by Reinhold A. Gütbrot *
Guessed Columnist
In a month that opens in honor of fools, April closed with an unusually large number of loons flying low off the nearby manmade lake and circling above the staid, if architecturally mismatched, precincts of the Prettyman Memorial Courthouse. Like King Cnut, the chief daily task of a trial judge is to attempt to hold back the relentless tide of litigation that threatens to engulf the docket – only to discover that, like “Groundhog Day,” it’s all back with the next morning’s tide. Ofttimes it brings forth a few pearly shells of intellectual stimulation that, strung together over a career, become the “ribband and collar” of the judge who truly enjoys the intellectual feast that is a jurist’s portion on the bench. An accompanying occupational hazard, however, is that a certain amount of flotsam occasionally washes up in the swirling eddies of meritorious litigation, twisted pieces of mossy driftwood that, if not removed, bob up and down near the jurisdictional shoreline upsetting the natural ecological balance. The Judges at U.S. District Court here spent much of April policing the jurisdictional shoreline of their little island at John Marshall Place.
Aside from the usual spate of “hopeless corpus” petitions, the month opened with what many thought was surely a joke, in a suit where one career politician had sued another over – well, politics. In what was the nation’s first “in-House” lawsuit, Congressman John A. Boehner (R-Oh.)(“say ‘Bay-ner,’” his website says) filed suit against Congressman James A. McDermott (D-Mich.) contending that, in violation of the Federal Wiretap Act, McDermott had vicariously intercepted and illegally published a phone conversation between Boehner and the former unlamented Speaker Newt Gingrich while they and others were plotting tactics on how to squelch the final ethics probe against the Speaker (say “subsequent resignation”). Astonishingly, in a case presided over by no less a luminary than Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan (say, “Not to be messed with.”), Boehner was awarded summary judgment on the technical violation of the wiretap statute, included in which was a $10,000 fine and a $50,000 punitive award. Boehner v. McDermott, 332 F.Supp.2d 149, 169 (D.D.C. 2004). The judgment that was approved 2-1 by the D.C. Circuit. 484 F.3d 573 (2007). Meanwhile, Boehner, who was selected last year by the non-partisan National Journal as “the most conservative Republican in the House” (tied with seven other Republicans – none from a State north NC – at a 93.3% conservative voting record on major issues) (say “Southern”), was elected Minority Leader by his GOP colleagues. His success was based in large part upon the victory in the McDermott suit, coupled with his doctrinaire adhesion to the policies of the Bush Administration, his work in enacting the controversial No Child Left Behind Act, his passing out campaign contributions from one of his favorite lobbyists, the Tobacco Industry, literally on the floor of the House, and his straight party line votes in support of the Iraq War, which he, almost alone these days, continues to connect with the 9/11 tragedy. In March, for the second time in a year, Boehner broke down in tears in the well of the House while discussing his own views on the patriotic aspects of the war. “Does this guy keep an onion in his pocket?” asked one critic.
Once his case was back before Chief Judge Hogan in March, the Leader sought an incredible $1.1 million in attorney’s fees as a vindication of the $60,000 outcome of his case. Veteran practitioners and professional pundits who have long kept a close eye – almost all of which were admiring – on Chief Judge Hogan over the years, were not much surprised by his ruling. In a telling irony, he found that Boehner’s request for six-figures worth of attorney’s fees before you get to the decimal (and on a summary judgment ruling at that) could not be awarded in full because – you guessed it – the content of his submission was below par! (Say, “embarrassing.”). The Court found that Boehner had “submitted no documentation with his request for fees [charged] on [his request for] fees,” but “submitted only summaries of the amount of fees claimed.” The “lumping together” of multiple tasks in the so-called “billings,” the Court further ruled, “makes it impossible to evaluate their reasonableness.” (Say, “slam dunk.”). The Court concluded that “[d]ue to Congressman Boehner’s inadequate documentation and failure to justify the amount of fees on fees sought,” it would exercise its inherent discretion to reduce the amount requested by 25%, a figure, it noted, which “recognizes the basic failings of Congressman Boehner to meet this burden of establishing the reasonableness of the amount sought ....” (Say, “Where’s that onion?”). This was a reduction of $278,973.87 in legal fees. With cuts that large, it may as well have been a CJA voucher in Superior Court.
