It is rare to hear of someone suing themselves. So rare that no one has formulated a word for it yet. Maybe we could just call it "self-disputes".
The obvious problem with self-disputes is that the plaintiff is also the defendant and, depending on the circumstances, the only witness. Then there's the matter of representation. Hire one or two attorneys? Can you represent yourself or is it a conflict of interest?
Despite their rarity and potential complications, self-litigation has been reported since at least 1899.
10 Curtis Gokey
In 2006, Curtis Gokey hit Lodi, Calif. with a lawsuit for 3.$600 too after city dump truck crashed into his car. The lawsuit wouldn't have raised any eyebrows except that Gokey was the one driving the dump truck. This meant he was practically suing himself for an accident he caused.
The city rejected Gokey's claim because he obviously couldn't sue his way out of it. The case didn't end there, however. Gokey's wife Rhonda attacked the matter and sued the city and thus her husband for 4.800 to 1.200 dollars more than what her husband had asked for. Lodi city attorney Steve Schwabauer said this was also impossible.
Under California law, a husband and wife were considered one. While the woman could sue for certain things like divorce, she could not sue for negligence, which is what happened in this case. Rhonda claimed she had every right to sue the city because its dump truck damaged her vehicle. From their point of view it was irrelevant who drove it.
The city prevailed.
9 Oreste Lodi
In 1985, Oreste Lodi dragged himself to court in California over an estate he owned. According to Lodi, he had been trying to save a property he owned and wanted to give to himself, but he refused to release it for himself. The court dismissed the case, but that ruled Lodi against the decision.
He filed two briefs for appeal, one based on wanting to retrieve his assets from himself, and the other against himself for not wanting to release his property to himself. Again, the court rejected the appeal because the plaintiff and the defendant had to be different persons. In this case, Lodi would have been the winner and the loser, regardless of what decision the court made.
The court classified the complaint as frivolous and first considered whether Lodi had to pay for filing a frivolous complaint. He later ruled that each Lodi – the plaintiff and the defendant – had to pay for the appeal. This means that Lodi paid double.
It remains unclear why Lodi sued, but it is believed to have something to do with taxes. At the time he filed charges against himself, he sent a copy of the lawsuit to the Internal Revenue Service.
8 Lothar Malskat
Photo credit: Arnold Paul
In 1952 an artist named Lothar Malskat sued for art forgery. The background story could be traced back to 1942, when Britain bombed Lubeck. The bombing destroyed almost every building in the city, including St. Mary's Church, which was built in the 1200s. The church was badly damaged, but its walls remained standing. The bombing revealed previously unseen Gothic frescoes that had been hidden under the walls during construction.
After the war, the German government and the church hired the famous art restorer Dietrich Fey and his assistant Lothar Malskat to repair the frescoes. What Fey and Malskat never mentioned was that the frescoes had seriously deteriorated. They turned to dust when touched. However, the duo went to work unveiling the original restored 1951 church paintings.
Everyone was impressed and Fey and Malskat did several other restorations. But Malskat was not satisfied. Fey got all the credits for the restorations, while Malskat got nothing. Fey also got the bulk of the money, while Malskat received only a small portion, sometimes as little as a fifth. This led Malskat to expose the fraud and sue for fraud at the same time.
No one believed Malskat until he pointed out that Mary Magdalene was not wearing shoes in the new painting, although she was wearing shoes in the original. The faces of the king and the monks were also replaced by those of random people, and a painting of an Austrian actress was added in the background. The frescoes included some turkeys, although there were no turkeys in the 13. There were no turkeys in Germany in the nineteenth century.
The church removed the frescoes, leaving a small part of the memory of the forgery. Malskat received 18 months in prison for his involvement. He never achieved the fame he always wanted, and he remained a struggling artist until his death.
7 Robert Lee Brock
In 1995, Robert Lee Brock, who worked at Indian Creek Correctional Center in Chesapeake, Virginia, sued himself for $5 million. However, he demanded that the state pay the compensation because he had no money to give himself.
According to the lawsuit, on 1. July 1993 drank alcohol, which was against his religious beliefs. He also committed a crime for which he was arrested. At the time the suit was filed, Brock was serving a 23-year sentence for burglary and grand larceny.
Judge Rebecca Beach Smith dismissed the case. She agreed that Brock had been innovative in his approach to justice, but it was ridiculous.
6 Larry Rutman
Am 5. August 1996, the South China morning Post reported that Larry Rutman of Owensboro, Kentucky, was arrested for 300.000 dollars and had won. However, he will not pay himself a dime. The bills are being collected by his insurance company.
According to the news reports, Rutman was throwing his boomerang when it hit his head. The accident allegedly altered his memory and increased his sex drive.
Rutman originally wanted to sue the boomerang builder for the accident, but his attorney told him to sue himself instead. He did and won. According to the judgment, Rutman was to pay himself $300.000 to pay for "personal injury due to carelessness and negligence". As interesting as this incident sounds, there are claims that it never happened.
5 David Jennings
On 8. January 1899, The New York Times reported the story of David Jennings of Fort Scott, Kansas, who had sued himself and won. Jennings was the treasurer of Labette County, Kansas.
