Martin-Trigona v. Shaw

• Decision Date: 26 March 1993
• Docket Number: D,No. 91-5867,MARTIN-TRIGON,91-5867
• Citation: 986 F.2d 1384
• Parties: Helenr., Elizabeth I. Martin, Anthony R. Martin, IV, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Leander SHAW, Parker McDonald, Ben Overton, Gerald Kogan, Rosemary Barkett, Stephen Grimes, Major Harding, Paul Marko, Sherry Anderson, et al., Defendants-Appellees. Non-Argument Calendar.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1384

986 F.2d 1384

Helen MARTIN-TRIGONA, Dr., Elizabeth I. Martin, Anthony R Martin, IV, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Leander SHAW, Parker McDonald, Ben Overton, Gerald Kogan Rosemary Barkett, Stephen Grimes, Major Harding Paul Marko, Sherry Anderson, et al Defendants-Appellees.

No. 91-5867

Non-Argument Calendar.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

March 26, 1993.

Helen Martin-Trigona, Palm Beach, FL, for plaintiffs-appellants.

Charles M. Fahlbusch, Hollywood, FL, for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Before KRAVITCH, BIRCH and CARNES, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

In this case, Dr. Helen Martin-Trigona filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida in her name and in the name of her two minor grandchildren, Anthony R. Martin, IV, and Elizabeth Martin, against nineteen officials of the State of Florida, including a state circuit court judge, seven Justices of the Florida Supreme Court, various attorneys and caseworkers of the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, and others. Her complaint sought $10,000,000.00 in money damages, an injunction suspending federal funding of state programs in Florida, and other relief.

After filing a Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, defendants amended their motion requesting dismissal to allege that Dr. Martin-Trigona's action in filing the complaint violated a permanent injunction issued by the United States District Court for Connecticut in In re Martin-Trigona, 592 F.Supp. 1566 (1984), aff'd, 763 F.2d 140 (2d Cir.1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1061, 106 S.Ct. 807, 88 L.Ed.2d 782 (1986). Acting pursuant to its authority under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b), the district court granted the motion to dismiss on that basis. Dr. Martin-Trigona appeals from the dismissal.

Appellant's son, Anthony Martin-Trigona, is a notoriously vexatious and vindictive litigator who has long abused the American legal system. A brief summary of his career in the courts up through 1983 can be found in In re Martin-Trigona, 573 F.Supp. 1245 (D.Conn.1983), aff'd in part and remanded in part, 737 F.2d 1254 (2d Cir.1984), on remand, 592 F.Supp. 1566 (D.Conn.1984), aff'd, 763 F.2d 140 (1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1061, 106 S.Ct. 807, 88 L.Ed.2d 782 (1986). Nine years ago Anthony Martin-Trigona had already filed at least 250 civil suits throughout the United States, with the actual number far exceeding that conservative count. 573 F.Supp. at 1268-69; 737 F.2d at 1259 n. 4. Anthony Martin-Trigona and his mother, the appellant in this case, have filed more than two dozen appeals in the Eleventh Circuit alone since 1983. The Clerk also reports that a search of some, but not all, of the files of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida reveals that in just the past five years the Martin-Trigonas have filed, or attempted to file, at least thirteen lawsuits in that district court alone. We have no way of knowing how many lawsuits they have filed in other district courts, other circuit courts, and state courts around the country since the tabulation in the Connecticut injunction case eight years ago.

As amazing as the volume of Anthony Martin-Trigona's litigiousness has been, where he has truly distinguished himself has been in "the style of litigation he has adopted and by the cunning and malignant sophistication he has brought to his avocation." 573 F.Supp. at 1247. Throughout his remarkably varied nationwide practice as a pro se litigator, Martin-Trigona has displayed an "ugly strand of personal animus and unjustifiable vituperation," id. at 1248, and he has used litigation as a cruel and effective weapon against his enemies, who are more often imagined than real. Id. at 1248-51 ("his choice of targets is not rational; rather, he is apt to fasten on anyone who has suffered the slightest contact with him.").