At the other end of the political spectrum, in the Democratic Leadership Council, Inc. v. United States of America, C.A. No. 05-1067, Senior Judge Louis Oberdorfer, who’s been around Democratic Party politics since the days he palled around with the late Byron White and the Kennedy brothers, found himself in the somewhat ironic position of ruling that an outfit called the “Democratic Leadership Council,” set up by Bill Clinton and others of similar ilk in the early 1990's and styling itself a “social welfare organization,” operated in a society that was inhabited solely by fellow Democrats, who were the only discernable beneficiaries of its largesse. But, a dollar being a dollar, Judge Oberdorfer ruled, once the IRS had retroactively revoked the DLC’s tax exempt status, it was entitled to a refund of a whole $20,000 (which wouldn’t buy 10 seconds worth of air time for either Clinton or Obama). Fair is fair, after all – especially where it is Democrats who are complaining about being overtaxed -- there being no mention of how much in attorney’s fees it took to obtain that sum, which wouldn’t have accounted for 2.4% of the legal fees that Congressman Boehner was actually awarded. At least it’s better than the $300 that those of us with “No Children Left at Home” will receive.
And speaking of Hillary Clinton, she would not get off that easily, if Dawn M. Bauer had anything to say about it – although it turned out that she didn’t. Ms. Bauer filed a suit to put a stop– paraphrasing Senator Clinton herself – to the “vast left-wing conspiracy” that is destroying the country. In Bauer v. Hillary Rodham Clinton, C.A. No. 08-0630, she alleged that Mrs. Clinton “was not only using the United States government for whatever she had or has going on, but also used the Clinton family as a platform for an agenda that she has.” In support of her contentions, doubtless laying the groundwork for summary judgment, she accompanied her complaint with “a list of dead people” who once associated with the Defendant, who had “lost their lives by mysterious means,” including John F. Kennedy Jr. and Princess Diana, to say nothing of her own medical condition which she attributed to the loss of her employment due to the Defendant’s nefarious machinations. The reports of Mrs. Clinton driving away from the courthouse in a white, scratched and dented white Fiat could not be verified. From a political standpoint, however, it was good thing for Senator Clinton that the Obama campaign did not get wind of the charge that a political candidate was seeking to use the resources and prerogatives of her official position “for whatever she has ... going on.” Think of the deleterious effects such an approach would have on the electoral process in the nation at large.
Those held responsible for paying attorney’s fees in these three cases, however, got off a lot easier than the Plaintiff in Fastov v. Christie’s International, PLC, 1:97cv0578, a case assigned to Senior Judge William Stafford of the Northern District of Florida, sitting by designation here, who dished out a withering “pen-lashing” against Robert Fastov’s egregious and continuous violations of the Rules of Civil Procedure. In 1993, Fastov, a former litigator turned art dealer, made one of those providential “finds,” purchasing a landscape for $600 and then discovering that it had a provenance that traced back a German impressionist named Emil Jakob Schindler, a contemporary of Claude Monet. Hoping to turn a major profit, Fastov contacted the famous Christie’s auction house in London and shipped the painting there to be included in an upcoming art auction. Being careful about provenance, Christie’s sought the advice of an outside expert, with whom Fastov immediately became quarrelsome. Christie’s declined to include the painting in its upcoming auction and that’s when Fastov began his war of attrition over the missed Schindler. Demanding satisfaction, in June 1994, he wrote the auction house a 79-page, single-spaced letter, including hundreds of pages of attachments, threatening that unless Christie’s acceded to his “settlement” demand of $168,000, he would file suit against it, one that he prognosticated, based on his expertise and “intelligence,” would, at a minimum, cost the agency over $221 million dollars, gaining