Humor in the Court

 Back in the olden days when I began practicing, when you wanted to file a lawsuit, you hired a “runner” to physically file the paperwork. Now, in many courts it is done electronically.

You might remember a few weeks ago that Trump was attempting to file suit in the Federal District Court in Michigan. He made a basic blunder and filed in the Federal Court of Claims. He has later asked for a refund of his $400 filing fee from the Court of Claims, blaming “electronic error” for the mistaken filing. What follows is the Court’s not too subtle response.

“Although the complaint was filed with this court, it was captioned as though it were filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan. …

“For whatever reason (and no good one is apparent to the Court), Plaintiffs have chosen not to be candid about what led them to file their complaint initially in this Court. But so far as the Court can tell, there was no “electronic error” involved. Rather, it was human error. …

“Ironically, this Court has the authority to direct that the filing fee be refunded in circumstances when an inadvertent error of this sort is made. … But Plaintiffs have not requested a refund on the basis of human error. Instead, they have sought to shift blame to some unspecified but allegedly “not uncommon error” in the electronic filing system. The Court is not inclined to direct a refund of the filing fee where, as here, Plaintiffs’ counsel is either incapable of clearly articulating why the Court should do so, or worse, deliberately being less than straightforward with the Court.”

To my mind, the funniest part of his whole transaction is that the legal fees involved in asking for the refund far exceeds the amount they requested. [Written December 13, 2020]