Drevaleva v. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
- William Alsup
- 4:19-cv-02665
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Drevaleva v. Wilkie, Judge Alsup revoked Drevaleva’s fee-waiver status on appeal because repeated lawsuits showed abuse.
Tatyana Evgenievna Drevaleva’s ability to pursue this appeal without paying the filing fee was affected. She remained free to proceed by paying the fee, and the revocation did not apply prejudicially to later appeals.
What happened
Drevaleva v. Wilkie involved Tatyana Evgenievna Drevaleva, who represented herself and brought a third lawsuit arising from employment-discrimination allegations involving the Department of Veterans Affairs. The appeals court asked the district court to decide whether her permission to proceed without paying court fees should continue.
The court revoked that status on appeal. Judge Alsup found that Drevaleva had filed several repetitive lawsuits based on the same events while earlier cases and appeals were still pending, creating an unfair burden on the Secretary and the courts. She could still continue the appeal by paying the filing fee, and the revocation was without prejudice to later appeals.
Judge Alsup ordered the clerk to notify the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The order addressed only Drevaleva’s fee-waiver status on appeal, not the underlying employment-discrimination allegations.
The detailed version
- Drevaleva v. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs · No. 4:19-cv-02665
- William Alsup
- Feb. 18, 2020
Background
Tatyana Evgenievna Drevaleva represented herself in this employment-discrimination case. The opinion states that, while working at the New Mexico Veterans Affairs Medical Center, she left for Russia in May 2017, was terminated for being absent without leave in July, and returned in August. In 2018, the Minneapolis and West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs medical centers declined to employ her after learning about that termination. She pursued mediation and then filed employment-discrimination lawsuits.
The court described this as her third lawsuit arising from the same facts. She had received permission to proceed without paying filing fees in this case and in two earlier cases. The first earlier case was dismissed in December 2018, and the second was dismissed in September 2019. Her appeals in those matters remained pending or had involved further proceedings. In this third case, a November 2019 order dismissed the case, and a January 2020 order denied her motion to vacate, demand to de-publish, and affidavit of bias. She appealed, and the Ninth Circuit sent the appeal back to the district court for the limited purpose of deciding whether her fee-waiver status should continue.
The opinion also states that, after receiving fee-waiver status in this case, Drevaleva filed three additional cases against the Department of Veterans Affairs. Two were transferred to the district court from the Federal Circuit. Although her applications to proceed without paying fees in those cases had not been granted, she litigated them without paying filing fees.
Legal standard and analysis
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3), a person may not appeal without paying filing fees if the trial court certifies in writing that the appeal is not taken in good faith. The court explained that the fee-waiver statute is intended to help people who cannot afford court costs, but that public payment of fees can reduce a litigant’s financial incentive to avoid frivolous, malicious, or repetitive lawsuits.
Judge Alsup concluded that Drevaleva was abusing her fee-waiver status. The court relied on her filing of three new cases while two earlier appeals were pending and on the court’s view that the cases repeatedly arose from the same events. The court stated that Drevaleva was entitled to pursue her claims but not to overwhelm the Secretary or affect other litigants’ access to court resources through multiple lawsuits funded at public expense.
Disposition
The court REVOKED Drevaleva’s permission to proceed without paying filing fees on appeal. The revocation was without prejudice to subsequent appeals. The court stated that Drevaleva remained free to pay the filing fee and proceed, and ordered the clerk to notify the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The order did not decide the underlying employment-discrimination allegations.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.