it nothing in return. He gave Christie’s three weeks, at the end of which time, he promised that he would “go to war” with “no quarter asked or given.” He assured Christie’s that it would “be the worst and most costly ... bet of your life,” resulting in a battle that would not end without its “unconditional surrender.” When this audacious missive had no effect, Fastov filed an eight count, 225-page complaint in October 1997, sounding in breach of contract, negligence, fraud and misrepresentation, demanding both actual and punitive damages. Judge Paul L. Friedman transformed the “war” into a route by dismissing the case on the simple basis of the D.C. Statute of Limitations, but taking the time to point out that even had the suit been timely filed Fastov could not have won on the merits because he utterly failed to show that he had suffered any harm, loss, or damages as the result of Christie’s wholly permissible decision not to do any further business with him. After Christie’s filed a Rule 11 request for sanctions and attorney’s fees, a Magistrate Judge initially recommended that Fastov pay fees and costs in excess of $630,000, but then responding affirmatively to Fastov’s changed demeanor from Plaintiff to plaintive, reduced that sum to “only” $110,000. Christie’s offered not to contest the reduced award if Fastov agreed not to litigate it further. Still “not getting it,” however, Fastov responded with 45 pages of objections to the Magistrate Judge’s recommendations, together with hundreds of pages of exhibits. For reasons not set forth on the record, Judge Stafford was designated to hear the fees issue. He issued a blistering condemnation of Fastov’s conduct, which he found continued unabated and unapologetic. In what could be the language of the certificate for April’s “Most Unrepentant Violation of Rule 11 Award,” Judge Stafford’s ruling is one to which summarization cannot do justice:
Fastov’s egregious conduct ... has caused the defendants to spend – now clearly unnecessarily so – in excess of $600,000 defending this baseless lawsuit. Fastov’s prolixity in verbiage and meanness in actions have wasted the time and energy of at least three federal judicial officers, resources that could have been utilized in the dispatch of legitimate court business .... and certainly any judge would have been justified in referring a lawyer who so conducted himself to the disciplinary process of the ... bar association. This case represents the worst of both.
Fastov ... seeks to avoid responsibility by now claiming a reduced income. Yet, it is clear that he has defiantly shunned every opportunity to mitigate his loss. The magistrate judge’s compassion and the defendants’ offer to accept a reduced amount have been met by Fastov’s continued strident rejection of reason. Indeed, his contempt for the entire litigation process in this lawsuit, initiated by him and vexatiously still maintained by him, militates against financially punishing the defendants further.
As his own words have clearly established, the plaintiff initiated this lawsuit with the bad faith intent to subject the defendants to ‘the worst and most costly” litigation in the defendants’ experience. Now Fastov must pay for ... his bad faith ... and for generally engaging in conduct that degrades the entire judicial system.
Here .... a greedy individual, with the advantage of a legal education and a claimed litigation expertise, has initiated and maintained this lawsuit, which anyone with a modicum of common sense would have soon realized was without merit. Nevertheless with myopic vengeance, Fastov has pursued the defendants, using and abusing them and the judicial process. Fastov could have stopped this senseless bleeding at any time, but after being publicly warned and chastised for his outrageous conduct, has persisted in inflicting more wounds. Such an individual, such a party, such a lawyer has forfeited his entitlement to minimize his exposure to paying for the harm that he has caused .... in defending this malicious lawsuit.
The Court then reinstated the original of $630,043.32 award in full. Fastov was right about two things: he received, no quarter and the litigation was the worst and most costly of Christie’s career – only he was the party that paid all the costs.
