Court Opinion

ID: 9751102
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:05:49.096997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:35.248408
License: Public Domain

McDERMOTT, Justice,
dissenting.
From time to time all courts have the melancholy task of hearing complaints, filed pro se, by persons seeking refuge from imagined enemies. The farther the enemy from reality, the more real to them. They are sad and tedious occasions. Patient as a court may be, there must come an end, not only for the convenience of the court, but more specifically, for those against whom the proceedings are leveled. Persons are put to expense and discomfiture to answer complaints that are manifestly irrational, and to deny allegations that are the stuff of fevered sleep.
An issue raised in this case is when such proceedings can be properly ended. Under the circumstances, I am almost reluctant to say, for it sounds a chord from Wonderland, that they can end only after they begin. That is, the Prothonotary cannot refuse to accept and file, nor the Sheriff refuse to serve a complaint, however absurd. Only a court can dismiss a complaint. A question raised here is whether a court may do so sua sponte.
*508The majority has adopted the view that a court cannot, of its own motion, before service upon an alleged defendant, dismiss a complaint. The instant case is a clear example of a complainant who has abused the process of the courts in a series of frivolous actions, to the inconvenience and expense of all concerned.1 For a court not to dismiss such complaints, under such palpable abuse, is to do an injustice to the parties required to respond. It is part of the syndrome that precipitates such complaints to suspect everyone. We must believe in the mature, good faith of our judicial officers and believe that their experienced judgment can perceive the difference between genuine and surrealistic fears. I join with Mr. Justice NIX.

. Mr. Justice Nix in his dissenting opinion, lists appellants’ previous actions.