Thomas v. Hosemann: Case Dismissed with Prejudice
Please see the interesting history of this case here; the Order:
ORDER DISMISSING ACTION
On December 2, 2008, Plaintiffs filed their “Motion for Order to Show Cause Why the State of Hawaii, Department of Health, Office of Health Status Monitoring Is Not in Contempt of Court for Disobeying a Validly Issued and Served Subpoena Duces Tecum” (“Motion for OSC”). Plaintiffs issued this Subpoena Duces Tecum to the State of Hawaii, Department of Health, Office of Health Status Monitoring as part of discovery in an action filed in the Southern District of Mississippi, Thomas et al. v. Hosemann, Civil No. 08-00241 (the “Underlying Action”). On December 17, 2008, the court in the Underlying Action dismissed the action with prejudice upon Plaintiffs’ Motion. Accordingly, the court DISMISSES this action and orders the Clerk of Court to close the case file.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED: Honolulu, Hawaii, December 17, 2008.
/s/ J. ____ _M_i_c_h_a_e_l _S_e_a_b_ri_g_h_t__________
J. Michael Seabright
United States District Judge
To be dimissed “with prejudice,” according to Wikipedia:
This directly differs from a dismissal with prejudice, in which the claimant is barred from filing another case on the same claim. Dismissal with prejudice is a final judgment and the case becomes res judicata on the claims that were or could have been brought in it.
A current listing of eligibility lawsuits can be found here.
-Phil
It’s not a matter of “giving up” — its a matter of acting ethically — if a lawyer knows that a case cannot properly be pursued, then it makes sense to clean up after oneself and ask for dismissal. Lawyers who have active law practices would tend to do this, simply because they want to be treated with respect by the local courts.
“Mootness” is alway a potential problem with an action for injunctive relief — you are asking the court to intervene to prevent a particular event. If the event happens, then its too late and the court can’t intervene any more… so the action does become moot. Another word for “moot” might be “impossible” -that is, the law suit is asking the judge to do something that has become impossible with the passage of time.
Because on December 16 their case became moot. They filed their motion that day.
I see Practical Kat’s reply below. Thank you PK. I would think
the Judge would have dismissed on his own motion – mootness seems to run through all these caes – just seems funny for Planitiffs to give up.
OK – I’ll try again – The judge in Mississippi dismissed the case on December 17th “upon Planitiffs’ Motion”. In other words it was not his idea the Plantiffs asked him to. Do any of you lawyer types know what is going on here? Why would the Plantiffs do that?
Thomas v. Hosemann was a suit brought by electors pledged to candidates Keyes & McCain in Mississippi against the Mississippi Secretary of State. On December 15th, the electoral college met in Mississippi met and (if I recall correctly) cast all votes for McCain. Therefore, any possible claim for injunctive relief against the Mississippi secretary of state was clearly moot. Not only had the day for voting come and gone, the vote all went to a candidate other than Obama, rendering any objections to his qualifications irrelevant as to the electoral vote of Mississippi.
Arguably *two*.
Counting the dispositive rulings against birther suits has gotten rather tricky. I list 20 cases they’ve lost, and the petitions for appeal push it well into the dozens.
Fortunately their victories are easy to count.
How would that work?
Yet another frivolous lawsuit bites the dust.
Right. Just to elaborate further, for a private party to issue a subpoena in the federal courts the litigant fills out a form provided by the court and sends it off to the third party being subpoenaed.
If that third party fails to comply, the subpoenaing party must then file a new action in the district where the third party can be found to try to enforce it. Here, the underlying case was filed in Mississippi and the subpoena filed in Hawaii. Because the Hawaiian party declined to comply with the subpoena, the plaintiff moved to compel in Hawaii federal court. This order merely states that because the primary case had been dismissed, the miscellaneous action regarding the subpoena (which was part of that primary case) needs to be dismissed as well.
I think you misunderstood. The judge in Mississippi dismissed the “underlying action” with prejudice, making the subpoena issued in that case void. Therefore the judge in Hawaii dismissed the Hawaiian case that was trying to compel compliance with the subpoena.
The judge in Mississippi later modified his order, removing “with prejudice”. That makes no difference to the Hawaiian ruling. Should the plaintiff re-file the underlying action, he might issue a similar subpoena and we could have all this fun again.
Understand that the US District Court Judge in Hawaii dismissed the complaint with prejudice, but how does this impact the case in Mississippi?
Also doesn’t this set up a piffing match between Mississippi and Hawaii as the subpoena issued in Mississippi has just been told by the Hawaii District Court Judget to go cram it up your nose.
If this is true, this might be an ideal strategy to get the courts to start fighting amongst themselves over jurisdiction and authority to issue these subpoenas. Not a lawyer, but this seems to open up a whole new avenue for suits — having the courts fight each other over the records rather than plaintiffs.
I cannot believe the judges throwing all of these suits out. I hope someone can get Obama to show his records and birth certificate. When Obama made Bush’s files public, didn;t that open up and make his files legal to look at esp. at Occidential College?
Tom
So what happened? This says the Plaintiffs made a motion to dismiss. Why would they do that with a subpoena pending in Hawaii?
I am really thinking our judicial system in this country is failing the people. It’s pretty sad and disappointing.