Opinion ID: 2640741
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Future Action To Control DeNardo's Repeated Filings Against Judges

Text: Though not a formal point on appeal, Judge Rindner in his brief argues that this court should take action to control DeNardo's repetitive pleadings, and in particular his lawsuits against judges. Rindner lists nine separate lawsuits that DeNardo has filed against judges since he was informed in DeNardo v. Michalski that judges are immune from lawsuit even when they allegedly violate a party's rights. [36] Judge Rindner has since supplemented the record multiple times with new suits brought by DeNardo. Judge Rindner focuses on DeNardo's multiple suits against judges, though he also notes that as of the time of the filing of his brief, DeNardo had filed a total of thirty-seven known cases since 1990 in state and federal court. These suits, like the instant case, are often repetitive reiterations of prior lawsuits. Judge Rindner points out that [e]ach time DeNardo files another fruitless pleading against a judge, the judge must obtain representation at public expense from the Office of the Attorney General. It is sometimes necessary for the judge to provide notice of that representation to parties in litigation unrelated to DeNardo because the Attorney General's representation can raise conflicts in other cases pending before the judge. This raises the potential need to hire conflict counsel at public expense. Judge Rindner makes compelling points about the costs to the court system and to the public of DeNardo's litigation against judges. In many ways, moreover, judges are the more fortunate of DeNardo's targets in litigation because they have judicial immunity and can extricate themselves from a case relatively quickly. While rare, there is support in the case law for court orders prospectively limiting the litigation of a pro se litigant. The U.S. Supreme Court recognized in In re McDonald [37] that: Every paper filed with the Clerk of this Court, no matter how repetitious or frivolous, requires some portion of the institution's limited resources. A part of the Court's responsibility is to see that these resources are allocated in a way that promotes the interests of justice. The continual processing of petitioner's frivolous requests for extraordinary writs does not promote that end. Although we have not done so previously, lower courts have issued orders intended to curb serious abuses by persons proceeding in forma pauperis. [38] Similarly, American Jurisprudence (Second) addressed this topic in its section on Vexatious, frivolous, or oppressive litigation: Although litigiousness alone will not support an injunction restricting a plaintiff's filing activities, the courts have the authority to enjoin persons engaged in the manifest abuse of the judicial process, regardless of whether the threatened litigation is legal or equitable in character, or whether the vexatious litigation results from the prosecution of many suits by the same individual, or from many suits by different individuals. The courts may take creative actions to discourage hyperactive litigators so long as some access to courts is allowed, such as by limiting the amount of filings a litigant may make, and prescribing conditions precedent to those filings so as to determine the propriety of a suit on a case by case basis. . . . . That the plaintiff had objective good faith in filing vexatious lawsuits in a Federal District Court is not a factor in determining the court's power to exercise control over abuse of that court as a legal forum by enjoining future pro se pleadings. . . . [39] While at least five states have statutory solutions to the problem of vexatious litigants, [40] courts also have inherent power to control this problem. [41] The Ninth Circuit has held that courts may issue orders restricting a person's access to the courts so long as they are based on adequate justification in the record and narrowly tailored to the abuse perceived. [42] Control of judicial resources is an important concern of our court system. A request for an injunction or other court order should be raised initially in the superior court in order to allow all parties the proper due process which must include a hearing, adequate justification in the record, and a narrowly tailored order. Because Judge Rindner's request for a court order controlling DeNardo's actions was raised for the first time on appeal, we decline to reach the merits of that request.