWilliams was indigent and qualified to proceed 

IFP is apparent from the two applications he submitted to 

the district court. This case should have proceeded nearly 

two years ago, and unless significant financial resources 

have become available to McWilliams since we granted his 

application to proceed IFP on appeal, the district court must 

grant IFP and move the case forward. On remand the district 

court should take up McWilliams’s request for counsel, since 

identifying the correct defendants through discovery will be 

a critical first step in the litigation.

III. Conclusion

The judgment is VACATED, and the case is REMANDED

for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

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