Insight on the News: Judges Should Punish Gold-Digging Plaintiffs - questionable lawsuits

The 1999 Nobel Prize for Chutzpah goes to Susan and Thomas Klebold. On Oct. 15, they filed a notice of intention to sue the Jefferson County, Colo., school district and sheriff's department. The Klebolds claim that if school and police authorities had not mishandled a 1998 complaint about violent threats by their son Dylan's buddy, Eric Harris, the teen-agers might have been prevented from executing the Columbine High School massacre and killing themselves.

The officials' failure, the filing says, "was so reckless, willful and wanton as to have caused the Klebolds to be subject to substantial damage claims, vilification, grief and loss of enjoyment of life."

What about the "enjoyment of life" of Klebold and Harris' 13 victims? Oh, that's right, they're dead.

So, it wasn't Marilyn Manson's music or violent video games that extinguished those innocent lives. Nor was it poor Dylan and Eric. It was Columbine High itself. Guns don't kill people; assistant principals kill people.

Poor parenting wasn't to blame, either. The Klebolds seek damages equal to the claims against them by victims' families who believe they should have forestalled their son's rampage.

When plaintiffs and attorneys launch baseless and patently obnoxious actions like this one, judges should dismiss them prima facie and sanction the claimants for abusing the court system.

The saying "It never hurts to ask" does not apply to the courts. By positing this wicked, twisted legal theory, the Klebolds already have imposed huge costs all around. They have cost themselves whatever scintilla of sympathy they may have enjoyed as two parents who lost a son, no matter how evil. They have yanked open the scars of Littleton's bereaved who have spent six months healing the wounds the two gunmen inflicted. And the Klebolds could force Jefferson County taxpayers to finance depositions, jury consultants' fees and much more to fight this stupid and cruel lawsuit.

Such a case "certainly has an impact on our allocation of resources," Assistant County Attorney Bill Tuthill says. While he cannot estimate the potential cost of battling the Klebolds, doing so would consume funds needed for "a range of litigation matters from personal injury to civil rights to employment litigation and contract disputes."

A less odious but clearly absurd lawsuit involves Alex Silverman and Andrew Imber, two 9-year-olds from Merrick, N.Y. According to the New York Post, they have joined two San Diego children in a federal class-action lawsuit against Nintendo. The four kids and their lawyers, who seek unspecified damages, have invoked the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law to charge Nintendo with operating an "illegal gambling enterprise" and creating "a pattern of racketeering activity."

Is Nintendo spinning roulette wheels in Toys R Us basements across America? These brats and their bar-approved playmates claim Nintendo's highly popular Pokemon trading cards turn third-graders into gamblers. Nintendo places rare cards in selected packages. Silverman and Imber say they spent thousands of dollars trying to score the collectibles.

"It teaches gambling," complains Andrew's mother, Marci. "A 9-year-old shouldn't be gambling to get a rare card." Andrew's lawyer agrees: "You have to play there is the element of chance, and you've got a prize," says attorney Neil Morritt. "It's gambling."

Well, then, every Cracker Jack box is a slot machine.

While Nintendo attorneys would not say how much they have plowed into defending the Pokemon case, just imagine how much better this money could be spent on toy safety.

As for the plaintiffs, these knee-high shakedown artists, their greedy parents and their Transylvanian lawyers should be marched out of the U.S. courthouse in handcuffs. While Americans may chuckle at this lawsuit, they also subsidize its journey through the justice system. The U.S. Court Administrative Office says that in fiscal 1998, 202,073 federal civil lawsuits were filed. Each such case typically lasted eight months from filing to disposition. Atop the incalculable expense of accepting depositions and holding hearings, actual federal civil jury trials averaged $9,825 tax dollars and roughly 3.3 days. These 9,349 trials cost taxpayers about $92 million.

Naturally, those who suffer real harm should be free to sue for damages. But those who hire lawyers simply to point fingers at others and await a cash deluge should have their digits locked in thumb screws. Courageous judges should throw out such cases and compel gold-digging plaintiffs and their insatiable lawyers to reimburse defendants' legal fees and pay fines for squandering precious court resources.

Ravenous lawyers nearly have strangled personal responsibility. These reforms should help this endangered virtue fight back.

New York commentator Deroy Murdock is an MSNBC columnist and a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Fairfax, Va.