He sued after refusing to accept a tax payment he had made to himself. The tax was on property he used for his business. The court sided with Jennings and ordered him not to force himself to pay taxes.
4 John Fred Heiniger
On 26. June 1912, the Los Angeles Herald reported the story of John Fred Heiniger, who had won a lawsuit he had filed against himself. "Quiet title" is legal terminology that refers to the establishment of a person's ownership of property while "quieting" other claims or challenges to ownership by others.
The newspaper provided no background on the case unless Heiniger prevailed in court. Technically, this also meant that he lost the lawsuit.
Heiniger was not only the plaintiff and defendant in the case, but also the sole witness and process server (the person who delivers or "serves" court papers to the defendant or others in a court case).
3 Thomas Prusik-Parkin
In 2003, Thomas Prusik-Parkin sued himself while trying to save a house he lost when he defaulted on a mortgage. The whole thing started in 1996 when his mother, Irene, deeded him a house. Thomas took a mortgage on the property in the amount of 200.000 USD to start a business. The venture failed, and Thomas blamed his mortgage. The house was sold to Samir Chopra in 2003.
Coincidentally, Irene died that same year. Thomas, however, gave the funeral director a false Social Security number to hide Irene's death from the government. At the same time, he was taking the $700 she received from Social Security each month.
But Thomas did not stop. He was not willing to lose the house and claimed that the transfer from Irene to him in 1996 was forged by him. Therefore, he argued that he could not have legally taken out a mortgage for the house.
However, Thomas did not claim as Thomas, but as Irene. To keep the trick going, he sued himself for the forgery. For an outsider, it was Irene who sued her son. But to Thomas, he sued. At the same time, Chopra and the (real) Thomas dragged themselves into court, each accusing the other of fraud. The investigators became suspicious and did some digging. They discovered Irene was dead.
To confirm their suspicions, they arranged a meeting between Irene and Chopra. Interestingly, Irene attended the meeting. She wore women's clothes with painted nails and lipstick. She also had an oxygen tank.
Investigators, however, were not fooled. They were certain Irene was dead, and even had a photo of her headstone as evidence. Apparently, Thomas was the one dressed in Irene's clothes. At the moment the fraud was uncovered, Thomas mentioned that he was his mother because his mother had died in his arms.
It was not the first time Thomas had disguised himself as Irene. He had previously worn her clothing, wig and sunglasses on a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew her license. On 3. May 2012, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Mhilton Rimolo, Thomas's accomplice who often followed the fake "Irene" to banks and posed as "her" nephew, was sentenced to three years in prison.
2 Emert Wyss
In 2005, Illinois attorney Emert Wyss sued in error. Three years earlier, his client Carmelita McLaughlin had purchased a home that she later refinanced. However, the mortgage company in charge of repayment turned over responsibility to another mortgage company, Alliance Mortgage.
Wyss saw an opportunity and advised McLaughin to sue Alliance Mortgage for its "illegal fees". It was agreed that Wyss would receive 10 percent of the settlement paid to McLaughlin if the case was successful. Wyss only realized he had sued himself after Alliance Mortgage revealed that Centerre Title Company – which charged what Wyss called "illegal" fees – owned Wyss.
The court ruled that Wyss and Centerre Title Company had to be parties to the lawsuit for the case to proceed. As a result, Wyss could no longer assist McLaughlin as an attorney, and so he quietly moved to the other side to become the defendant in a lawsuit he had filed. The judge later dismissed Wyss as a defendant because he and Centerre Title Company could be treated as different entities.
A motion to sanction Wyss was abandoned after he agreed not to bill Centerre Title Company for attorney fees. It didn't matter anyway, because he would have been the one paying himself.
1 Barbara Bagley
Photo credit: The Telegraph
In 2015, 55-year-old Barbara Bagley sued herself over an accident she caused in December 2011. On the fateful day, she was driving in the Nevada desert when she crashed the vehicle. The impact threw her passenger and husband, Bradley Vom Baur, into a bush and seriously injured him. He died 10 days later.
Barbara demanded that the insurance company reimburse her for her late husband's medical and funeral bills. The insurance company denied this. They argued that Barbara was not entitled to compensation because she caused the accident. However, they were willing to pay for the car. A Utah appeals court ruled that Barbara could sue to get compensation from the insurance company.
Thus, Barbara (the widow and heir of the deceased Vom Baur) sued Barbara (the driver) for negligence. The complication of such a lawsuit is that Barbara has to present evidence against herself to prove that she was negligent.
She hired a lawyer to represent Barbara (the widow). Barbara (the driver) is represented by the insurance company's lawyers because they would have to pay the judgment if Barbara (the driver) loses the case.
But that's not all. Barbara is also the personal representative of her husband's estate. That Barbara is also suing Barbara (the driver). So Barbara is two plaintiffs and one defendant in the same lawsuit.
As far as we know, the case has not yet been decided. But there is a good news. The couple's dog was in the car at the time of the accident. The dog ran away, but was found in good condition almost two months later. No word on whether the dog will sue anyone.