Case Name: Mrs. Ossie Ola BOLDEN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The CITY OF SHREVEPORT et al., Defendants-Appellees
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1973-01-09
Citations: 278 So. 2d 138
Docket Number: No. 11981
Parties: Mrs. Ossie Ola BOLDEN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The CITY OF SHREVEPORT et al., Defendants-Appellees.
Judges: Before AYRES, BOLIN and PRICE, JJ-
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 278
Pages: 138–148

Head Matter:
Mrs. Ossie Ola BOLDEN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The CITY OF SHREVEPORT et al., Defendants-Appellees.
No. 11981.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Second Circuit.
Jan. 9, 1973.
On Rehearing May 1, 1973.
Writ Refused June 28, 1973.
Ford & Huckaby by Margrett Ford, and Graham Rogers, Shreveport, for plaintiff-appellant.
John Gallagher, Ray A. Barlow, Har-grove, Guyton, Van Hook & Ramey by Michael R. Mangham, Shreveport, for C. J. Lott and the City of Shreveport, defendants-appellees.
Before AYRES, BOLIN and PRICE, JJ-

Opinion:
AYRES, Judge.
This is an action in tort wherein plaintiff, Mrs. Ossie Ola Bolden, seeks to recover from the City of Shreveport and from the City's Patrolman C. J. Lott, damages for the death of her son, Jesse Hall, occasioned through the alleged wrongful,unlawful, unprovoked, and unjustified shooting by the patrolman.
In response to this action, defendants sought an order requiring plaintiff to furnish bond for security for costs under the provisions of LSA-R.S. 13:4522 and suggested a bond in the amount of $1,000 as fair and commensurate with the character of this action. In the motion defendant Lott also sought, under the provisions of LSA-R.S. 42:261(D), security for the payment of his attorney's fees in the event of a successful defense of this action. A bond in the sum of $5,000 was suggested as appropriate.
By order directed to and served upon plaintiff, she was ordered to show cause why she should not post bonds in accordance with defendants' motion and in the amounts suggested. In the meantime, plaintiff petitioned the court for authority to proceed with and prosecute this action without the payment of costs in advance or as they accrued and without the necessity of furnishing bond as security for their payment. Her motion was sustained and she was accordingly permitted to so proceed under the authority of the provisions of LSA-GC.P. Arts. 5181-5188.
Thereafter, upon agreement of counsel, defendants' motion for security for costs was overruled. However, defendant Lott's request for. security for the payment of his attorney's fees in the defense of this action, after a hearing, was sustained. Plaintiff was ordered to furnish such bond in the sum of $5,000 within 30 days under penalty of a dismissal of her action. Upon plaintiff's failure to post bond as directed, her suit as against Patrolman Lott was dismissed. From a judgment accordingly rendered and signed, plaintiff appealed.
The sole issue in this appeal is the validity of the order directing plaintiff to furnish bond as security for the payment of Officer Lott's attorney's fees in the event he should prevail in his defense. The statute LSA-R.S. 42:261(D) provides:
"Any party who shall file suit against any duly elected or appointed public official of the State of Louisiana or any of its agencies or political subdivisions for any matter arising out of the performance of the duties of his office . and who shall be unsuccessful in his demands shall be liable to said public official for all attorneys' fees incurred by said public official in the defense of said lawsuit or lawsuits, which said attorneys' fees shall be fixed by the court.
"The defendant public official shall have the right by rule to require the plaintiff to furnish bond, as in the case of bond for costs, to cover such attorneys' fees before proceeding with the trial of said cause."
Plaintiff contends that the quoted statutory provisions violate the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in that it denies to indigent litigants equal access to the courts, and that the court's order directing plaintiff to furnish a bond as contemplated by the statute is a denial of due process. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, so far as pertinent, recites:
" . . . No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Further, plaintiff asserts, in effect, that both statute and order are inimical to the provisions of Art. 1, § 6 of the 1921 Louisiana Constitution which declares that:
"All courts shall be open, and every person for injury done him in his rights, lands, goods, person or reputation shall have adequate remedy by due process of law and justice administered without denial, partiality or unreasonable delay."
