Drones -- Again

Kanno v. Three Unknown Agents of the Federal Marshals of Oklahoma City Office, Case No. 11-6187 (10th Cir. 11/23/11)

Plaintiff was in jail when he filed his complaint in federal court.  He contends he was under investigation in "secret court' and has been "given an unconstitutional death penalty by the Department of Homeland Security." He also claims he is being slowly burned to death by drones that use a microwave to boil and cook parts of his body, and that he is only alive because he understood the weapons and kept himself wet.

The case was dismissed.  Plaintiff will just have to keep himself wet.

Burning Questions

Lamke v. Futorian Corp., 709 P.2d 684 (Okla. 1985)

Plaintiff fell asleep with a burning cigarette and caught the sofa on fire. She sued the manufacturers of both the cigarette and the sofa, claiming the products were defective and that the manufacturers failed to warn her. Plaintiff alleged the cigarette should have been self-extinguishing. The Court held that the danger was obvious, so no warning was required. As to the sofa, the manufacturer was not required to make a flame-retardant product.

Unbelievable!

Slocum v. Corporate Express US Inc., No. 11-5083 (10th Cir. Nov. 2, 2011)

This case was dismissed by the Court for being implausible, outlandish, and incomprehensible.

Plaintiff's complaint alleged that her former employer, an office-supply company, hired a “surveillance company” to break into her home to install “audio-video equipment,” and repeated the operation after each of her five different changes of address. They took videotape of her unclothed, which they then “broadcast[]...to various radio and television broadcasters,” including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Big Country 99.5 FM. Corporate Express also made death threats, hacked into her computer and distributed her credit card and banking information,  slandered her on national talk radio,  stalked her, denied her access to local universities, commandeered an economics professor to ridicule her in class, precipitated her divorce,  caused an institutionalization that led to a hysterectomy (an excision of the uterus), and, finally, dispatched “agents” to practice a “technique [where] they would go to a restaurant that I was going to, and they would listen to my conversations with friends, and family, and talk to each other about things that only meant something to me, but my friends, and family would not have a clue what was going on." This has gone on for the “last four years and eight months.”  Its purpose has been to “humiliate” and “intimidate the Plaintiff over pending civil litigation.” Some of the wrongdoing was accomplished “in concert” with the Rogers State University Campus Police, “agents” of the State of Oklahoma, and the Claremore, Oklahoma, police department.

Night of the Living Dead

Stewart Title Guaranty Co. v. Sterling, 822 S.W.2d 1, 11, 35 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 206 (Tex. 1991)

When the majority of the court reversed Texas law and followed a previous decision -- which had already been expressly overruled -- the minority court filed a dissenting opinion:

"Visiting the graveyard of abandoned legal precedents, the court today mystically revives the corpse of Bradshaw v. Baylor University, 126 Tex. 99, 84 S.W.2d 703 (Tex. 1935), and the one recovery rule it embodied. We had previously pronounced Bradshaw dead in determining that "the reasoning behind the one recovery rule no longer applies." Duncan, 665 S.W.2d at 431, and concluding that "to the extent it conflicts with this opinion, we overrule Bradshaw v. Baylor University." Id. at 432. Now this court has awakened yet another dead tort principle to roam the land, terrorizing victims. As in The Night of the Living Dead, an unthinking zombie is raised to prey on the living. When this court has resurrected enough of these monsters, the landscape of tort law will be bleak indeed, and let the victims beware.   The one recovery rule of Bradshaw is dead, and because I prefer to let the dead rest in peace, I dissent."

I award you no points

Lopez v. Quarterman, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40002 (S.D. Tex. 2009)

After the Petitioner's Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus was dismissed he filed four more motions, totalling 80 pages.  The Court didn't understand them.

