John C. Coughenour, a Seattle-based U.S. District Court judge, was appointed specially by the Marshall Islands Cabinet to hear two civil suits brought against Ingram by Majuro residents Lutz Kayser and Susanne Kayser-Schilleger.
His ruling issued Wednesday not only granted Ingram’s motion to dismiss the lawsuits, it declared Kayser and Kayser-Schilleger to be “vexatious litigants,” and banned them from filing any more lawsuits in Marshall Islands courts unless they first obtain approval of the judge where a case is being filed.
The suits against Ingram also as defendants Google, Inc., Microsoft Corp., IAC/InterActive Corp., YBrand Digital Ltd. and Yahoo Inc., and were similarly dismissed.
They stemmed from a dispute Kayser and Kayser-Schilleger had with investors in a Majuro property, and a subsequent Internet posting by an investor who said Kayser and Kayser-Schilleger were crooks. When they were unsuccessful in getting the Internet postings removed, the two filed suit against the Internet companies in the late 2000s. In late 2010, they filed two suits against the Chief Justice alleging numerous counts of improper conduct in handling their civil suits.
Coughenour said he had no opinion on the merits of the original lawsuit filed in the Marshall Islands High Court several years ago. “But plaintiffs’ conduct in the present litigation has been completely unacceptable, regardless of plaintiffs’ pro se (representing themselves without an attorney) status,” he said. Among other issues, they have filed motions “with absolutely no legal basis whatsoever,” submitted briefs with “multiple irrelevant citations,” and have generally used “the legal system to improperly re-litigate matters from other lawsuits,” the judge said.
“These actions are wasteful, burdensome, and frivolous,” he said. “Plaintiffs are prohibited from filing any new litigation in the courts of the Republic pro se without first obtaining leave of the presiding judge of the court where the litigation is proposed to be filed,” he said. “Disobedience of this order may be punished as contempt of court.”
The U.S. judge said suing the Chief Justice is inappropriate. “If plaintiffs seek to have Chief Justice Ingram’s decisions reversed, an appeal is the proper procedure,” said Coughenour in his decision. “If plaintiffs seek to have Chief Justice Ingram’s judgment voided, an appeal is still the proper procedure.”
The U.S.-based judge said the Kaysers’ “strategy is one that the (court) rules anticipate and carefully prevent — it will not succeed.”