For the last four years poor Judge John Bates has had to deal with a lawsuit brought by an outfit that calls itself “POGO” (“Project on Government Oversight”), which apparently was culturally ignorant of the fact that its acronym is identical to the name of the late Walt Kelly’s classic satirical comic strip “Pogo” (1948-73). Pogo was an honest, good natured opossum whose disarming social commentaries were endearing to his fellow denizens of the Okefenokee Swamp, among whom were Albert B. Alligator, Howland Owl, and a demagogic bobcat named Simple J. Malarkey, a rare contemporary satire on “Tail Gunner” Joe McCarthy, who skulked about his “swampwork” humming, “My body lice soda devotion.” In the suit before Judge Bates, United States v. Project on Government Oversight, C.A. No. 03-0096, after four years, three months and 21 days of litigation, 35 court orders, and 114 individual docket entries, the case finally went to a trial in April, only to have the jury inform POGO that it was not a particularly good idea for a private organization to have given an accountant in the employ of the IRS a $10,000 “qui tam award” for his putative meritorious efforts in “government reform,” their undisputed good intentions notwithstanding. This POGO’s “social commentary” resulted in a $320,000 civil fine. Throughout the spaces between the lines of his numerous pre-trial orders, Judge Bates had been trying to POGO the trouble, but they ignored him – playing possum all along. It is no small irony that the original Pogo was perhaps most famous for having observed in 1971, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Life imitates art – in this case, a comic strip.
Judge Royce Lamberth, beset with tormented litigants who simply cannot separate their imagined demons from their own demerits, doubtless made a major effort to scrutinize the parties in Newman v. Traitors and Sadists, C.A. No. 08-0711, in order to separate the patriots from the perverts. The Plaintiff filed suit against these two classes of Defendants, which included, without further sub-categorization, the three major armed forces, the CIA, CBS News (though he overlooked Fox), and, appropriately enough, the “U.S. Space Command,” all of whom he alleged were collectively responsible for the fact that civilization as we now know it is “FUBAR” or “Funk Up Beyond All Recognition,” according to his lead allegation. The Plaintiff also added a plea for court-appointed counsel (“Get me a lawyer.”). Regrettably, BABAR the Elephant was not available. After extensive research into Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a), Judge Lamberth issued a two-page (counting the signature line) Memorandum Opinion that is a paradigm of conciseness and incisiveness, in which he dismissed the suit on the grounds that the complaint did not “give fair notice to the defendants of the claim being asserted, sufficient to prepare a response or answer, to prepare an adequate defense and to determine whether the doctrine of res judicata applies.” Further research would reveal that under U.S. Const., Art. III, § 3, the Traitors were entitled to demand at least two witnesses to their acts; doubtless the Sadists wanted more.
Those of us who misspent part of our young adulthood on all-expense-paid trips to army bases and naval stations throughout the world but somehow managed to stay out of trouble with the SP’s and the MP’s (like Magistrate Judge Aida Melendez), wasted a lot of time in bars and other dens of iniquity while on leave. With any foresight we should have been taking a page out of the book of William Tyree, the bearer of the same noble U.S. Cavalry surname as the famous Sgt. Travis Tyree, played by the late marvelous character actor Ben Johnson in two of John Wayne’s classics, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950). Our actual Tyree shot and murdered his wife on property under the authority of civilians (what “army speak” might term SHAMWOPAC), symbolically on Leap Years’ Day 1980, and the Army turned him over to the tender mercies of the local prosecutor in the foreign theater of Massachusetts (where, we have it on good authority, you also “can’t chop your parents up” – Borden, L.). Tyree was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. Having spent his tour of duty attached to the 441st MIU (Military Intelligence Unit) while stationed in a bi-polar State that elected both Ted Kennedy and Mitt Romney to represent it, however, Tyree was prepared for every eventuality. He filed suit in the D.D.C., Tyree v. Secretary of the Army, C.A. No. 08-0565, in which he contended that, since he “had never been financially discharged” (he discounted his DD as a “discharge in name only”), he had technically remained on the GI payroll for the last 26 years. Consequently, he demanded the $1,035,000 that the Army owed him at his former rank and grade. On that rationale alone, the estate of the late General Benedict Arnold, discharged “in name only” in 1780, after he went AWOL to England, is today conservatively worth hundreds of millions of “continentals,” which are still compounding interest at the judgment rate for survivors in his family, such as and Matthew, Eddy, and Rosanne. Alternatively, Tyree (USA, re’td) allowed as how he would accept a vacating of his conviction and immediate release from prison in lieu of the cash. But, in a country that in which it is still involved in a “military incursion” that, at the current “Post-Mission Accomplished” stage, has a projected cost of over $2 trillion, Tyree’s claim, even if successful, did not move Judge Bates, who suggested that he sue the warden of his prison instead. Tyree, who doubtless could have educated Mr. Newman, ante, as to what FUBAR actually stands for, is apparently still formulating his counter-plan.
