Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-12-16244/USCOURTS-ca9-12-16244-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Apple American Group
Appellee
Apple Nevada, LLC
Appellee
Applebees

Maria Escobedo
Appellant

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

MARIA ESCOBEDO,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

APPLEBEES,

Defendant,

and

APPLE AMERICAN GROUP; APPLE

NEVADA, LLC,

Defendants-Appellee.

No. 12-16244

D.C. No.

2:11-cv-00895-

PMP-CWH

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Nevada

Philip M. Pro, Senior District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

November 18, 2014—Pasadena, California

Filed June 4, 2015

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2 ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP

Before: Kim McLane Wardlaw and Richard A. Paez,

Circuit Judges, and Michael A. Ponsor,* Senior DistrictJudge.

Opinion by Judge Ponsor

SUMMARY**

Labor Law

The panel reversed the district court’s (1) dismissal of a

Title VII action as untimely and (2) denial of an application

to proceed in forma pauperis.

The panel held that for purposes of the ninety-day filing

limit set forth in 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1), the filing date of

a complaint is the date it is delivered to the court clerk,

whether it is submitted with or without an in forma pauperis

application.

The panel further held that it is an abuse of discretion to

deny an in forma pauperis application based upon a spouse’s

financial resources, unless there is a reasonable inquiry into

(a) whether the spouse’s resources are actually available to

the would-be plaintiff and (b) whether the spouse in fact has

sufficient funds, given his or her own expenses, to assist in

paying the fee.

*

 The Honorable Michael A. Ponsor, Senior District Judge for the U.S.

District Court for Massachusetts, sitting by designation.

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP 3

COUNSEL

Katelin Eastman (argued) and Sarah Gerdes (argued),

Pepperdine University School of Law, Ninth Circuit

Appellate Advocacy Clinic, Malibu, California; Jeremy B.

Rosen, Horvitz &LevyLLP, Encino, California, for PlaintiffAppellant.

Melissa Leigh Griffin (argued) and Beth Freuchtenicht Aney,

San Francisco, California, for Defendants-Appellees.

OPINION

PONSOR, Senior District Judge:

Appellant Maria Escobedo, acting pro se, submitted her

complaint, charging Appellee Apple Nevada with sexual

harassment and discrimination, to the U.S. District Court for

the District of Nevada on June 2, 2011. The complaint

arrived at the clerk’s office sixty-nine days after Escobedo

received her right-to-sue letter from the Equal Employment

OpportunityCommission, well within the ninety-daylimit set

forth in 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1).1

Along with her complaint, Escobedo filed an application

to proceed in forma pauperis (“IFP”). Thirty-four days later,

on July 6, 2011, outside the ninety-day deadline, a magistrate

judge first heard argument on the application and erroneously

denied it, based upon ungrounded assumptions regarding the

1 This appeal originally included Apple American Group. However, as

Escobedo’s Amended Complaint named only Apple Nevada, Apple

American Group is no longer a party to the suit.

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4 ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP

availability of Escobedo’s husband’s resources. During the

hearing, however, the magistrate judge told Escobedo that she

would have an additional thirty days to pay the $350 fee. 

Escobedo paid the fee on August 5, 2011, within the allotted

thirty days. Despite this, the district court subsequently

dismissed her complaint for violating the ninety-day

limitations period.

Escobedo (represented bycounsel) contends, first, that the

district court erred in dismissing her complaint as untimely

and, second, that the magistrate judge erred in denying her

IFP application. We agree on both points and reverse.2

We now hold that the filing date of a complaint is the date

it is delivered to the clerk, whether it is submitted with or

without an IFP application. Obviously, if an IFP application

is submitted with the complaint in lieu of the filing fee, and

the application is thereafter denied, the district court will be

free to dismiss the complaint if the fee is not paid within a

reasonable time following the denial. The filing date,

however, will be the date on which the complaint was

originally delivered to the clerk’s office along with the IFP

application.

