So reports George Simons at Bloomberg Law. Excerpt:
California, Arizona, and Minnesota are good examples of states attempting to increase access to justice while charging defendants enormous filing fees. These fees are charged for all types of civil lawsuits, but are particularly relevant to debt lawsuits where defendants are being sued because, presumably, they don’t have any money.
Although some states provide fee waivers, this practice only helps the lowest-income people and leaves people in other income groups with onerous fees. Moreover, for defendants who can pay the fee, they still must struggle to calculate it and to file their documents with the court—a difficult challenge on its own.
