In a recent comment, regular reader "MgS" writes of the almost wholly nonsensical filings of undischarged bankrupt Patrick Ross:
"That’s kind of the problem with a statement of claim - a claimant can put all sorts of nonsense in it, and it comes down to the court process to winnow out what’s actually relevant to the claim of libel. (And self-represented litigants are far more likely to insert huge amounts of irrelevant material into those statements)."
While I agree with most of that, I will take minor issue with the idea that, when one files total rubbish, it is the court's job to "winnow out what's actually relevant."
When a filing originates with an actual lawyer or someone who knows the law, that filing is typically concise, focused and to the point, as it's been written by someone who wants to be taken seriously and who has taken the time to understand what the Court needs to know related to the matter at hand. As MgS suggests, self-represented litigants are more likely to submit rambling rubbish that is more like a grievance fest than a meaningful filing.
But in the latter situation, is it really the Court's job to "winnow" through all that nonsense to figure out if there is a point? That's a good question, especially with Patrick, whose submissions and Affidavits are so vacuous and irrelevant that they have been pointedly slapped down by the respective judges. In 2018, a judge made it clear that Patrick's filing weirdly tried to claim "cruel and unusual punishment" related to his bankruptcy Conditional Discharge Order:
A later submission of Patrick's was such rubbish that the judge wrote ... well, read it for yourself:
So the question is, when a judge is faced with the sort of sophomoric twaddle as that produced by Patrick, at what point is the judge within her rights to throw up her hands and say, "I'm sorry, it's not my job to parse this dreck to see if there's a point buried somewhere herein"?
Thoughts?