Defendant officer, however, relies upon the provisions of the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure which relate to the privilege of litigating without prior payment of costs (LSA-C.C.P. Art. 5181 et seq.), and particularly the provisions of Art. 5185 respecting the rights of parties permitted to litigate without the payment of costs. It is particularly stressed, with reference to one granted such permission, that:
" . . . He is not entitled to a sus-pensive appeal, or to an order or judgment, required by law to be conditioned on his furnishing security other than for costs, unless he furnishes the necessary security therefor." (Emphasis supplied.)
LSA-C.C.P. Art. 5185.
Under this quoted provision, defendant officer contends that an indigent person proceeding under the so-called "Pauper Act" is not exempt from furnishing bond to secure the payment of a defendant officer's attorney's fees. Defendant officer, in brief, concedes that the jurisprudence of this State is not enlightening on the subject now before the court. He merely points out that in Foshee v. Longino, 236 So.2d 870 (La.App., 3d Cir. 1970), wherein a police juror was a defendant in an action to determine the status of a road was awarded $500 attorney's fees, and in La-Fleur v. Roberts, 157 So.2d 340 (La.App., 3d Cir. 1963), wherein municipal officials were made defendants in an action to remove a public official on the ground of invalidity of appointment, they were held not entitled to attorney's fees because they were not completely successful in their defense. They did, however, point out in Orgeron v. Lytle, 180 La. 646, 157 So. 377 (1934), that though plaintiff was authorized to proceed in forma pauperis, he was not relieved from furnishing an attachment bond, and in Bonneluco v. Bernard, 29 So.2d 486 (La.App., Orl.1947), that a bond even in pauper cases must be given to suspend execution of a judgment pending an appeal.
None of these authorities arc pertinent to the question presented, that is, whether or not the provisions of LSA-R.S. 42:261(D) violate the due-process and equal-protection clauses of the State and Federal Constitutions.
Defendant officer contends, under the jurisprudence of this State, that statutes which require security to be posted as a precedent condition to the institution and prosecution of a suit do not violate the provisions of due-process and equal-protection clauses of the State constitution. Cited as authorities supporting this proposition are:
Succession of Grover,
49 La.Ann. 1050, 22 So. 313 (1897);
Grinage v. Times-Democrat Pub. Co., 107 La. 121, 31 So. 682 (1902);
Michel v. Edmondson,
218 So.2d 103 (La.App., 3d Cir. 1968).
Each of these cases involved a question of the furnishing of security for the payment of costs, and can thus be distinguished from the situation presented in the instant case wherein plaintiff, a pauper, was directed to furnish security for payment of the defendant officer's attorney's fees. The furnishing of security for court costs, as required in each of the cases just noted, was held not to be violative of the right of due process and the right of equal access to the courts.
In Michel v. Edmondson, the discrimination of which plaintiff complained was a discrimination allegedly and merely existing between plaintiffs and defendants as such in that plaintiffs might be required to provide security for costs whereas defendants might not be so required. LSA-R.S. 13:4522. As a general proposition, one instituting a civil action is responsible for the payment of all costs prior to judgment, while a defendant is not so obligated unless and until he is formally condemned by a judgment. Under the provisions of this statute, a plaintiff may be required to give security in advance for the payment of costs. Plaintiffs in actions brought in forma pauperis, by the terms of the statute, are exempt from the furnishing of security. Similar factual situations were in volved in Succession of Grover and Grinage v. Times-Democrat Pub. Co.
The jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court is to the effect that due process requires, as a minimum, and in the absence of a countervailing State interest of overriding significance, that persons forced to settle their claims through judicial processes must be given a meaningful opportunity to be heard.
Boddie v. Connecticut,
401 U.S. 371, 91 S.Ct. 780, 785-786, 28 L.Ed.2d 113 (1971), and the cases therein cited.
Thus, within the limits of practicality, a state must afford to all individuals a meaningful opportunity to be heard. This right must be protected against denial by particular laws that operate to jeopardize its use by certain individuals. As a general proposition, a statute or a rule may be constitutionally invalid as applied when it operates to deprive an individual of a protected right, although its general validity as a measure enacted in the legitimate exercise of State power is beyond question.