2 There are five motions pending in this case, and we deny them all;

none of the material they identify was relied upon for purposes of this

opinion. Appellant’s Motion to File an Audio Cassette (Dkt. No. 20) and

Motion for Judicial Notice (Dkt. No. 43) are denied because they are

irrelevant to the issues before the court. Appellee’s Motions for Judicial

Notice (Dkt. Nos. 11 & 49) are denied as well because they are immaterial

to our analysis; in addition, the issues they attempt to raise are not

properly before the court. Finally, Appellee’s last Motion for Judicial

Notice (Dkt. No. 56) appears to be a duplicate of an earlier motion (Dkt.

No. 49) and is, accordingly, denied.

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ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP 5

We further hold that it is an abuse of discretion to deny an

IFP application based upon a spouse’s financial resources,

unless there is a reasonable inquiry into (a) whether the

spouse’s resources are actually available to the would-be

plaintiff and (b) whether the spouse in fact has sufficient

funds, given his or her own expenses, to assist in paying the

fee.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Escobedo worked as a prep cook for seven years at an

Applebee’s restaurant in Las Vegas, Nevada owned by Apple

Nevada. On November 3, 2010, Escobedo reported to the

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that

her employer had subjected her to sexual harassment,

discrimination on the basis of her gender and national origin,

and retaliation. A review of her claims reveals that they

could not, by any means, be characterized as frivolous. 

EEOC records apparently suggest that a letter may have gone

out to Escobedo on December 16, 2010, containing a Notice

of Right to Sue. Escobedo never received it. On January 30,

2011, Applebee’s fired Escobedo. In March 2011, concerned

that she had not heard anything, Escobedo contacted the

EEOC. On March 25, 2011, the EEOC sent out, and

Escobedo for the first time received, a copy of the Notice of

Right to Sue3

3 Apple Nevada argues that the March 25 date should be disregarded

because Escobedo must be presumed, despite her disclaimer, to have

received the earlier, December 16 letter within three days ofits being sent. 

See Schikore v. BankAmerica Supplemental Ret. Plan, 269 F.3d 956, 961

(9th Cir. 2001) (“The mailbox rule provides that the proper and timely

mailing of a document raises a rebuttable presumption that the document

has been received by the addressee in the usual time.”). This argument

has no merit. Any presumption was rebutted when the district court

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6 ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP

On June 2, 2011, sixty-nine days after receiving the rightto-sue letter, Escobedo submitted her pro se complaint to the

U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, bringing claims

of sexual harassment and discrimination on the basis of

gender and national origin against Applebee’s.4 With her

complaint, Escobedo filed an IFP application, in which she

certified that she could not pay the filing fee for her

complaint because of her poverty. She stated in her

application that she had income of $210 per week and paid

$684 per month in rent, as well as $15 a month on existing

credit card debts. Given that these expenses left her with less

than $150 per month for all other expenses, including food

and medical costs, Escobedo contended that the $350 filing

fee was sufficiently onerous that it should be waived.

On July 6, 2011, thirty-nine days after Escobedo filed her

complaint, and 103 days after receiving her March 25 rightto-sue letter, Escobedo obtained a hearing before a magistrate

judge on her IFP application. When asked by the judge how

she paid $684 per month for rent when she only received

$180 a week5in unemployment compensation, Escobedo

acceptedEscobedo’s representation under oath that she had never received

the first letter, and fixed March 25, 2011, as the jumping-off date for the

calculation of the statute of limitations. This factual finding was well

supported by the record and within the district court’s discretion. 

Moreover, as Apple Nevada recognizes, Escobedo is entitled to all

reasonable inferences in her favor at the Rule 12(b)(6) stage. Fed. R. Civ.

P. 12(b)(6).

4 Subsequently, Escobedo amended her complaint in September 2011 to

include a claim for retaliation as well.

5 An unexplained discrepancy exists between the weekly income

Escobedo claimed in her written IFP application ($210) and the amount

she claimed in open court during the hearing ($180). There is no reason

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ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP 7

replied that her husband helped with her housing expense. 

