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One consideration people must make when fighting in our illustrious legal system is whether to proceed pro se, that is, without a lawyer.  Another important choice to be made is whether to file any civil matter with a request for a fee waiver if you qualify.  This second decision is the topic of this post.

For people receiving some sort of state aid—food, medical, housing, etc.—getting a fee waiver to file a civil court case is almost a given.  One need typically only file an online form and send it to the syndicate.  This is true at both the state and federal levels.

But in the federal syndicate—and possibly in some state syndicates—asking for and being granted the filing/service of process fee waiver allows the syndicate to flush your civil action before it ever gets out of the starting gate.  There is plenty of case law related to this, which is based on 28 U.S. Code § 1915(e)(2)(B), but that’s beyond the scope of this post.  The reasons to file or not to file under this statute are many and are discussed below.

If you want to all but ensure that you will be able to at least get to the point of serving the defendants in your case, then not filing under such a waiver should allow you to do so even if you qualify.  Keep in mind, however, that the syndicate—U.S. federal court branch—may still try to “pull one over” on you.  I know one person who wanted to be assured he would be able to serve a myriad of defendants in his case, so he paid the outrageous filing fee even though he easily qualified for proceeding in forma pauperis, as it’s called, because those same defendants were responsible for impoverishing him by stealing his home, retirement, and life savings in one fell swoop.

Despite all the supporting case law disallowing the syndicate from immediately dismissing his case, the criminals tried to do it anyway.  The magistrate judge-criminal cited bogus case law and inapposite rules and other nonsense in order to try to flush the case.  As so often happens, the syndicate will break all the rules and laws and see if the pro se litigant catches it.  If he doesn’t, then the syndicate pockets a quick few hundred dollars and clears the docket of yet another annoying pro se litigant’s case.

In this instance, I helped this person and pointed out that the magistrate was full of sh!t and was attempting to wrongly dismiss the matter under false pretenses.  After filing an objection, the syndicate restored the case; however, it managed to flush his case later for other unjustified reasons as was its intention all along.  Regardless, the syndicate did manage to swindle several other self-represented litigants by using the highly improper attempted flushing of this person’s case as precedent to justify its thievery on other unsuspecting victims by taking their filing fees and then immediately flushing their cases.  If you do not find this outrageous, then you clearly do not have a pulse.....or you are part of the syndicate, but if the latter is the case, then you would not likely be reading this post in the first place.

Another reason to pay the filing fee would be more of an altruistic one.  Each segment of the syndicate is allowed a certain pool of money to allocate to the needy.  Every dollar used in your case would theoretically not be available to some other poor person in that same district.  Possibly another reason to pay the fee would be to demand that it be fully refunded if the syndicate refuses to follow its own rules and laws.  The only time the syndicate follows its own rules and laws is when it’s convenient or when not doing so would otherwise hit one of its members in the wallet or the time clock.  That’s it.

I know someone who paid the filing fee and is asking for a refund because of the rampant corruption he is experiencing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circus.  He has reached out to the U.S. Supreme Syndicate judge responsible for that district, Amy Coney Barrett.  If everyone who has been victimized by the syndicate did this, it would then have a strong reason to actually follow its own rules and laws.

There are probably other reasons to pay filing fees, but let’s move on to the corollary: reasons not to pay.  One good reason is to put the syndicate in a position in which it would have skin in the game.  Some case law allows for the prepayment of filing and service of process fees, not a complete waiver, with the stipulation that if the litigant is successful with the suit, the syndicate is repaid its up-front costs.  If syndicate members have any financial interest in a proceeding whatsoever, they should be far less likely to predetermine the outcome against you in cases concerning smaller sums.

When there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and someone on the other side bribes the judge an amount greater than the prepaid fees, then all bets are off.  Again, the syndicate is motivated by two things: evil and money.  If someone comes along with a more lucrative deal than yours, say goodbye to your case.

Finally, one of the remaining reasons to ask for a fee waiver is to hammer the syndicate later.  Whenever their online filing system is hosted by third-party software, which is almost universal these days, this makes it virtually impossible for them to cut off your access to online filing.  Several providers exist nationally that provide electronic filing services for the syndicate: TrueFiling, Tyler Technologies, and more.

By applying for and receiving a fee waiver, I’ve been able to dox the syndicate with 10 to 15GB of data each day, and there’s not a damn thing they can do about it.  If your lawsuit is illegally dismissed because of crime and corruption, having access to online filing will allow you to pummel these criminals into submission.  Additionally, if I had not applied for the waiver, I would have wasted more than $1,000,000 to date in filing fees.

One thing I absolutely refuse to do—and I tell others this too—is pay criminals to commit crimes against me.  Granted, our tax dollars are still being used to pay them to commit crimes.....and pay other government lawyers to protect them from suit so they can continue to victimize others, but at least you are not directly paying them to essentially punch you in the face.

If you think of other reasons to pay or not pay the filing and service of process fees, leave them in the comments below.  I’ve covered the main ones here, but there may be other specialized reasons.  Remember that we are waging a war against these criminals.  Nobody is going to save us but ourselves, and the sooner we can unite behind one giant front, the better off we will all be as litigants who receive real justice.

Incidentally, Sara and I would like to let readers know that our blog has been rated the best anti-corruption blog out of well over one thousand in the nation.  We are honored to have been bestowed this distinction and will continually try to meet the requisite standards by doing our best to fight corruption in the American "justice" system every day.