Case ID: f-appx_415/html/0428-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "HARDIMAN, Circuit Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

William S. KARN, Appellant v. Clayton S. MORROW; Prothonotary; Borough of Ben Avon.
    No. 10-2994.
    United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.
    Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a) Feb. 17, 2011.
    Filed: Feb. 25, 2011.
    William S. Earn, Bellevue, PA, pro se.
    Clayton S. Morrow, Pittsburgh, PA, pro se.
    William M. Buchanan, Esq., Samuel H. Foreman, Esq., Deborah A. Kane, Esq., Tracy A. Walsh, Esq., Weber, Gallagher, Simpson, Stapleton, Fires & Newby, Pittsburgh, PA, for Borough of Ben Avon.
    
      Before: SLOVITER and HARDIMAN, Circuit Judges and JONES , District Judge.
    
      
       The Honorable C. Darnell Jones, District Judge for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, sitting by designation.
    
   OPINION OF THE COURT

HARDIMAN, Circuit Judge.

William S. Earn appeals the District Court’s dismissal of his complaint against the Borough of Ben Avon, the Allegheny County Prothonotary, and Clayton S. Morrow. We will affirm.

On March 30, 2010, Earn brought suit alleging that Defendants violated his Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by subjecting him to involuntary servitude and depriving him of equal protection of the law. Earn later amended his complaint to add a breach of contract claim against Morrow. The District Court dismissed the amended complaint, finding that it failed to meet the requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) and sought an impermissible advisory opinion. This appeal followed.

On appeal, Earn presents a host of new issues, none of which he raised in the District Court. Specifically, he contends that the Constitution empowers the federal government to seize control of the state judiciaries and create a single unified federal court system. According to Earn, this process might be achieved by “replacing the human analytical process with a rivaling super computer” in order to allow “[djigital logic [to] assist and ultimately supplant human logic.” Br. at 7. Although this suggested reform more closely resembles the writings of Isaac Asimov than Thomas Paine (to whom Earn compares himself), his goal — to create a system where “judges are not ... elected to office by election campaigns and public vote,” Br. at 4 — is the subject of discussion in appropriate fora.

A federal court of appeals, however, is not such a forum. However thought-provoking Earn’s ideas may be, his appeal fails to challenge any of the District Court’s findings of fact or law. Because Earn’s appeal does not address the merits of his underlying claim or any purported errors committed by the District Court, we hold that he has waived any grounds for appeal he might have asserted. See In re Surrick, 338 F.3d 224, 237 (3d Cir.2003). Accordingly, we will summarily affirm the District Court’s order pursuant to Third Circuit Internal Operating Procedure 10.6. 
      
      . See, e.g., Colloquium, The Debate Over Judicial Elections and State Court Judicial Selection, 21 Geo J. Legal Ethics 1347 (2008) (organized by the Sandra Day O'Connor Project on the State of the Judiciary).