The magistrate judge next inquired into her husband’s

monthly income, which Escobedo stated was $1800 per

month in social security benefits. Based on this information

and the amount of Escobedo’s income, the magistrate judge

denied Escobedo’s IFP application. The record does not

reveal any inquiry by the magistrate judge as to whether her

husband’s financial resources were actually available to

Escobedo (beyond the help with the cost of housing), or

whether her husband had other offsetting legitimate expenses

that would reduce or eliminate his ability to assist in paying

the filing fee.

Following this, the magistrate judge set a deadline of

August 5, 2011, for Escobedo to pay the fee. In this portion

of the hearing, the magistrate judge and Escobedo had the

following ambiguous exchange:

The Court:

All right. Ms. Escobedo, what I’m going

to do is deny the motion to proceed in

forma pauperis. Because of your

household income, the Court is going to

require you to pay the filing fee in this

case. Once you pay that filing fee, then

the complaint will be filed and it can be

served by you on the Defendant

Applebees.

to think this minor discrepancy evidenced bad faith or deceitfulness. In

any event, the difference does not affect our analysis.

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8 ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP

Obviously, you’re aware that there may be

a motion to dismiss your complaint by

Applebees based on a failure to timely

file. The Court cannot and will not

address that issue until you serve

Applebees and they’re actually in the

lawsuit to respond to that question. I will

indicate and you see the letter already

from the EEOC Commission that those

requirements of filing dates are very firm

and there will not be room to waive that if

you’ve missed a filing date.

Now, today is the 6th of July. Can you

pay that filing fee by August the 5th?

That would be one month from now.

The Plaintiff:

How much would it be?

The Court:

I believe the filing fee now is $350.

The Plaintiff:

Very good.

The Court:

Okay. That’ll be due then by August 5,

2011. If nothing’s paid or filed by then,

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ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP 9

then of course the case would be

dismissed.

Escobedo managed to pay the filing fee on August 5,

2011, within the district court’s time frame, but 133 days

following the receipt of the right-to-sue letter. Even if the

ninety-day clock were tolled during the thirty-four days while

Escobedo’s IFP application awaited a ruling (to which

Applebees vigorously objects), Escobedo would still be nine

days outside the ninety-day limitations period, if we were to

agree with the lower court that the complaint could only be

deemed “filed” once the fee was paid and not when it was

first delivered to the clerk.

On March 8, 2012, Apple Nevada filed a motion to

dismiss Escobedo’s Amended Complaint. Escobedo filed a

pro se opposition. On May 15, 2012, the district court heard

argument on the motion and granted it both as to Escobedo’s

complaint and as to her amended complaint. The district

court construed the complaint’s filing date to be the date on

which the filing fee was paid, August 5, 2011, and not the

date the complaint was originally delivered to the clerk’s

office, June 2, 2011. Though accepting that the statute of

limitations may have been tolled while the IFP application

awaited a ruling, the district court found that, due to the time

that had elapsed between the date of the magistrate judge’s

denial of the application and the date on which she paid the

fee, Escobedo’s complaint was actually filed nine days

outside the statute of limitations period. Entry of judgment

in favor of Apple Nevada followed.

Escobedo filed a timely appeal on May 24, 2012, and on

October 22, 2013, our court appointed counsel. Along with

the Pro Bono Order, we requested that the parties address the

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10 ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP

relevance of the constructive filing rule, as explained in Loya

v. Desert Sands Unified Sch. Dist., 721 F.2d 279 (9th Cir.

1983), and as applied to an analogous situation in Baker v. La

Cumbre Mgmt. Co., Inc., 9 Fed. App’x 752 ([9th Cir.] 2001)

(unpublished). We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.

§ 1291, which extends to an appeal of a final decision of a

United States district court.

II. DISCUSSION

A. The Timeliness of Escobedo’s Complaint

The dispute regarding the timeliness of Escobedo’s

complaint presents a question of law, which we review de

novo. Mann v. Am. Airlines, 324 F.3d 1088, 1090 (9th Cir.

2003); Valenzuela v. Kraft, Inc., 801 F.2d 1170, 1172 (9th

Cir. 1986).

