Martin-Trigona v. Shaw

986 F.2d 1384, 1993 WL 65808
Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit·Decided March 26, 1993·No. No. 91-5867·Published·Cited by 88 cases

Opinions

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 [1386]*1386found 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, eight years ago 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). 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 [1387]*1387from 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.

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Martin-Trigona v. Shaw, 986 F.2d 1384, 1993 WL 65808 (11th Cir. 1993).

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