UNIT II MEN'S ADVISORY COUNCIL

Opinion of the Court

for the better part of two centuries, for example, that a corporation may appear in the federal courts only through licensed counsel. Osborn v. President of Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 829 (1824); see Turner v. American Bar Assn., 407 F. Supp. 451, 476 (ND Tex. 1975) (citing the "long line of cases" from 1824 to the present holding that a corporation may only be represented by licensed counsel), affirmance order sub nom. Taylor v. Montgomery, 539 F. 2d 715 (CA7 1976), and aff'd sub nom. Pilla v. American Bar Assn., 542 F. 2d 56 (CA8 1976). As the courts have recognized, the rationale for that rule applies equally to all artificial entities. Thus, save in a few aberrant cases,5 the lower courts have uniformly held that 28 U. S. C. § 1654, providing that "parties may plead and conduct their own cases personally or by counsel," does not allow corporations, partnerships, or associations to appear in federal court otherwise than through a licensed attorney. See, e. g., Eagle Associates v. Bank of Montreal, 926 F. 2d 1305 (CA2 1991) (partnership); Taylor v. Knapp, 871 F. 2d 803, 806 (CA9) (nonprofit corporation formed by prison inmates), cert. denied, 493 U. S. 868 (1989); Jones v. Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, 722 F. 2d 20, 22 (CA2 1983) (corporation); Richdel, Inc. v. Sunspool Corp., 699 F. 2d 1366 (CA Fed. 1983) (per curiam) (corporation); Southwest Express Co. v. ICC, 670 F. 2d 53, 55

5 Two federal cases cited by respondent are the only two, of which we are aware, to hold that artificial entities may be represented by persons who are not licensed attorneys: United States v. Reeves, 431 F. 2d 1187 (CA9 1970) (per curiam) (partner can appear on behalf of a partnership), and In re Holliday's Tax Services, Inc., 417 F. Supp. 182 (EDNY 1976) (sole shareholder can appear for a closely held corporation), affirmance order sub nom. Holliday's Tax Services, Inc. v. Hauptman, 614 F. 2d 1287 (CA2 1979). These cases neither follow federal precedent, nor have themselves been followed. See, e. g., Eagle Associates v. Bank of Montreal, 926 F. 2d 1305, 1309-1310 (CA2 1991) (criticizing and refusing to follow Reeves); Jones v. Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, 722 F. 2d 20, 22, n. 3 (CA2 1983) (distinguishing and narrowing Holliday's Tax Services).

Opinion of the Court

(CA5 1982) (per curiam) (corporation); In re Victor Publishers, Inc., 545 F. 2d 285, 286 (CA1 1976) (per curiam) (corporation); Strong Delivery Ministry Assn. v. Board of Appeals of Cook County, 543 F. 2d 32, 34 (CA7 1976) (per curiam) (corporation); United States v. 9.19 Acres of Land, 416 F. 2d 1244, 1245 (CA6 1969) (per curiam) (corporation); Simbraw, Inc. v. United States, 367 F. 2d 373, 374 (CA3 1966) (per curiam) (corporation). Viewing § 1915(d) against the background of this tradition, its assumption that litigants proceeding in forma pauperis may represent themselves tells us that Congress was thinking in terms of "persons" who could petition courts themselves and appear pro se, that is, of natural persons only.

The second revealing feature of § 1915(d) is its description of the affidavit required by § 1915(a) as an "allegation of poverty." Poverty, in its primary sense, is a human condition, to be "[w]anting in material riches or goods; lacking in the comforts of life; needy," Webster's New International Dictionary 1919 (2d ed. 1942), and it was in just such distinctly human terms that this Court had established the standard of eligibility long before Congress considered extending in forma pauperis treatment from "citizens" to "persons." As we first said in 1948, "[w]e think an affidavit is sufficient which states that one cannot because of his poverty 'pay or give security for the costs . . . and still be able to provide' himself and dependents 'with the necessities of life."" Adkins v. E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 335 U. S. 331, 339. But artificial entities do not fit this description. Whatever the state of its treasury, an association or corporation cannot be said to "lac[k] the comforts of life," any more than one can sensibly ask whether it can provide itself, let alone its dependents, with life's "necessities." Artificial entities may be insolvent, but they are not well spoken of as "poor." So eccentric a description is not lightly to be imputed to Congress.

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Opinion of the Court

The third clue is much like the second. Section 1915(a) authorizes the courts to allow litigation without the prepayment of fees, costs, or security "by a person who makes affidavit that he is unable to pay such costs or give security therefor," and requires that the affidavit also "state the nature of the action, defense or appeal and affiant's belief that he is entitled to redress." Because artificial entities cannot take oaths, they cannot make affidavits. See, e. g., In re Empire Refining Co., 1 F. Supp. 548, 549 (SD Cal. 1932) (“It is, of course, conceded that a corporation cannot make an affidavit in its corporate name. It is an inanimate thing incapable of voicing an oath"); Moya Enterprises, Inc. v. Harry Anderson Trucking, Inc., 162 Ga. App. 39, 290 S. E. 2d 145 (1982); Strand Restaurant Co. v. Parks Engineering Co., 91 A. 2d 711 (D. C. 1952); 9A T. Bjur & C. Slezak, Fletcher Cyclopedia of Law of Private Corporations § 4629 (Perm. ed. 1992) ("A document purporting to be the affidavit of a corporation is void, since a corporation cannot make a sworn statement") (footnote omitted).

