United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted May 11, 2015*

Decided June 3, 2015

Before

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

ANN CLAIRE WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge

No. 14-2648

JEFF V. ALLEN,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

LASALLE COUNTY JAIL, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of 

Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 14 C 3603

Samuel Der-Yeghiayan,

Judge.

O R D E R

Jeff Allen, an Illinois inmate, appeals the district court’s dismissal of his 

complaint for failure to prosecute after he failed to comply with the court’s directive to

supplement his request to proceed in forma pauperis with required information about 

his financial status. We vacate the judgment and remand.

 

* The defendants were not served with process in the district court and are not 

participating in this appeal. After examining the appellant’s brief and the record, we 

have concluded that this appeal is appropriate for summary disposition. See FED. R.

APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
No. 14-2648 Page 2

Allen sued LaSalle County Jail and two jail officials, alleging that as a pretrial 

detainee he was subjected to an unreasonable strip-search and inhumane conditions of 

confinement. He asked the district court to let him proceed in forma pauperis, see 28 

U.S.C. § 1915, and filled out a form application asserting that his only income in the 

previous twelve months had come from monthly welfare checks. But he failed to submit 

any corresponding documentation from his jail to corroborate his income, as required 

by § 1915(a)(2), so the court denied the request. The court gave Allen a month to refile

“a properly completed IFP application form,” along with a certified prison trust fund

account statement, warning that failure to file the documents or pay the full filing fee

would result in dismissal. Allen responded by submitting a declaration swearing that 

he had only four cents in his prison trust account, and attached a computer 

printout—apparently generated by the LaSalle County Jail but not 

certified—chronicling seven months of commissary transactions, medical prescription 

payments, and payments for telephone usage, and reflecting a balance of $0.04. He also 

attached an unpaid bill for $770 from a recent emergency room visit. 

The district court terminated the case. Referring to its earlier warning, the court 

stated that Allen failed to refile an IFP application form and thus failed to provide the 

requisite information about his financial status. And “although Allen attached a 

printout to his motion concerning certain transactions in his prison trust account,” the 

court explained, “he failed to attach to his motion a certified copy of his prison trust 

account statement.” 

Allen then sought permission from the district court to proceed in forma 

pauperis on appeal. He filed a new IFP form application on which he wrote that his 

average income from any source in the previous 12 months was $0, but added 

elsewhere on the form that he had “no income but $10 a month,” which he received at 

the Vienna Correctional Center. He also submitted a “Vienna Correctional Center Trust 

Fund Inmate Transaction Statement” showing an account balance of $5.92. The district 

court denied the request, stating that Allen’s assertion “that he has received no income 

from any source in the last twelve months” conflicted with his application, and thus the 

appeal was in bad faith.

Allen appealed the district court’s orders denying him leave to proceed IFP both 

in the lower court and on appeal, and asked us for permission to proceed IFP on appeal.

We agreed that the district court erred in its bad-faith determination, and thus granted 

Allen leave to proceed IFP on appeal. We explained that his motion showed that he is 

indigent and that he raised a good-faith issue regarding that circumstances under which 
No. 14-2648 Page 3

a complaint should be dismissed when a litigant fails to comply explicitly with 

§ 1915(a)(2) or a district court’s order when seeking pauper status. 

Section 1915(a) requires a prisoner seeking leave to proceed IFP to provide the 

district court with (1) “an affidavit that includes a statement of all assets such prisoner 

possesses that the person is unable to pay such fees or give security therefor,” and (2) “a 

certified copy of the trust fund account statement (or institutional equivalent) for the 

prisoner for the 6-month period immediately preceding the filing of the complaint.”

Although Allen provided the district court with an affidavit, he did not submit a 

certified copy of his trust fund account statement, and on this basis the court terminated 

his case. But the court did not consider the statutory command that a prisoner may also 

submit the “institutional equivalent” of a trust fund account statement, and specifically

whether Allen‘s computer printout was the institutional equivalent of an account 

statement. That oversight was error.

Moreover, to the extent that the district court’s decision to dismiss the case rested 

on Allen’s failure to resubmit a “properly completed” IFP application form, we think 

Allen’s omission insufficient to justify dismissal. The statute addresses a litigant’s 

financial condition only at the time the complaint is filed. See Arzuaga v. Quiros, 781 F.3d 

29, 34 (2d Cir. 2015). Subsequent developments in an inmate’s finances are immaterial 

to the IFP determination unless there is evidence suggesting that the prisoner is seeking

to avoid assessment of a greater filing fee under the IFP statute. See Sultan v. Fenoglio, 

775 F.3d 888, 890–91 (7th Cir. 2015); Wilson v. Sargent, 313 F.3d 1315, 1321 n.7 (11th Cir. 

2003). But nothing in this record justifies such an inference. 

The judgment of the district court is VACATED, and the case is REMANDED for 

further proceedings.