As noted above, the district court assumed that the

complaint in this case, despite its timely delivery to the clerk,

could not be considered “filed” until the $350 fee had either

been paid or waived as a result of a favorable ruling on the

IFP application. Although it recognized that the pendency of

the IFP application tolled the statute of limitations up until

the date the magistrate judge ruled—a point Apple Nevada

takes issue with—the district court determined that the tolling

ceased immediately upon the denial of the application, even

though the magistrate judge granted Escobedo an additional

thirty days to pay the fee. Accordingly, since Escobedo paid

the filing fee at least ninety-nine days after receipt of the

EEOC’s right-to-sue letter, the district court dismissed

Escobedo’s complaint as untimely.

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ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP 11

The parties have largely cast their dispute as being over

(1) whether Escobedo should be deemed to have

“constructively” filed her complaint when she first delivered

it along with the IFP application to the clerk’s office, and (or

alternatively) (2) whether the ninety-day limitations period

should have been tolled both during the time between

Escobedo’s filing of her IFP application and the magistrate

judge’s ruling on it, as well as during the thirty days

following the ruling—i.e., the period the magistrate judge

gave Escobedo to pay the fee.

Despite counsel’s resourceful efforts, neither the

“constructive” filing theory nor the “equitable tolling”

analysis fits well with the facts of this case. Black’s Law

Dictionary defines “constructive” as “[l]egally imputed;

existing by virtue of a legal fiction though not existing in

fact.” Black’s Law Dictionary 356 (9th ed. 2009). Analysis

of whether it is proper to deem something as “constructively”

occurring can implicate equitable considerations—where

there is a need, for example, to vindicate substantial justice—

but this is not always, and probably not usually, the way the

term is used. Black’s Law Dictionary offers an example of a

use of “constructive,” where a shift supervisor is deemed to

have “constructive” knowledge of a machine’s failure even

though he did not actually know about it until two days later. 

Id.

One of the cases that we asked the parties to address,

Loya, provides a good example of the use of this kind of legal

fiction. In that case plaintiff’s complaint arrived within the

limitations period, but the clerk rejected it because it was

typed on 81⁄2 by 13 inch paper, instead of 81⁄2 by 11 inch

paper. By the time the complaint arrived on the right-sized

paper, the limitations deadline had passed, and the district

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12 ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP

court dismissed it. We reversed, holding that “the district

court should regard as ‘filed’ a complaint which arrives in the

custody of the clerk within the statutory period but fails to

conform with formal requirements in local rules.” Loya,

721 F.2d at 281. Some touch of fiction was needed in Loya

because the actual complaint arrived some time after its

“constructive” filing date.

Similarly, inCintron v. Union Pacific Railroad Company,

813 F.2d 917 (9th Cir. 1987), the clerk mailed back a timely

complaint to counsel because it lacked two holes punched in

the top, omitted a cover sheet, and arrived with a check for

$99 instead of the correct fee, which was $60. By the time

the attorney re-filed a revised document with the correct fee,

the limitations period had run, and the district court dismissed

the new complaint as untimely. Again, we reversed, stating

that “[t]he consensus is that ‘[p]apers and pleadings including

the original complaint are considered filed when they are

placed in the possession of the clerk of the court.’” Id. at 920

(second alteration in original) (quoting Charles Wright &

Arthur Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1153 (1969),

and citing United States v. Dae Rim Fishery Co., 794 F.2d

1392 (9th Cir. 1986)). Based on this, we concluded that “the

appellant constructively filed his complaint when . . . he

delivered it to the clerk of the court, though he was not in

compliance with local rules and though he overpaid the filing

fee.” Id. at 921. Again, it was understandable to talk about

“constructive” filing in Cintron because the actual complaint

physically arrived some time after the date it was deemed to

have been filed.

Here, scant justification exists to invoke any “fiction.” It

is undisputed that the complaint was actually, physically

delivered to the clerk on June 2, 2011, and was retained by

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ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP 13

the clerk. We are not called upon to contrast true reality “A”

with imputed reality “B.” Rather, the task is to determine

what, as a legal matter, occurred in the context of the actual

facts.

