Prisoners
have a long and hilarious history of filing pro
se (on their own, without attorneys) lawsuits, unless you are the one they’re
suing. Then they’re totally and completely
obnoxious. Because law is
complicated. That’s why it takes three
(some say it should be two) years of specialized graduate school and a
multi-day test to get licensed to have the right to represent someone else to
do it. But, people get in a law library
or on the Wikipedia machine and read a legal concept and think they understand
it and then sue someone and have no idea what they’re doing. I don’t get it. I’ve been in court and seen it go down badly. I’ve represented companies sued by pro se plaintiffs who clearly don’t
understand the law they’re citing or basic legal concepts. You wouldn’t get a really, really bad
toothache and think, fark it, I’m going to get on the Wikipedia machine and do
home dentistry and pull out my wisdom teeth myself. No, that would be insane. Most people won’t do home electrical
work. But, oh, will they read some
internet post by a sovereign citizen and think, there is some treaty from 1643
(that totally hasn’t been abrogated by a revolutionary war, constitution,
constitutional amendments and 400 years of law) and I don’t have to pay my
taxes like everyone else. That’s
cool. I found a way not to have to pay
taxes. To them, I say, “You know what,
that website might be wrong, because you, an untrained person, are not an
expert and you ought not file a lawsuit and stand in front of a judge arguing about some treaty and laws you don't understand.”
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| Pimping is just as hard as pro se law |
That’s
my rant. Here’s the story of a pimp from
Portland who doesn’t understand product liability law. But he’s got time on his hands and access to
a prison law library and potentially the Wikipedia machine, so you know what, he’s now
an expert and gonna file a lawsuit and try to win $100 million from Nike. His
theory is as novel as his name.
Vicereports that Sirgiorgiro
Clardy was a pimp in Portland who is serving a 100-year term for kicking a john
who tried to get out of paying his prostitute, and then leaving the john for
dead in a motel room (after robbing the guy).
Singiorgiro was charged with assault with a deadly weapon. The deadly weapon was his shoes (used in the
kicking). This could be considered a
novel approach by the prosecution, since Nikes are not normally considered
deadly weapons, but just about anything that can be used to increase the hurt
up to a deadly level can be considered a deadly weapon. A trained fighter using his fists can have
his fists be considered a deadly weapon, if he knows or should know that his
fists are capable of causing death.
Apparently, the jury found that Sirgiorgiro’s Nikes were deadly enough,
on his feet during the stomping, to move the charge up from ordinary assault to
assault with a deadly weapon (as the victim was almost killed).
So
where does the pro se lawsuit come in? Sirgiorgiro sued Nike for $100 million in a
product liability suit for Nike not warning him that his shoes could be deadly
weapons. Because under product liability
law, failure to warn of the dangerous propensities of a product can be
considered a defect in the product. That’s
the black-letter law on product liability.
That sounds awesome if you’re a pimp in a law library who reads that and
doesn’t go any further. Here’s where the
problem starts for the pimp: In order to recover in a products’ liability lawsuit,
you have to be injured by the product.
This is caused cause-in-fact.
Sirgiorgiro wasn’t harmed by the shoe.
The other guy was. Sirgiorgiro’s
being in jail isn’t legally a harm to him.
The shoe didn’t cause him to stomp the guy. If that shoe hadn’t been on, and he’d been
wearing Adidas, likely he’d have still stomped the john. So, no cause-in-fact. Then there’s legal cause, aka proximate
cause. This is the doctrine where there
has to be a logical connection between the alleged defect (the lack of warning
that the shoe could be deadly), and the harm.
You see, many, many things were causes-in-fact of the john getting hurt
(though not Sirgiorgiro getting injured, because legally, he’s not injured). The john decided to hire a hooker. He decided not to pay. He decided to hire Sirgiorgiro’s hooker
instead of a sane pimp’s hooker who might have slapped him around without
trying to kill him. Take one of those things out of the causal chain (not
hiring the hooker, hiring a different hooker), he doesn’t end up on the floor
bleeding near to death. But, none of
those things are legal causes unless they rise to the level of being a large
enough of a part of the legal chain that men of ordinary reasonableness would consider
them to be worth of blame, and hence, damages.
Sirgiorgiro
is suing because he thinks the Nikes should come with a warning that they can
be deadly, or likely, that if you use them to stomp someone, you can get
charged with assault with a deadly weapon (rather than ordinary assault). His theory is apparently, if the shoes had
such a warning, he wouldn’t have stomped the dude with the shoes. (if that’s not the theory, that’s the only
legal theory that makes any sense, legally-speaking). He would have stomped the dude with something
that wouldn’t have gotten him the enhanced charge. Problem here (aside from the previously
mentioned problem of him not being injured by the shoes), is that almost anything
used in a deadly manner can be considered a deadly weapon. I used to teach school in a jail. We didn’t use pencils. They are very obviously
capable of being put to use as a deadly weapon.
Does a pencil carry a warning that it could be used as a deadly
weapon? No, because that is not an
obvious and normal misuse for which there should be a warning. No one should have to warn on a pencil to not
attack someone with it and stab them in the neck. No one should put a warning on a Nike saying,
“Don’t stomp anyone with this or you can have your charge go from ordinary
assault to assault with a deadly weapon if the dude dies.”
So
that leaves us with the problem of prisoner pro
se filings. The question for Nike,
and everyone who gets sued pro se is
where did Sirgiorgiro get the money to file the suit? Did a judge allow him to file the suit in forma pauperis (as a poor person) and
waive the filing fees? If so, did the judge
read the complaint first? He should
have, and shouldn’t have allowed it to go forward. The case will likely get dismissed
quickly. It will still cost Nike money
it shouldn’t have to spend. Sirgiorgiro
is in jail, so he can’t really be sanctioned any more than he is, except that
the judge can put in an order to not allow him to file any more cases without
court approval as a vexatious litigator.
Which needs to happen.
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