Being sued is a pain in the neck or a couple of feet lower. However, being sued by the incompetent pro se litigators of Team Kimberlin does his is lighter moments—such as when the many times The Dreadful Pro-Se Schmalfledt screwed up his paperwork in LOLsuit VIII. The TKPOTD from a year ago today dealt with one of his misunderstandings of the progress of that suit.

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PRE-UPDATE—This post was drafted during the early afternoon yesterday. Since then, the Cabin Boy™ has put out some tweets that show he may be beginning to understand his real situation. That may be, but I’m going leave this post in its original form—

The Cabin Boy™ either hasn’t read the U.S District Court for the District of South Carolina’s Guide for Pro Se Litigants and the order that was sent to him or his reading comprehension is even worse than I thought. Or he’s lying.First, the Order issued on Friday clearly states that

[t]his case is not in proper form for service at this time. If Plaintiff does not bring this case into proper form within the time permitted by this Order, this case may be dismissed for failure to prosecute and failure to comply with an order of this court under Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Next, the order explains what the Cabin Boy™ needs to submit and states that

[n]o process shall issue until the items specified above have been reviewed by the assigned Magistrate Judge.

Finally, the order instructs the Clerk of the Court that if

Plaintiff provides this court with the items assigned above, the Clerk of the Court should forward the file to the assigned Magistrate Judge to determine if service of process should be authorized.

The order was posted on Friday and mailed to the Cabin Boy™ that day. Even if he downloaded copies of the forms he is supposed to submit and mailed them back to the Clerk on Friday, they would not have been delivered to the court before Saturday, and would not be processed and forwarded to the judge until this morning at the earliest. It probably will be some time before the judge reviews any submission the Cabin Boy™ makes and decides whether to issue summonses. The verb should be authorized is in the future conditional tense which means that the possibility of the judge’s action rests on as yet unrealized circumstances, i.e,, the Cabin Boy™ getting his paperwork straight.

BTW, this analysis is consistent with the case docket as shown on PACER.There is nothing shown on the docket after the mailing of Friday’s order.

OTOH, here’s what a pro se case docket that did have a summons issued looks like.Notice that the issuance of the summons is specifically noted after the proper form order and the attachment of additional documents, events that don’t appear on the LOLsuit VIII docket yet.

Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.

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The Gentle Reader can probably guess how I foresee LOLsuit IX proceeding if The Dreadful Pro-Se Schmalfeldt is foolish enough to file it.