"The first of these filings was Petitioner's August 11, 2008 Motion of Continuance of Habeas with Brief in Support (Dkt. No. 18), which the Court described as a "manifesto" in which Petitioner "rambled on for 33 single-spaced, handwritten pages about issues such as 'Transformative Technologies State and Mind,' 'Marxist Leninism Socialism,' 'Naive Optimism of Sloth,' and 'Gnosticism Freemasonry.'" (Dkt. No. 19.) The Court denied Petitioner's motion, noting that Petitioner did not request relief under Rule 60(b), nor did he offer any explanation for his failure to respond to Respondent's Motion for Summary Judgment. (Id.) Likewise, the Court denied Petitioner's Motion for Bench Warrant and Enter in New Evidence (Dkt. No. 20), filed December 1, 2008, which amounted to an abbreviated version of his earlier Motion for Continuance. (Dkt. No. 21.) The Court noted that "[a]gain, Petitioner has not requested relief under Rule 60(b), nor has he offered any explanation for his failure to respond to Respondent's Motion for Summary Judgment in a timely manner. Moreover, the Court is unable to ascertain what new evidence Petitioner wishes to present." (Id.)

"Now pending before the Court are Petitioner's third and fourth filings: his Motion of Mandamus to Reverse Dismissal of Habeas Corpus (Dkt. No. 22) and Mandamus to Enter In New Evidence (Dkt. No. 23). For the first time, Petitioner has cited Rule 60(b), 2 but he does not explain why he is entitled to relief under the Rule. Instead, he digresses for another 40 pages on issues such as "Racial Hubris," "Filibustering of Petitioner as a mortal threat as being half-black, half-devil," "National Security," "Mob Caste System Persecution," and "The Catholic Church." (Dkt. Nos. 22 & 23.)


"The Court is unable to interpret or otherwise make sense of either of Petitioner's motions. To the extent a request for relief is buried somewhere in Petitioner's ramblings, it is denied as incomprehensible. Or, in the words of the competition judge to Adam Sandler's title character in the movie, "Billy Madison,"

[W]hat you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I've ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response was there anything that could even be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

"BILLY MADISON (Universal Pictures 1995). . . ."

But the Judge Called It "a Rembrandt"

Richie v. American Council on Gift Annuities, 1996 WL 743343 (N.D. Tex.)

The court was responding to a petition for writ of mandamus, so as to keep the appellate court from being misled as to what was really going on.

"If histrionics and hyperbole were an art form, what the petitioners have filed would be a Rembrandt."

The Court noted that the court file was needlessly prolix, with 403 motions, briefs and letters filed in the court.  "Many are duplicative.  Many do nothing to advance the ball. .  . . Yet the paper keeps flowing and the meter keeps running.  There are 765 documents filed thus far in the district court and my docket sheet in this case rocks on for 116 pages." 

The court said that "From a personal, pragmatic, and selfish standpoint, the granting of a mandamus ordering me to dismiss this case would be a blessing.  This black hole of a case sucks up staff and judicial resuorces like no other case I have dealt with."

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Avista Mgmt. v. Wasau Underwriters Ins. Co., 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38526 (M.D. Fla.)

Plaintiff sued an insurance company for not paying an insurance claim fast enough.  The attorneys could not agree on a place to take the deposition fo a witness, and asked the court to intervene.   The Judge was less than amused. After castigating the attorneys for not being able to agree on even the most simplest of things, the court issued this ruling:

"[T]he Court will fashion a new form of alternative dispute resolution, to wit: at 4:00 P.M. on Friday, June 30, 2006, counsel shall convene at a neutral site agreeable to both parties. If counsel cannot agree on a neutral site, they shall meet on the front steps of the [Courthouse]. Each lawyer shall be entitled to be accompanied by one paralegal who shall act as an attendant and witness. At that time and location, counsel shall engage in one (1) game of 'rock, paper, scissors.' The winner of this engagement shall be entitled to select the location for the 30(b)(6) deposition to be held somewhere in Hillsborough County during the period July 11-12, 2006."

The order was cited in Kara Homes, Inc. v. Century Kitchens, Inc., 374 B.R. 542 (Bkcy. D.N.J. 2007) as an example of the types dispute resolution available to the parties, stating that "even a game of "rock, paper, scissors" has been given judicial imprimatur as an acceptable dispute resolution mechanism."