§ 14A.059.Effect on Other Claims

The filing bar, and its exception is the provision that keeps the chapter within constitutional bounds.

On receipt of an order assessing fees and costs indicating the repeat-filer finding, a court clerk may not accept for filing another claim by the individual until the fees and costs are paid.

The bar operates at the counter, before any judge is involved.

Its practical duration is longer for this population than for an inmate. Repayment runs at 10 percent of monthly deposits from a trust account fed largely by family, against costs that can include transportation and housing for court appearances — and commitment has no fixed end.

So a single affirmed frivolous dismissal can close the courthouse for years.

The exception is what answers that. A court may allow an unpaid individual to file a claim for injunctive relief seeking to enjoin an act or failure to act that creates a substantial threat of irreparable injury or serious physical harm to the individual.

The opening matters most for someone held in a facility indefinitely. A person who cannot leave, cannot choose their carers, and cannot pay is otherwise wholly dependent on the agency confining them.

Three limits confine it, and each is real. The relief must be injunctive, so damages claims stay barred; the threat must be of irreparable injury or serious physical harm; and the court may allow the filing rather than must.

A claim about conditions that are unlawful but not dangerous remains outside the exception, which is where the line has been drawn.