Looks Like Jonathan Lee Riches Has Some Competition
(P.S. And the earth is a nuclear bomb.)
It appears that Jonathan Lee Riches -- ATL's favorite pro se litigant, who filed that famous $63,000,000,000.00 Billion lawsuit against Michael Vick -- has some competition in the contest for craziest complaint.
Pro se litigant Gregory Newman has filed a lawsuit against "Covert Action Air Operations." This entity does not exist. But that hasn't stopped Mr. Newman from alleging that it erased his videotape of a "magnetic tornado" that descended upon his backyard.
Here's an excerpt from the memorandum opinion dismissing the complaint, which describes some of Gregory Newman's more colorful allegations:
You can read the two-page opinion -- which includes some boilerplate and citations, perhaps helpful to the law clerks among you, for the proposition that complaints "that describe fantastic or delusional scenarios are subject to immediate dismissal" -- by clicking here.
Memorandum Opinion: Newman v. Covert Action Air Operations [U.S. District Court (D.D.C.)]
(37) Comments
this guy sounds like a gunner to me.
Hillary Clinton is an inexperienced rube. Word up.
When i clerked DDC, we had this pro se litigant who worked with one of the agencies who filed like a billion law suits. Why this guy wasn't handled by the staff (pro se) attorneys I'll never know.
he's right you know
"$63,000,000,000.00 Billion lawsuit"? You mean "$63 billion lawsuit"?
Seriously, this kind of stuff gets filed with some regularity around the nation. One I remember involved a claim that AT&T had conspired with "white racist cops and black racist cops" to send the plaintiff notices that his phone bill was past due, and eventually, shut off his phone service. He also claimed that the police had "sabotaged his 1997 Nissan so that it won't work." Pre-filing injunctions are the best way to deter these crazies.
"$63,000,000,000.00 Billion lawsuit"? You mean "$63 billion lawsuit"?
Typo Guy, no. That is how Jonathan Lee Riches spelled it out in his recent complaint. $63 billion billion.
The court can direct the clerk not to accept papers (except new complaints) from this guy.
12:27 is right -- the pro se office should summarily dispatch with any new loony toons complaints he files.
Fair enough...should have put it in quotes then.
haha! The plainitff has serious mental problems and is acting out because of them! Hahahah. God, it feels good to laugh at the mentally ill. I just can't stop laughing. ha. Haha. ha.
Typical USDC response -- they're just trying to protect the system, Newman! You can't use the system to fight the man!
12:41, do you know the plaintiff? How do you know he has serious mental problems and is acting out because of them? Is it because he filed a crazy lawsuit? I sincerely hope you are not a "mental health professional."
Besides, if you can't laugh at crazy people, who can you laugh at?
What if he's actually right, and has uncovered the biggest conspiracy in history?
.
He deserves to be at least heard.
Lat, can we get a full copy of the complaint???
Typo guy: so you call Lat out for the Riches damages request (which is right), but miss the fact that he said "magic tornado" while the opinion says "magnetic tornado"? Really? You're a crappy typo gunner. Must be law review at a TTT.
Christian energy devices?? Where's ol' Tommy to defend his "religion"?
Christian energy devices?? Where's ol' Tommy to defend his "religion"?
it's "magnetic tornado" not a "magic tornado"
It's about time that the Jews started ranting about crazy Christian conspiracies to run the world. Turn about is fair play, and all that.
Magic tornadoes to 190
"star wars does not work . . . it is away to steal trillions of dollars"
at least one part of his complaint is true
Isn't the issue of whether you're allowed to sleep in Wal-Mart at lease factually arguable...? (As opposed to a delusion?)
Also, to the person that said we shouldn't make fun of him because he's crazy...okay, so was the chic that told the partner to "back up" crazy or the tranny's lawyer-boyfriend who filed bizarre lawsuits on her behalf and made goofy statements crazy or the ASU law student that tied up her ex-boyfriend...? Um yeah, probably all three of them are suffering to a degree from mental illness, call it crazy or socially maladjusted or whatever...but it doesn't make their idiotic behavior not funny.
What about the people who end up on here just because they are stupid? Stupidity is clearly a mental deficiency...can we not laugh at them either?
Or what about the stressed out lawschool or middle-of-the-night associate mass e-mails, they're obviously under "stress" -- another medical mental condition, so we can't laugh at them?
What would be the POINT of this blog?
It's not like we made "bald" jokes about cancer lady.
They're not mutually exclusive, 12:59. Everyone knows that.
My firm got an email from a guy wanting to sue over magnetic tornadoes a few months ago. I wonder if it was this guy.
I want to sue for the right to keep my magnetic chipmunk tornadoes.
If you can't distinguish between someone clearly in the grips of a debilitating mental illness like schizophrenia or its ilk and garden-variety assholes or screwups, and understand that the mockery you might visit on one isn't appropriate, you deserve to drown in your own crapulence. Jesus, people. Are you that hard up for cash, Lat?
2:08,
The poster speaking about social niceties things not being appropriate uses the Lord's name in vain. {{irony dripping}}
He should have tried IKEA. There was that comedian who spent a week living at IKEA. I bet he would have had better luck there, and I think their furnishings are at least marginally more comfortable.
Funky Cold Magnetic Tornado
I think I am reasonably sane. However, were I locked up in prison with nothing better to do than write...maybe I'd take up the hobby of writing bizarre lawsuits for fun. Heck, maybe I should be doing that NOW as opposed to adding to a blog...only, you know, still HAVING a job and future career prospects, I wouldn't be able to file it for fear of people thinking I am crazy and knowing it won't be read takes most of the entertainment/satisfaction out of writing it. But man, if I were locked up and had no career prospects anyhow, why not? Does this make me crazy?
I filed a lawsuit about how the moon is a spy satellite put there by Oprah and Minister Farrakhan, and not the Minister Farrakhan you are thinking of.
2:08, people struggling with mental illness will be in the exact same position in life whether or not a group of people they've never met or spoken to laugh at crazy behavior that gets documented in the public domain.
Second, there's a distinction between laughing at humorous absurd behavior and laughing at a sufferer of mental illness themselves. No one on this blog (yet) has made the plight of the plaintiff itself the subject of jokes. Bizarre behavior is funny; the unhappiness created by mental illness isn't.
Third, if you're honestly so concerned about the plaintiff's welfare, why aren't you finding his name from the court docket and reaching out to him or his family offering help? Surely that's more helpful than nitpicking on a website.
This is why we need Magnetic Tornado Lawsuit Reform in this country.
2:08pm is right. This isn't funny, it's sad.
I wish someone would spring for the 40 cents or so it would cost to pull the original complaint off of PACER and send it to Lat...
Best v. Kelly, cited in the opinion, includes another gem of a complaint in a footnote:
"Years ago a Secret Branch of the Federal Government Put me under. This Branch of the Government, took my Face off of my Head, went into my Scull & Put a Computer Chip of some kind & a Camera System which makes me Project Images or Pitchers, many Feet in Front of me. This was done to me without my Written Permission or any kind of Signature. This was and is an Atrocity. This Atrocity that was committed against me, has caused Massive Interrogation & Cruel & Unusual Punishment Against me. The Atrocity that was committed against me is in all actuality Cruel & Unusual Punishment. I feel that the Government should be responsible for the Atrocity committed Against me.
Wilson v. United States Federal Government, Civ. Action No. 92-2159 (D.D.C.1992)."
I'm still trying to figure out what "Pitchers" means. Water pitchers? Baseball pitchers? Or does the guy just not know how to spell 'pictures'?