This case offers facts much more like—indeed, identical

to—the facts we examined in our unpublished decision in

Baker. There, the plaintiff filed his Title VII complaint

within the ninety-day limitations period along with an IFP

application. The district court denied the petition on a date

outside the limitations deadline, the plaintiff paid the fee, and

the district court thereafter dismissed the complaint as

untimely. Our brief disposition made no reference to

“constructive” filing—it did not need to—but merely held

that the complaint had been filed when originally delivered to

the clerk. This simpler and more sensible approach comports

with the facts now before this court and therefore is the one

we approve here.

Arguments regarding the justification for “tolling” the

running of a limitations period are, of course, frequently

encountered, and—in contrast to situations where courts

consider whether something has “constructively” occurred—

issues of equity lie at their heart. See United States v. Kwai

Fun Wong, 135 S. Ct. 1625 (2015) (recognizing that “a court

usually may pause the running of a limitations statute in

private litigation when a party has pursued his rights

diligently but some extraordinary circumstance prevents him

from meeting a deadline” (internal quotations omitted)). If

Escobedo needed to invoke the doctrine of equitable tolling

here, she would, given her diligence, have an overpowering

argument. But invocation of the doctrine is unnecessary. 

Unlike Kwai Fun Wong, where delay by the court rendered a

claim untimely despite the plaintiff’s diligence, the simple

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14 ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP

fact is that Escobedo filed her complaint in this case well

prior to the deadline. No tolling is necessary.

We begin with the basics. Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 3 states that “[a] civil action is commenced by

filing a complaint with the court.” A related statutory

provision, 28 U.S.C. § 1914(a) provides that “[t]he clerk of

each district court shall require the parties instituting any civil

action . . . to pay a filing fee of $350.” Section 1915(a)(1)

allows federal courts to authorize commencement of a suit

“without prepayment of fees or security therefor, by a person

who submits an affidavit” demonstrating “that the person is

unable to pay such fees or give security therefor.” See Ingle

v. Circuit City Stores, Inc., 328 F.3d 1165, 1177 (9th Cir.

2003) (citing § 1915 and stating that “plaintiffs in all types of

cases may be exempt from paying court fees upon a showing

of indigence”).

Nothing in § 1914 or § 1915 contradicts the simple

directive set forth in Rule 3 that a civil action is commenced

by filing a complaint with the court. As with other pleadings

and papers, a complaint is filed “by delivering it . . . to the

clerk.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 5(d)(2). No justification exists to alter

the definition of “filing” simply because a complaint is

submitted to the clerk’s office along with an IFP application.

The district court’s ruling that the statute of limitations

will be tolled while a plaintiff’s IFP application is pending is

in line with the approach employed by other circuits. See

Truitt v. Cnty. of Wayne, 148 F.3d 644, 648 (6th Cir. 1998)

(holding that “the ninety-day period should be tolled during

the pendency of a plaintiff’s IFP application”); Jarrett v. US

Sprint Commc’ns Co., 22 F.3d 256, 259 (10th Cir. 1994)

(noting that constructive filing “exists until the IFP motion is

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ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP 15

ruled upon” and that a plaintiff should be entitled to “a ‘grace

period’ in which to pay the filing fee” after a denial); see also

Williams-Guice v. Bd. of Educ. of Chicago, 45 F.3d 161, 165

(7th Cir. 1995) (Easterbrook, J.) (recognizing that the

limitations period “remains in suspension for a reasonable

time—perhaps a time defined by local rules—after the district

court’s order” denying an application to proceed IFP).

