In 2013, Fenwick & West LLP partner Brian Buckley and associate Bradley Meissner partnered with Legal Voice, a nonprofit women’s rights legal organization, and the Northwest Justice Project to help secure access to the courts for low-income individuals. Through their efforts, they ultimately secured a unanimous ruling in the Washington State Supreme Court, which stated that Washington courts cannot charge indigent litigants fees or costs associated with filing a case. In strong language, the Court stated that the court rule at issue, General Rule (GR) 34, “was adopted to ensure that indigent litigants have equal access to justice. Any fees required of indigent litigants are invalid and must be waived under the rule.”
Fenwick attorneys represented the interests of Abeda Jafar, who had previously filed an action in Snohomish County for a parenting plan with her child’s father, in part because she feared for the child’s safety. Ms. Jafar’s annual income was $4,620, which is just 30 percent of the federal poverty guideline for a family of two, and she was eligible for a free legal service provider because of her low income. Yet when Ms. Jafar asked the Snohomish County Superior Court to waive her filing fees, it granted only a partial waiver of the mandatory fees and required her to pay $50 in surcharges within 90 days – or she would risk dismissal of her case. The Washington State Supreme Court sided with Ms. Jafar, stating that constitutionally based “principles of due process and equal protection require that indigent litigants have access to the courts. Once the trial court determines that a litigant is indigent, the rule then requires a complete waiver in order to allow access to the courts. No language in the rule exists supporting a grant of a partial waiver for indigent litigants, nor … could such a decision be supportable.”
As a matter of social justice for Ms. Jafar and other indigent defendants, the struggle to enforce the court’s decision does not end there. The Northwest Justice Project continues to be confronted with issues such as lower district courts not acknowledging that the ruling applies to them, court clerks unilaterally deciding that certain indigent defendants are not eligible for waivers, and other courts’ personnel requiring additional unnecessary documentation as fee-waiver prerequisites. Legal Voice and the Northwest Justice Project are currently addressing these problems on a case-by-case basis in an effort to slowly chip away at these issues and cement the ruling with the lower courts. Despite the hundreds of hours expended by Fenwick attorneys and these organizations as well as a clear and successful court ruling, indigent defendants still face many obstacles to justice, including proper enforcement of existing laws.
Ryan is an associate in the Corporate practice group at Fenwick & West LLP. He focuses his practice on a broad variety of corporate matters to support clients in the high technology and life sciences industries. While at the University of Washington School of Law, Ryan served as a legal extern to Judge Michael Hayden of King County Superior Court and was also Notes and Comments editor for Washington Law Review.
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