"Ghost Busting": The Case of The Pro Se Party
Pro se parties can be the bane of litigation. They come up with crazy legal theories, often fail to play by the rules and sometimes view litigation as a contact sport (but so do counsel sometimes, lest we sound too high and mighty here). Moreover, one often suspects that a pro se party generally has a lawyer friend or relation drafting their pleadings.
Such is the case with a new opinion from a new opinion from the federal district court in Nashville, Tennesse in a case with tangled roots in Massachusetts and Tennesse. The court not only denied the defendant insured's motion to dismiss the Tennessee litigation but granted the Plaintiff Insurer's "Motion for Order Requiring Defendant To Show Proof That She Signed "Pro Se" Motion to Dismiss And/Or Acknowledge Any Ghostwriter Attorneys of the "Pro Se" Motion."
High marks to the insurer lawyer who was creative enough to come up with the idea, much less the title (who knows which FRCP this was filed under, however!). But I worry about the precedent. What's next? requiring outside counsel to disclose their role in drafting interrogatory answers or reservation of rights letters? The horror.
