Lockhart v. D'urso, 17389.
| Decision Date | 11 March 1969 |
| Docket Number | No. 17389.,17389. |
| Citation | 408 F.2d 354 |
| Parties | Sylvester LOCKHART, Jr., Appellant, v. Gabriel D'URSO, Deputy Court Administrator, Quarter Sessions Court, Philadelphia County, Michael J. Rotko, Assistant District Attorney, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, Louis J. Amarando, Clerk of Quarter Sessions Courts, Philadelphia County, Pa., Charles A. Hoenstine, Prothonotary of Superior Court, of Pennsylvania, and George W. Dunn, Deputy Prothonotary of Superior Court of Pennsylvania. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
Sylvester Lockhart, Jr., pro se.
Robert Cox, Asst. Dist. Atty., Philadelphia, Pa., for Michael Rotko.
Stanley Asher Winikoff, Deputy Dist. Atty., Harrisburg, Pa., for Hoenstine and Dunn (William C. Sennett, Atty. Gen., Harrisburg, Pa., on the brief).
Murray C. Goldman, Philadelphia, Pa., for Louis J. Amarando.
Before KALODNER, GANEY and SEITZ, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff below appeals from an order of the district court denying him the right to prosecute his civil rights action in forma pauperis.
The district court denied plaintiff's request to proceed in forma pauperis on the ground that the action was "plainly without merit". However, when plaintiff appealed such denial the district court granted him leave to prosecute his appeal in forma pauperis, stating that it was doing so because it could not say that his claim was entirely frivolous. This latter evaluation of the complaint by the district court, without more, requires a reversal of the denial of plaintiff's right to prosecute his civil rights action in the district court in forma pauperis. While there may be extreme circumstances where such a right should be denied for plain lack of merit, we think that, particularly in pro se cases, the right to proceed in forma pauperis should generally be granted where the required affidavit of poverty is filed. This approach minimizes, to some extent, disparity in treatment based on economic circumstances. An attack on the truth of such affidavit or the sufficiency of the complaint should be left for appropriate disposition after service has been made on the defendants. Compare Jordan v. County of Montgomery, Pa. et al., 404 F.2d 747 (3rd Cir. 1969).
The order of the district court of May 7, 1968, in district court civil action No. 68-659 will therefore be reversed and the matter remanded for the entry of an order granting the plaintiff leave to...
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Deutsch v. U.S.
..."extreme circumstances" might justify denying an otherwise qualified affiant leave to proceed in forma pauperis. Lockhart v. D'Urso, 408 F.2d 354, 355 (3d Cir.1969) (per curiam). Although we have not delineated the circumstances that might be sufficiently "extreme" to justify denial, we rem......
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...nurtured the sturdy expansion of Griffin to non-habeas civil appeals. In a civil rights case similar to the instant one, Lockhart v. D'Urso, 408 F.2d 354 (1969), the Third Circuit held that in forma pauperis aid should normally be granted as a matter of course in order to minimize courts' t......
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...plaintiff a preliminary right to proceed in forma pauperis. Lawson v. Prasse, 411 F.2d 1203, 1203 (3d Cir. 1969) (citing Lockhart v. D'Urso, 408 F.2d 354 (3d Cir. 1969)). "In this Circuit, leave to proceed in forma pauperis is based on a showing of indigence. We review the affiant's financi......
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Campbell v. Beto
...as a matter of course in order to `minimize courts' treatment of litigants based upon economic circumstances'." See also, Lockhart v. D'Urso, 3 Cir., 1969, 408 F.2d 354. In this way, although evidentiary hearing might well properly be refused thereafter, any further order in the case would ......