You might be wondering how long it takes David Anthony “Acerthorn” Stebbins to escalate from a standing start to a benchslap-worthy lawsuit.
Wonder no longer!
Stebbins v. United States, 1:14-cv-01267, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
On 22 September 2014, Stebbins telephoned the US Marshals Service pursuing service of documents in his not-at-all frivolous case against EduCap for trying to collect money he owed them. This was entirely reasonable: his court filing demanding that they execute service had hit the docket minutes earlier, and they hadn’t done what he demanded yet!
He was put through to the wrong person: the guy in charge of the cellblock. Worse: that person had a “grouchy voice”! So, entirely reasonably, Stebbins lost his shit and screamed at him. In blatant violation of Stebbins’ First Amendment right to harangue random Federal employees, he threatened to file charges against Stebbins if he continued harassing him – a clear terroristic threat by the Federal agent. Who then put the phone down.
Stebbins immediately flew into action, filing a lawsuit demanding $100,000 for every day until the “terroristic threat” was withdrawn and the modest sum of $16,460,346.02 in punitive damages, because the phrase “you yell at me on the phone, I will personally seek you out and file a charge against you and make you a member of the Cellblock” can only be interpreted as a threat to “literally kidnap plaintiff and make up charges”, amounting to a credible threat to “hunt Plaintiff down with his bare hands and drag him to a completely different time zone, where he would be stranded in a foreign area to die.” It cannot possibly be interpreted in any other way, right?
In addition to protecting Plaintiiff’s own life (literally), Plaintiff also hopes to do a public service – just like he was doing in the case against Educap, Inc – by teaching government officials a stern lesson in respecting the constiututional rights of the citizens they’re supposed to be protecting
He certainly achieved the same as he achieved in the Educap case. To quote the judge, granting defendants’ motion for summary dismissal in that case,
Plaintiff has not established a prima facie case of retaliation under the A.D.A. or malicious prosecution under Arkansas law.
Back to the case at issue. Defendants moved to dismiss, noting that Stebbins is a vexatious filer, citing in support the fact that Stebbins “has now notoriously filed pro-se litigation throughout the
country, and has been cautioned by another federal District Judges – under penalty of significant
sanction – not to abuse members of the court staff.”
Stabby then amended the complaint to add a third count: retaliation, in violation of the Rehabilitation Act. Because mentioning his history of frivolous claims and abuse of government employees is a violation of his rights as an American with a disability.
Alas, the judge was part of the global conspiracy to keep our hero from the fabulous wealth to which he is clearly entitled. In a blunt ruling, Count 1 (first amendment retaliation) was dismissed due to qualified immunity. Count 2 (FTCA violation for terroristic threatening) was dismissed because the FTCA requires you first to exhaust administrative remedies, and in the three days between the phone call and filing the lawsuit, Stebbins had not fully explored remedies with the Marshals Office. By which I mean he had failed to even try. Count 3 also failed due to qualified immunity, and also, because “the Rehabilitation Act clearly does not proscribe the citation of any case in the drafting of a legal argument,” thus “put simply, Count III is frivolous.”
Poor Stebbins. He asked for a modest $37 million and instead the judge handed him his ass on a plate. Again.
So, how long does it take Stebbins to go from a minutes-long phone call to a multi-million-dollar frivolous lawsuit? Three days.
Alas, it then took eleven months, the substitution of the US as defendant, and nearly 60 docket entries, to shut him up. Which is why he is a vexatious litigant and should not be permitted to file a lawsuit anywhere in the world without paying the filing fee and a bond. Stebbins is as bad an oxygen thief as any sovereign citizen.
Deucerthorn 