Anthony Martin-Trigona has sued literally hundreds, if not thousands, of attorneys, judges, their spouses, court officials, and other human beings. In summarizing the district court's findings, which it was careful to point out considerably understated his activities as a litigant, the Second Circuit said that:

Martin-Trigona is known to have filed over 250 civil actions, appeals, and other matters throughout the United States, which have been pursued with "persistence, viciousness, and general disregard for decency and logic." He has used legal pleadings to ventilate his contempt and hatred of persons of Jewish heritage and to level accusations which "have often been personal, have often emphasized racial or religious affiliations, and have often involved the members of ... judges' and counsel's families." The purpose, nature and effect of his resort to multiple litigation has been to involve as many persons in as many confounding legal processes as possible.

737 F.2d at 1259 (footnote omitted). That was eight years ago. Even a cursory search with Westlaw and Lexis reveals that his litigiousness has continued unabated since that time. Volumes could be written about Anthony Martin-Trigona's vexatious lawsuits, but any such treatise would have to contain annual pocket parts to provide any hope of keeping current. His mother's complaint in this case describes two recent lawsuits Martin-Trigona has filed that appear to fit his decades-long pattern, and, as we subsequently conclude, this very lawsuit is but another example of the endless stream of litigation filed by him or on his behalf by his mother.

In an attempt to defend the judicial system from abuse, the United States District Court in Connecticut and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals fashioned an injunction designed to minimize to the extent constitutionally permissible the damage Anthony Martin-Trigona and anyone acting in concert with him can do to our judicial system and to innocent parties. In re Martin-Trigona, 573 F.Supp. 1245 (D.Conn.1983), aff'd in part and vacated in part, 737 F.2d 1254 (2d Cir.1984), on remand, 592 F.Supp. 1566 (D.Conn.1984), aff'd, 763 F.2d 140 (1985). This Court, sitting en banc, has cited the Second Circuit's decision in the Martin-Trigona case for authority that "[f]ederal courts have both the inherent power and the constitutional obligation to protect their jurisdiction from conduct which impairs their ability to carry out Article III functions." Procup v. Strickland, 792 F.2d 1069 (11th Cir.1986) (en banc). Although the Martin-Trigona injunction was not before this Court in Procup, various courts around the country have enforced it. E.g., Anthony Martin-Trigona v. Public Broadcasting Service, 840 F.2d 11 (4th Cir.1988) (text in Westlaw) (affirmed dismissal for non-compliance with the injunction); Helen Martin-Trigona v. Gellis & Melinger, 830 F.2d 367 (D.C.Cir.1987) (affirmed dismissal of complaint for Dr. Martin-Trigona's failure to respond to show cause order regarding compliance with the injunction); Anthony Martin-Trigona v. United States, 779 F.2d 72 (D.C.Cir.1985) (affirmed denial of leave to file complaints pursuant to the injunction); In re Anthony Martin-Trigona, No. 87-0175, 1991 WL 158790 (Bankr.S.D.Fla. Aug. 1, 1991) (apparently holding Anthony Martin-Trigona in contempt in part for violation of the injunction, and admonishing him to obey the injunction); Anthony Martin-Trigona v. Gary Hart, 1987 WL 12004 (D.D.C. May 28, 1987) (leave to file action denied pursuant to the injunction).

As finally entered, and as it relates to this case, the Connecticut injunction permanently enjoined Anthony Martin-Trigona from filing or attempting to initiate any new lawsuit in any federal court in the United States, with exceptions not applicable here, without first obtaining leave of that federal court. In re Martin-Trigona, 592 F.Supp. 1566 (D.Conn.1984). Martin-Trigona was further enjoined, if he sought such leave, to file with the complaint or other pleading specified documents disclosing to the court some relevant parts of his litigation history both in general and as it relates to the specific defendants and claims involved in the intended lawsuit. Id. at 1571-72. There is no need to detail those requirements here, because it is undisputed that there was not even an attempt at compliance with those requirements before the lawsuit in this case was filed.

Realizing the resourcefulness of Anthony Martin-Trigona and the fact that he has had the active assistance of a number of allies in his assault upon the judicial system, the United States District Court in Connecticut expressly stated in its order that the injunction covered not only Anthony Martin-Trigona but also applied "equally to persons or entities acting at his behest, at his direction or instigation, or in concert with him." 592 F.Supp. at 1574. The court ordered a copy of its injunction served on Dr. Martin-Trigona, the named plaintiff and appellant in the present case, and, lest she miss the point, it expressly found from an extensive record...