There is no question of plaintiff's poverty and of her inability to pay the costs of court in advance or as they accrue, or to give security for their payment. This right was accorded her by appropriate order of the trial court. In her application for the privilege of instituting and prosecuting this action without payment of costs or the furnishing of security therefor, it is shown that plaintiff is a domestic servant working three days a week at a wage of $5 per day and that she has no other income.
There is no question but that equities exist on both sides of this litigation. However, it is inconceivable that, because of plaintiff's poverty, she could ever furnish the security that she has been ordered to provide. The order is tantamount to a complete denial of her access to judicial process for the determination of the validity of her claim. Balanced against the State's policy of discouraging the institution of actions against its officers, plaintiff is denied access to the courts and to the right of due process for a judicial determination of her claim because of her inability to post the bond as herein required. This is an effective denial of the rights of due process and of equal protection under the law.
As observed by Justice Brennan in a concurring opinion in Boddie v. Connecticut, supra (401 U.S. 387, 91 S.Ct. 791, 28 L.Ed.2d 124):
"When a State's interest in imposing a fee requirement on an indigent is compared to the indigent's interest in being heard, it is clear that the latter is the weightier. It is an unjustifiable denial of a hearing, and therefore a denial of due process, to close the courts to an indigent on the ground of nonpayment of a fee."
Thus, when a state's interest in imposing a fee requirement on an indigent is compared to the indigent's interest in being heard, it is clear that the latter is the more important. It is an unjustifiable denial of a hearing and, therefore, a denial of due process to close the courts to an indigent on the ground of nonpayment of a fee occasioned by his inability to pay. Thus, there is a clear discrimination. The affluent can put up a bond; the indigent may not be able to do so, as, indeed, plaintiff cannot in the instant case. Many decisions have made it clear that differences in access to the instruments needed to vindicate legal rights, when based upon the financial situation of the litigants, are repugnant to the Constitution.
As was again observed by Justice Brennan in Boddie v. Connecticut, supra, with reference to and as we observe in the instant case, the rationale of Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 76 S.Ct. 585, 100 L.Ed. 891 (1956), covers the present situation. Therein, at 401 U.S. 388-389, 91 S.Ct. 792, 28 L.Ed.2d 125-126, we find this appropriate observation:
"Courts are the central dispute-settling institutions in our society. They are bound to do equal justice under law, to rich and poor alike. They fail to perform their function in accordance with the Equal Protection Clause if they shut their doors to indigent plaintiffs altogether. Where money determines not merely 'the kind of trial a man gets,' . but whether he gets into court at all, the great principle of equal protection becomes a mockery. A State may not make its judicial processes available to some but deny them to others simply because they cannot pay a fee. Cf. Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663, 86 S.Ct. 1079, 16 L.Ed.2d 169 (1966)."
The right to be heard, in some way, at some time, extends to all proceedings entertained by the court. The denial of this right, a prerequisite to justice, to this indigent plaintiff because of her inability to furnish a bond to secure payment of the defendant officer's attorney's fees violates the privileges guaranteed her under the due-process clauses of both Federal and State Constitutions. Moreover, the State statute, in the instant case and as interpreted and applied to plaintiff in the trial court, is clearly repugnant to the guarantees in our Constitutions of the rights of access to our courts and to the principles of equal protection under law. Thus, we hold that the requirement that plaintiff, an indigent, furnish security for the payment of the defendant officer's attorney's fees is null, void, and without effect.
For the reasons assigned, the judgment appealed is annulled, avoided, reversed, and set aside; and
It is now ordered, adjudged, and decreed that plaintiff be, and she is hereby, authorized to continue to prosecute this cause without the payment or the giving of security for the payment of defendant officer's attorney's fees; and
It is now ordered that this cause be, and it is hereby, remanded to the Honorable, the First Judicial District Court in and for Caddo Parish, Louisiana, for further proceedings in accordance with law and consistent with the view herein expressed.
Defendant C. J. Lott is assessed with costs of this appeal; the assessment of all other costs shall await final judgment.
Reversed and remanded.
BOLIN, J., dissents, giving written reasons.