Is state funding for indigents in civil cases constitutional?

By: dmc-admin//November 12, 2007//

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The recently enacted state budget includes $1 million for the Wisconsin Trust Account Foundation Inc. (WisTAF), which will make grants to programs that provide civil legal services to indigent persons.

Assuming that such a grant is a “good thing,” as the State Bar of Wisconsin calls it, what clause in the State Constitution authorizes the state to take a litigant’s tax dollars and give them to his opponent in a civil action?

Even if this expenditure was constitutional, it should still come with a condition attached, so that any organization that receives such money agrees to pay reasonable attorney fees and costs to any prevailing party whenever it loses a case, even if no statute authorizes fee-shifting in that type of action.

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