Tyree, in turn, could use some tips from Thurman Brown, who did not waste his time suing a “mere” Trial Judge, most of whom are of the genus durus capita and insist on doing their duty as they see it. Brown, went right to top and sued not only appellate judges (whose calling in life, according to one trial judge, is to be dispatched to the battlefield after all the shooting is over, with orders to shoot all the survivors), but also the Justices of the Supreme Court (including the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who had already been dead for three years, there being no point in taking any chances). Brown v. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, et al., C.A. 08-0674. This was a call to high adventure for Judge Rosemary Collyer, who pondered the actions that many trial judges have so often wished they had over appellate judges). Here, again, however, being a durus jurist, Judge Collyer dismissed the suit on the ground that “it seems axiomatic that a lower court may not order the judges ... of a higher court to take action.” It seems a pity that Brown should have had to receive the shocking news of Rehnquist’s demise in such a brutal manner. One is reminded, however, of the incident in 1933, when Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, also of Massachusetts, was interrupted eating his clam chowder in the Senate dining room with the news that former President Calvin Coolidge had died. Looking up from his bowl, spoon in mid-swoop, Lodge squinted his eyes and replied, “How can they tell?”
Almost as if to prove the old adage that “a prophet is not without honor except in his own country,” Judge Emmet G. Sullivan found himself being sued in his own courthouse by one Akube W. Ndoromo (many of us are still waiting for the day when Judge Reggie B. Walton gets sued and some unsuspecting process minion jumps out of a concealed position and attempts to personally serve him with the summons and complaint). As far as memory serves, some believe that Judge Sullivan has, at one time or another, served with distinction on every court in the District of Columbia, with the possible exception of the Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals (its “temporariness” having lasted since it was established in 1971, during the Nixon Administration). In his current incarnation at the D.D.C., Judge Sullivan was accused in Ndoromo v. Sullivan, C.A. No. 08-74 of “altering, defacing, and partia[ly] destroying, and withholding from [the] jury [the] facts of the case ... and supporting the government’s illegal[] violation” of the Plaintiff’s right to a fair trial in a case over which he presided in which Ndoromo was convicted of xxx. Rather than simply appeal, he sued Judge Sullivan, whom he wanted removed from the bench (plus $45,000 for having accomplished this “public service”). But, for one thing, Judge Sullivan is running out of courts and it would be difficult to find gainful employment.. For another, many who have spent a lifetime in criminal defense work have discovered that in many cases it would be truly a blessing to have such a Judge keeping evidence from the jury. By the time a case gets to the trial stage in federal court, usually the last thing a defense lawyer wants is a “fair trial” – s/he wants a “mistrial.” In this case it fell to Judge Lamberth to rule that, in effect, that if Mr. Ndoromo could gain the passage of legislation to establish subject matter jurisdiction, abolish the doctrine of absolute judicial immunity, have his own criminal conviction vacated, attain standing to sue, and assert something other than “far-fetched” claims, he could then proceed with his suit. Still, he should be advised, that Judge Sullivan and Judge Walton are friends.
In a similar vein, Judge Lamberth also dismissed two separate suits in April, filed against the Clerk of the United States Supreme Court. In Smith v. Supreme Court of the United States, et al., C.A. No. 08-0737 and McDonald v. Suter, et al., C.A. No 08-0739, the Plaintiffs complained that the Clerks refused to accept their appellate documents for filing – a battle that many a lawyer has fought over the years (wrong color cover; lack of appropriate caption; invalid certificate of service; failure to include all addresses; too many pages; not enough copies, ad nauseam ad infinitum). But, truth be told, the day that Judges start telling court clerks how to do their jobs, is the day that the courts in American will close down in chaos. Then “Law and Order” will be accurate in its portrayal of the judicial system.
Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr., the person who attained judgeships on the District Court twice first (he was a Magistrate Judge there 1976-79), found himself presiding over an imbroglio concerning fines assessed against a nail salon, once the case was removed from Superior Court, where he had also had a distinguished career (1979-97). He polished off the case, however, by ruling that the Plaintiff had fingered the wrong Defendant in attempting to nail the Director of the DCRA in her official capacity. Cho v. District of Columbia, et al., C.A. No. 08-00353.
Those who have lived in Washington for a good period of time know the history of Jenkins Hill, where the Capitol Building now stands, and some of the surrounding landscape. At one time the C&O Canal came off the Potomac near where the Lincoln Memorial now stands, straight up what is now Constitution Avenue, and ended up at the foot of what is now the West Facade of the Capitol Building, where the Presidential Inaugurations are now conducted (the canal keeper’s stone house still stands at the corner of Constitution and 17th Street, NW.). For years the land to the South side of the Capitol was occupied b y a row of not-too-fancy rooming houses for members of Congress, including Abraham Lincoln during his single term in the House (1846-48) in which ironically for his future, he was an anti-war critic of the Polk Administration’s incursion into Mexico. If Lincoln had prevailed – think of it – we would not have Arnold Schwarzenegger as the “Governator” of California today. In that vein, Theresa Small Smith filed suit against Holly Shimizu, Director of the Smithsonian’s Botanic gardens, which now occupies that site, to force the Government to vacate the property, Smith v. Shimizu, C.A. No. 07-2277, contending that the land rightfully belonged to that twig on the branch of the towering Smith family tree of which she was now the living embodiment (possibly the same one beneath which Longfellow’s “Smithy” stood so many years ago). Not only had the various Government authorities conspired to seize the family homestead but the conspirators had also stolen her identity, all of which left her with no choice but to file suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act with an ad damnum clause of $3 billion dollars. Judge Paul Friedman insisted on imposing on Ms. Smith something called “the plausibility standard” that would require plaintiffs to file complaints that are not simply composed of “labels or conclusions” but which set forth claims for relief that adhere to a “probability standard” that go beyond “a mere possibility” of causality, and which rise “above a speculative level.” Think of the implications of such folly! Entire law firms shut down. Massive unemployment among plaintiff’s’ attorneys – and insurance defense attorneys, to boot. The Geico Gecko turned into a wallet. Cab drivers with no alternate source of income from “litigation futures” stemming from soft tissue injuries sustained in three-mile-per-hour bumper taps. Civil clerks with so much extra time on their hands that all computer entries would be completely up-to-date, but with no lawyers to read them. Courtrooms from Small Claims to the U.S. Court of Claims dark at 2:00 in the afternoon. Litigation life as we know it would suffer the fate of the dinosaurs at the juncture of the Permian-Triassic Explosion. This is a very dangerous precedent that Judge Friedman is fostering on an unsuspecting community wherein you cannot to impose the doctrine of “transferred intent” without the chance of actually shooting a lawyer. As Woody Allen said in Love and Death (1975), “This man has got to be watched!”
The litigant who easily receives April’s award for the “Most Efforts to Reduce the Bureaucracy Award” is undoubtedly Ms. Julia Miller, whose four pending pro se and in forma pauperis cases were adjudicated last month, three by Judge Collyer and one by Judge Lamberth – even though she apparently lives in Detroit. In Miller v. Dep’t of Human Services, et al., C.A. No. 08-0631, Ms. Miller sought relief against various courts and other agencies in Wayne County, Michigan, pertaining to the custody of her minor children and the disposition of her marital property, for which she sought damages of $300,000.
