Court Opinion

ID: 9608558
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:14:42.320192+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:07:07.830681
License: Public Domain

MACY, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
This Court does not have the capacity to right every subjectively perceived wrong. All members of society must cope with life’s disappointments, indignities, and failures. See Skane v. Star Valley Ranch Association, 826 P.2d 266 (Wyo.1992).
Our decision in Apodaca v. Ommen, 807 P.2d 939 (Wyo.1991), is unmistakably clear:
This court has indicated that a certain leniency is accorded to anyone acting pro se; however, the proper administration of justice requires reasonable adherence to the rules and requirements of the court. There is no more basic requirement in the rules than that a complaint must state a cause of action. Likely, Apodaca has confused the standards applied to a pro se litigant in a state civil action with the less stringent standards *243applied to pro se litigants in actions pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
807 P.2d at 943 (citations omitted).
We do not need to be concerned with “leniency” in this case. Osborn’s failure to state a claim does not arise because of an inept selection of language or his lack of learning the law: It arises because the facts of Osborn’s case simply cannot be forged into a claim or controversy. It does not take a “licensed attorney” to figure that out.
It is prudent to remember:
“One of the elements necessary to establish actionable fraud is that the fact which is represented or concealed have materiality. [Citations.]” McCamon v. Darnall Realty, Wyo., 444 P.2d 623, 625 (1968).
Reynolds v. Tice, 595 P.2d 1318, 1321-22 (Wyo.1979). The plaintiff’s belief of the fact represented or misrepresented must be reasonable. Garner v. Hickman, 709 P.2d 407, 410 (Wyo.1985). If Osborn got “ripped off” (as he worded his pleadings), it was not because of fraud or “bait and switch” or some other act by the defendants. It is crystal clear from the complaint’s face that the real culprit was Osborn’s endogenous salaciousness — a condition which can cause one to purchase a video which is touted, or “puffed,” in words which pictures simply cannot equal (the obverse of “one picture is worth a thousand words!”).
I do not disagree with embracing the criteria found in Tingler v. Marshall, 716 F.2d 1109 (6th Cir.1983). However, to apply that criteria to these circumstances, and reverse, is to accept the concept of sua sponte dismissals of complaints (when they are genuinely warranted) and then immediately throw the rule out the window.