A necessary corollary to the rule that a complaint will be

deemed filed at the time it is delivered to the clerk with an

IFP application, and that no time will be deducted from any

limitations period while the application awaits a ruling, is that

a would-be plaintiff must be given a reasonable time after a

denial of an application to pay the fee. The Williams-Guice

and Jarrett decisions explicitly recognize this, and any other

approach would be untenable. For better or worse, it is far

from uncommon for litigants, rich and poor, to tender

complaints at or near the outer limit of the statute of

limitations—sometimes on the day before the statute is due

to run. In these cases, a subsequent denial of the IFP

application, perhaps (as here) weeks later, without a

reasonable opportunity to assemble the funds to pay the fee,

would be grossly unfair. Escobedo delivered her complaint

in a timely manner, accompanied by an IFP application

submitted in good faith, but found herself barred from access

to the court by an arbitrary trip wire arising purely from her

need for reasonable time to gather the funds to pay the fee

after her IFP application was denied.

Some uncertainty might hypothetically arise regarding

what period of time would be “reasonable” to permit a

plaintiff to pay the fee following denial of the IFP

application. That problem does not infect this case. The

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16 ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP

magistrate judge explicitly established a reasonable deadline

of thirty days, and Escobedo complied with it.

The authority governing when a notice of appeal is timely

provides a helpful analogy. In Parissi v. Telechron, Inc., the

Supreme Court reversed the dismissal of a notice of appeal as

untimely where the notice was received within the thirty-day

window, but the $5 fee was paid outside that period. 

349 U.S. 46, 47 (1955). The court found that late payment of

the filing fee “did not vitiate the validity of petitioner’s notice

of appeal.” Id.; see also Klemm v. Astrue, 543 F.3d 1139,

1142 (9th Cir. 2008) (recognizing that a notice of appeal was

timely filed when placed in the hands of the clerk’s office

whether unaccompanied by a filing fee, or accompanied by a

postdated check); Gee v. Tenneco, Inc., 615 F.2d 857, 859

(9th Cir. 1980) (recognizing as timely a notice of appeal filed

within the prescribed time limit but where the fee was paid

after the time expired).

Given this background, the resolution of this case

emerges as simple. Escobedo filed her complaint when she

delivered it to the clerk’s office along with her IFP

application. Once the application was denied, she was

entitled to a reasonable time to pay the fee. Because she paid

the fee before the deadline set by the magistrate judge, her

complaint should not have been dismissed as untimely.

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ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP 17

B. The Denial of Escobedo’s IFP Application

Denials of IFP applications are reviewed for abuse of

discretion.6 O’Loughlin v. Doe, 920 F.2d 614, 616 (9th Cir.

1990). When the district court applies the correct law to

facts that are not clearly erroneous but rules in an irrational

manner, it may be viewed as having abused its discretion. 

Chang v. United States, 327 F.3d 911, 925 (9th Cir. 2003). 

Similarly, when a district court rules on an issue without

giving a party an opportunity to explain, or without adequate

support on the record, it has abused its discretion. See

Alexander v. Carson Adult High Sch., 9 F.3d 1448, 1450 (9th

Cir. 1993) (reversing and remanding the dismissal of a

complaint where district court did not give prisoner plaintiff

the opportunity to explain the drop in funds in his account);

cf. Ahanchian v. Xenon Pictures, Inc., 624 F.3d 1253, 1260

(9th Cir. 2010) (finding that the district court abused it

discretion where “without support in the record, it summarily

denied” the plaintiff’s timely motion for an extension).

6 Apple Nevada contends as a threshold matter that this issue is not

properly before the court either because Escobedo should have appealed

the denial within thirty days of the order, pursuant to Fed. R. App. P.

4(a)(1)(A), or because Apple Nevada was not a party to the suit at the time

of the denial and thus lacks standing to defend the ruling. Neither of

Apple Nevada’s arguments holds any water. While Escobedo perhaps

could have appealed the denial of her IFP application at an earlier point,

she was not required to do so. An appeal from a final judgment

encompasses all antecedent orders. See Firestone Time & Rubber Co. v.

Risjord, 449 U.S. 368, 373–74 (1981). Furthermore, Apple Nevada’s

supposed “lack of standing” does not deprive Escobedo of the right to

review before this court. Of course, Apple Nevada was not obligated to

defend the district court’s denial of Escobedo’s IFP application, if it truly

felt it lacked standing. It could have remained silent on the issue, which

it certainly has not.