Perhaps she was visiting the Capital of the Free World and, overwhelmed with the imposing architecture of the U.S. District Court building, decided to drop in and file a few lawsuits – especially when it is free of cost for her to do so. As gently as she could, however, Judge Collyer ruled that her “factual contentions are baseless and wholly incredible” – like so many other contentions in the District of Columbia – and dismissed the case as “frivolous. Undeterred, Ms. Miller then took on the Social Security Administration, an outfit with enough troubles and which those of us who are on the brink of retirement would just as soon she leave alone. She insisted, however, that the SSA, together with “various [other] government entities, corporations, media outlets, stock brokerage firms, retail stores, and financial institutions consistently harass, stalk and threaten her, falsify government records pertaining to her, and otherwise fraudulently obtain benefits to which she is entitled.” Perhaps on the theory that the Plaintiff had confused the SSA with the IRS, Judge Collyer dismissed the suit. Miller v. Social Security Administration, et al., C.A. No. 08-0632. Then going straight to the heart of the matter, Ms. Miller sued the Department of the Treasury regarding some sort of a dispute over a student loan. In Miller v. U.S. Dep’t of the Treasury, et al., C.A. No. 08-0770 she had learned enough, she asserted, to know her rights. Regrettably for her, however, the course on which she spent the student loan money did not teach her about subject matter jurisdiction, which the Court held that it did not have, and Judge Collyer struck down yet another Miller claim. Having lost suits in April over political philosophy, social security, and student finances, Ms. Miller then targeted the D.C. Public Housing authority, which she associated with dozens of federal and state agencies, not only here but also in Michigan, Illinois, Georgia, and California, all of which, she insisted, had conspired to commit identity theft against her, ultimately depriving her of a place to live. Miller v. D.C. Public Housing Authority, et al., C.A. No. 08-0734. Judge Lamberth, however, knew who she was, sending her an Order dismissing her suit as one based on “fantastic or delusional scenarios” that were “clearly baseless.” What Judge Lamberth doesn’t seem to understand is that it is a lawyer’s job to take “fantastic and delusional scenarios” and turn them into valid-sounding claims. Have we already forgotten the “Twinkie Defense”? Don’t people still realize that the Columbian Drug Lords who murdered Nicole Brown Simpson are still out there, free men? After all, we live in a world of fantasies and delusions at the highest levels of our society, business, and government. The chief executive officers of the six largest cigarette manufacturers in the country stated under oath in congressional testimony that they did not believe that tobacco is addictive; millions of viewers in perpetual re-runs every day believe that “Law and Order” accurately portrays the nation’s judicial system at work; that automobile dealers can be successful in business by selling brand new vehicles “at below dealer cost”; that by taking pills people can enlarge bodily appendages,"dream away" excess weight if they wear certain belts or wraps while sleeping, and can become prosperous by sending what little money they have to television evangelists who are subject to no accounting whatsoever as to what they actually do with it; that lawyers really mean it when they say, “I’ll be brief, Your Honor”; that there really is merit in the term “football scholarship”; that scratching a phonograph record with a needle qualifies as playing a “musical instrument”; that there are tons of Weapons of Mass Destruction buried somewhere in Iraq; and that men cannot gain entrance into Heaven unless they have more than one wife while here on Earth. In the face of these colossal leaps of faith, is it so much to grant Ms. Miller the opportunity to prove that the financial giants of the nation are conspiring to ruin her life? We all know this is not uncommon, after all. As the old bromide goes, “If you don’t think anyone cares about you, try skipping a couple of car payments.”
So April was a busy month at the D.D.C. Too bad it’s over. But wait – October is “National Toilet Tank Repair Month” (Really!). It’s only a coincidence that the Supreme Court begins its new term at the same time. Can’t wait to see which cases make it.
*The opinions, actual or implied, expressed by the writer are his own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the ownership, management, editorial board, or staff of the Daily Washington Law Reporter – none of whom, now that it comes up, actually has any opinions. All the cases discussed in this diatribe can be found on the local U.S. District Court’s website at https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/Opinions.pl?2008.
