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Old 10th May 2009, 06:38 PM   #1 (permalink)
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The Stupidest Lawsuit Ever...against WoTC and Gary Gygax

With a lot of legal talk about lawsuits, IP, etc., and with the research I did recently on PACER, I figured I should let you guys read the outright most stupid lawsuit ever.

Attached is a ZIP file of the lawsuit. Basically this guy wanted a restraining order against WoTC and Gary Gygax (after he died!), saying that both parties were "after his life".

I can't figure out if this guy is mentally ill or just trying to exploit the system. He even has his own Wikipedia entry, of all things.

It's probably the stupidest lawsuit ever filed against a gaming company.
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File Type: zip 1-08-cv-00955-WBH.zip (647.7 KB, 49 views)
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Old 10th May 2009, 07:01 PM   #2 (permalink)
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From his wikipedia entry, he's a prisoner who appears to file frivolous lawsuits to entertain himself.

Kind of sad, really. The dude's got a projected release date in 2012, you'd think he'd want to behave a bit better. Unless that release date is a hard coded one, this sort of thing will come up in the parole hearing.
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Old 10th May 2009, 07:04 PM   #3 (permalink)
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Not even close to the stupidest lawsuit ever. Sure it is stupid, but when you are discussing about the sheer incomprehensible stupidity of lawsuits being filed daily (especially in court-happy USA) this will barely register.
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Old 10th May 2009, 07:32 PM   #4 (permalink)
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Not even close to the stupidest lawsuit ever. Sure it is stupid, but when you are discussing about the sheer incomprehensible stupidity of lawsuits being filed daily (especially in court-happy USA) this will barely register.
Actually, that's what I meant by the elipsis...the stupidest lawsuit ever filed against Wizards of the Coast (and Gary Gygax).

But I think this guy has actually elsewhere done the stupidest lawsuit ever. Check this link out--this is just the link of defendants.

http://www.citypaper.net/articles/20...FP_Lawsuit.pdf
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Old 10th May 2009, 09:24 PM   #5 (permalink)
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Kind of sad, really.
Indeed. A one-paragraph complaint is sad to start with. This appears to be a person who has mental illness. I don't think mocking him or even calling attention to him will help him. He's been declared a vexatious litigant by the courts and everything is dismissed. They're aware that he's not really pursuing serious claims. (If he was, they would be lost in the morass of frivolous stuff.)
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Old 10th May 2009, 09:32 PM   #6 (permalink)
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Wait wait wait. Is he saying that undead Gary Gygax is one of the WOTC ninjas and they're after him?

Awesome.
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Old 10th May 2009, 09:40 PM   #7 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnRTroy View Post
It's probably the stupidest lawsuit ever filed against a gaming company.
mod edit: some might remember that political content isn't appropriate for these boards
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Old 10th May 2009, 09:45 PM   #8 (permalink)
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But I think this guy has actually elsewhere done the stupidest lawsuit ever. Check this link out--this is just the link of defendants.

http://www.citypaper.net/articles/20...FP_Lawsuit.pdf
Awesome. Good luck getting the Trojan Horse to pay up.
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Old 10th May 2009, 10:23 PM   #9 (permalink)
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Indeed. A one-paragraph complaint is sad to start with. This appears to be a person who has mental illness.
Or just a really weird hobby.
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Old 10th May 2009, 10:54 PM   #10 (permalink)
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Awesome. Good luck getting the Trojan Horse to pay up.
How about "Norse Gods"? Or "The Planet Pluto"?
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Old 11th May 2009, 12:00 AM   #11 (permalink)
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How about "Norse Gods"? Or "The Planet Pluto"?
Probably the only lawsuit to ever include P. Diddy, The Vatican, Dick Cheney and Marco Polo on the defendent list...
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Old 11th May 2009, 12:13 AM   #12 (permalink)
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Probably the only lawsuit to ever include P. Diddy, The Vatican, Dick Cheney and Marco Polo on the defendent list...
They all know what they did.
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Old 11th May 2009, 12:34 AM   #13 (permalink)
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They all know what they did.
ROFL. And after we see "Angels and Demons", we'll all know too. Unless the Trilateral Commission or the boys from Area 51 or US Postal Service or Boy Sprouts or other Illuminati somehow changed the script . . .
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Old 11th May 2009, 12:55 AM   #14 (permalink)
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Old 11th May 2009, 02:11 AM   #15 (permalink)
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Somebody needs to show Kenneth Hite this lawsuit and have him come up with some plausible conspiracy theory as a game MacGuffin...

Of course, this particular one might be even beyond Mr. Hite's abilities...

PS--from what I've gathered, his suits aren't for money, but to get restraining orders against them.
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Old 11th May 2009, 02:27 AM   #16 (permalink)
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PS--from what I've gathered, his suits aren't for money, but to get restraining orders against them.
They often ask for sums of money that can only be easily written in scientific notation. $656,111,345,000,000 trillion (or similar) was the requested amount in the case with 56 pages of defendants.

The actual complaint he filed:

http://www.rumorsdaily.com/brd/wp-co...svbushetal.pdf
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Old 11th May 2009, 02:28 AM   #17 (permalink)
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Well, there were certain lawsuits that just plain stepped out of the books. *chuckle* Those were pretty crazy.

My personal favorite lawsuits are some of those filed by the pseudohistorian Gavin Menzies, he of the 'the ancient Chinese discovered North America and everything else and I base this on Von Daniken levels of evidence'. The guy was actually declared a vexatious litigant by the British court system.
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Old 11th May 2009, 03:12 AM   #18 (permalink)
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My personal favorite lawsuits are some of those filed by the pseudohistorian Gavin Menzies, he of the 'the ancient Chinese discovered North America and everything else and I base this on Von Daniken levels of evidence'.
You mean they didn't? Why else is there so much rice in Latin American cuisine?
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Old 11th May 2009, 05:09 AM   #19 (permalink)
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From his wikipedia entry, he's a prisoner who appears to file frivolous lawsuits to entertain himself.

Kind of sad, really. The dude's got a projected release date in 2012, you'd think he'd want to behave a bit better. Unless that release date is a hard coded one, this sort of thing will come up in the parole hearing.
According to Wikipedia, he's in federal prison. So unless his conviction was from before 1987, when the Federal Sentencing Guidelines took effect (unlikely for a wire fraud conviction-- 25 years would require a lot of aggravating circumstances and possibly multiple counts of conviction), he was sentenced under a determinate sentencing system, where there is no parole hearing in the style used in many states. There is a good-conduct discount available, but that's mostly for avoiding things like violence within the prison-- I doubt that it would be taken away for filing frivolous lawsuits. So yeah, he probably isn't increasing his likely sentence. Not that that changes the fact that it's kinda sad, but...
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Old 11th May 2009, 07:03 AM   #20 (permalink)
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Probably the only lawsuit to ever include P. Diddy, The Vatican, Dick Cheney and Marco Polo on the defendent list...
And he made sure to include Kevin Bacon. This totally owns the "6 degrees of Kevin Bacon" game now. Oh, and don't forget he's also suing the Magna Carta, Merriam Websters Dictionary, King James Bible, and the Byzantine Republic Army "BRA" in that one.

Looking it over, I'd guess there's no mental issues. Just someone with a lot of time on his hands and a very silly hobby. That defendant list is pure comedy (and you can probably guess what was on the news and what commercials he saw that day).
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