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18 ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a), a plaintiff may

commence an action without paying the filing fees where she

submits an affidavit stating that she lacks sufficient funds and

where her suit is not frivolous or malicious.7 Franklin v.

Murphy, 745 F.2d 1221, 1226 (9th Cir. 1984). An affidavit

in support of an IFP application is sufficient where it alleges

that the affiant cannot pay the court costs and still afford the

necessities of life. Adkins v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co.,

335 U.S. 331, 339 (1948). The IFP statute does not itself

define what constitutes insufficient assets. As this court has

recognized, “[o]ne need not be absolutely destitute to obtain

benefits of the in forma pauperis statute.” Jefferson v. United

States, 277 F.2d 723, 725 (9th Cir. 1960). Nonetheless, a

plaintiff seeking IFP status must allege poverty “with some

particularity, definiteness and certainty.” United States v.

McQuade, 647 F.2d 938, 940 (9th Cir. 1981) (internal

quotation marks omitted).

Two compelling questions arise from the denial of

Escobedo’s IFP petition.8 First, when are an individual’s

7 The district court did not deny the IFP application on this ground; as

noted above, Escobedo’s lawsuit is in no way frivolous or malicious.

8 Apple Nevada argues that Escobedo’s complaint should be dismissed

because her allegations of poverty are untrue. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)

(providing that “[n]otwithstanding any filing fee . . . that may have been

paid, the court shall dismiss the case at any time if the court determines

that – (A) the allegation of poverty is untrue”). In her application for IFP

status, Escobedo averred that she paid “rent,” which Apple Nevada

contends was untruthful since she and her husband owned their house. 

The argument is without merit. To dismiss Escobedo’s complaint

pursuant to § 1915(e)(2), a showing of bad faith is required, not merely

inaccuracy. The scanty offering by Apple Nevada on this point suggests

that Escobedo’s allegations regarding her amount of “rent” were not

significantly different from what Apple Nevada concedes she paid for her

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ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP 19

assets and income too limited to pay the filing fee? See

28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(1). Second, how should a court go about

determining whether the assets of a litigant’s spouse may be

considered in reviewing an IFP application?

In this case, the $350 fee represented roughly forty

percent of Escobedo’s monthly income before expenses. 

Once her rent and debt payments were taken into account, she

would have had to dedicate the entirety of two-months’ worth

of her remaining funds, meaning that she would have to

forego eating during those sixty days, to save up to pay the

filing fee.

As noted above, there is no formula set forth by statute,

regulation, or case law to determine when someone is poor

enough to earn IFP status. Whatever the standard, $350 is a

lot of money to many millions of Americans. A person

working full-time at a minimum wage job will, with the

normal deductions, likely take home less than $350 in a

typical forty-hour week.

In commenting on the required payment of only a $30 fee

in a different context, Judge David Hamilton has noted that

while this amount “may not seem like much to the governing

class in our society, including lawyers and judges, it is for too

mortgage. No significant misrepresentation was made regarding

Escobedo’s expenses. Moreover, nothing in the record suggests Escobedo

had any equity in her home, a telling omission since, as Escobedo’s

counsel points out, large numbers of homes in Nevada were “under water”

in 2011. Finally, the evidence on which Apple Nevada’s flimsy

allegations rely is not properly before court. See United States v. Walker,

601 F.2d 1051, 1054 (9th Cir. 1979) (stating that the court will not permit

a party to augment the record and to present evidence to this court that

was not before the district court).

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20 ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP

many people a vital amount of cash.” Markadonatos v.

Village of Woodridge, 739 F.3d 984, 1000 (7th Cir. 2014)

(Hamilton, J., dissenting) (describing how a $30 fee

represented the “average allotment under the federal Food

Stamp program . . . to help feed an adult for a week” as well

as the wages for more than a half day of work under the

federal minimum wage), rehearing en banc granted, opinion

vacated, 760 F.3d 545 (7th Cir. 2014).