Of course, it is true that courts have often coupled this recognition of a corporation's incapacity to make an affidavit with a willingness to accept the affidavit of a corporate officer or agent on its behalf even when the applicable statute makes no express provision for doing so. See, e. g., In re Ben Weiss Co., 271 F. 2d 234 (CA7 1959). Any such accommodation would raise at least three difficulties in this particular statutory context, however. There would be, first, the frequent problem of establishing an affiant's authorization. The artificial entities covered by "person" in the Dictionary Act include not only corporations, for which lines of authority are well established by state law, but also amorphous legal creatures like the unincorporated association before us here. A court may not as readily determine whether a member of such an association, even a member styled as "president" or "chairman" or whatnot, has any business purporting to bind it by affidavit. Next, some weight should probably be given

Opinion of the Court

to the requirement of § 1915(a) that the affidavit state the "affiant's belief that he is entitled to redress" (emphasis added). "He," read naturally, refers to the "affiant" as the person claiming in forma pauperis entitlement. If the affiant is an agent making an affidavit on behalf of an artificial entity, however, it would wrench the rules of grammar to read "he" as referring to the entity. Finally, and most significantly, the affidavit requirement cannot serve its deterrent function fully when applied to artificial entities. We said in Adkins that "[o]ne who makes this affidavit exposes himself 'to the pains of perjury in a case of bad faith.' . . This constitutes a sanction important in protection of the public against a false or fraudulent invocation of the statute's benefits." Adkins, supra, at 338 (quoting Pothier v. Rodman, 261 U. S. 307, 309 (1923)). The perjury sanction thus serves to protect the public against misuse of public funds by a litigant with adequate funds of his own, and against the filing of "frivolous or malicious" lawsuits funded from the public purse. 28 U. S. C. §§ 1915(a), 1915(d). The force of these sanctions pales when applied to artificial persons, however. Natural persons can be imprisoned for perjury, but artificial entities can only be fined. And while a monetary sanction may mean something to an entity whose agent has lied about its ability to pay costs or security, it has no teeth

6 On occasion, when a party is a minor or incompetent, or fails to cooperate with appointed counsel, or is for some other reason unable to file a timely affidavit, we will accept an affidavit from a guardian ad litem or an attorney. By accepting such an affidavit, we bend the requirement that the affiant state that "he" is indigent and that "he" believes "he" is entitled to relief. In such a case, however, it is clear that the party himself is a "person" within the meaning of § 1915. The only question is whether Congress intended to deny § 1915 benefits to such a person who for some reason peculiar to him is disabled from filing an affidavit. It is quite a different question whether Congress intended to extend § 1915 to entities that, by their nature, could never meet the statute's requirements.

UNIT II MEN'S ADVISORY COUNCIL

Opinion of the Court

when the lie goes only to belief of entitlement to redress." So far, then, as Congress assumed that the threat of a perjury conviction could deter an impoverished “person” from filing a frivolous or malicious lawsuit, it probably assumed that the person was an individual.

The fourth clue to congressional understanding is the failure of § 1915 even to hint at a resolution of the issues raised by applying an "inability to pay" standard to artificial entities. It is true, of course, that because artificial entities have no use for food or the other "necessities of life," Congress could not have intended the courts to apply the traditional "inability to pay" criterion to such entities. Yet no alternative standard can be discerned in the language of § 1915, and we can find no obvious analogy to the "necessities of life" in the organizational context. Although the most promising candidate might seem to be commercial-law "insolvency," commercial law actually knows a number of different insolvency concepts. See, e. g., 11 U. S. C. § 101(32) (1988 ed., Supp. III) (defining insolvency as used in the Federal Bankruptcy Code); Kreps v. Commissioner, 351 F. 2d 1, 9 (CA2 1965) (discussing a type of “equity” insolvency); Uniform Commercial Code § 1-201(23), 1 U. L. A. 65 (1989) (combining three different types of insolvency). In any event, since it is common knowledge that corporations can often perfectly well pay court costs and retain paid legal counsel in spite of being temporarily "insolvent" under any or all of these definitions, it is far from clear that corporate insolvency is appropriately analogous to individual indigency.

"We are not ignoring the fact that the individual who made the affidavit as the entity's agent could still be prosecuted for perjury. However, this is clearly a "second-best" solution; the law does not normally presume that corporate misbehavior can adequately be deterred solely by threatening to punish individual agents.

› One plausible motive for Congress to include artificial entities within the meaning of "person" in § 1915 would be to aid organizations in bankruptcy proceedings. But the fact that the law has been settled for almost 20 years that § 1915(a) does not apply to bankruptcy proceedings, see