If we were to consider only the monies coming to

Escobedo herself, as set forth in her affidavit in support of her

IFP application, we would have no hesitation in concluding

that the magistrate judge’s denial of the application

constituted an abuse of discretion. Escobedo was plainly

indigent, and her application should have been allowed. Even

taking into account the income of both Escobedo and her

husband—assuming the husband’s income was properly

assessed, which for the reasons set forth below we find it was

not—the magistrate judge’s ruling represented, at best, the

outer boundary of stringency. Including Escobedo’s

husband’s income with hers, the filing fee would still be

twenty-six percent of Escobedo’s communal property share

of the family’s monthly income and thirteen percent of the

total monthly family income.

Apple Nevada, in defending the magistrate judge’s ruling,

suggests a benchmark of twenty percent of monthly

household income. Only when this percentage of available

funds is exceeded, it argues, should the IFP petition be

allowed. Significantly, this benchmark comes from

28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(1), which dictates that a court shall

calculate a prisoner’s monthly contribution toward payment

of the full filing fee based on twenty percent of the prisoner’s

monthly income while incarcerated. Twenty percent of

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ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP 21

Escobedo’s household income (including all her husband’s

income) is above the $350 filing fee, a fact that Apple says

supported denial of the application.

The simple response to this contention is that prisoners

have limited overhead. Though twenty percent may be an

appropriate measure for a person who is incarcerated, it is

inappropriate for someone like Escobedo, who must pay for

the roof over her head and the food on her table or go without

shelter and sustenance. See Olivares v. Marshall, 59 F.3d

109, 112 (9th Cir. 1995) (recognizing that district courts may

consider a prisoner’s choice in how to spend money as he has

many amenities “furnished by the prison,” while cautioning

that financial circumstances must be re-evaluated upon

parole).

The question whether Escobedo’s husband’s social

security income should have been included in the evaluation

of the IFP application would be difficult under any

circumstances. Here, the question is unanswerable due to

omissions in the record that should have been explored by the

magistrate judge at the IFP hearing. It is true, of course, that

spouses often share their respective incomes. In such a case

it might be appropriate to consider a spouse’s income as part

of the analysis leading to the ruling on the IFP application. 

In many cases, however, the marital arrangement may, for

good reason, not include sharing income, or a spouse will

have his or her own expenses (child support, say, for children

of a prior marriage) with little or nothing left over to share. 

For any number of reasons, one spouse’s funds may simply

not be available to the other spouse. See Lee v. McDonald’s

Corp., 231 F.3d 456, 459 (8th Cir. 2000) (remanding for

reassessment of the plaintiff’s ability to pay court fees

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22 ESCOBEDO V. APPLE AMERICAN GROUP

“excluding those assets to which [the plaintiff] has no legal

entitlement”).

None of that was explored here. Given this, it was an

abuse of discretion for the magistrate judge to include

Escobedo’s husband’s income in the calculation of whether

she could afford the filing fee. While the magistrate judge

was entitled to consider what access Escobedo had to other

assets, see McQuade, 647 F.2d at 940 (stating that it is

“within the court’s discretion to make a factual inquiry” into

a claim of poverty), it cut off the inquiry too soon. If

Escobedo’s husband’s assets were to be weighed, so too

should his expenses and other liabilities. See Alexander,

9 F.3d at 1450 (remanding to give plaintiff the opportunity to

explain the sudden depletion of his account).

III. CONCLUSION

Escobedo’s complaint was filed for purposes of the statute

of limitations when she delivered it to the clerk’s office along

with her IFP application. Since it was filed on time, it should

not have been dismissed for violation of the ninety-day

statute of limitations. Moreover, the magistrate judge’s

ruling denying the IFP application lacked adequate

foundation. Where a court wishes to rely on the income or

assets of a litigant’s spouse to assess eligibility for IFP status,

a reasonable inquiry into the actual availability of the

spouse’s assets must be made. We reverse and remand to the

district court for further proceedings consistent with this

opinion.

REVERSED and REMANDED.

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