The cursor hovered over the Submit button for what felt like an eternity, but which probably was no more than a few minutes.
I was on the website of eFile Texas. I had uploaded my libel petition. I had checked the box that said I agreed to pay $371 to file the petition. I had checked another box that said I agreed to pay another $225 to “serve” the three defendants, by certified mail, so they would know they were being sued.
Not only had I never used the eFile Texas website before, I’d never actually sued anybody, either online or in person. And I certainly had never plunked down more than $600 for the honor of participating in the justice system. But I had reviewed the input forms several times, and I was pretty sure I’d done everything the way I was supposed to.
And so, at 5:24 PM (Central Daylight Time) on Saturday, July 9, 2022, exactly one month after my 73rd birthday, I clicked the Submit button and filed a libel lawsuit against my neighbor, Sonia Bryant; her lawyer, Tommy Garrett; and Tommy’s law firm, Scheef & Stone.
All lawsuits technically have to be filed in the District Clerk’s office; eFile Texas merely accepts electronic submissions and then passes them along to the District Clerk in the county you specify. But I had filed on a Saturday, and the District Clerk’s office is closed on weekends. So it wasn’t until Monday that Deputy District Clerk Suzanne Rogers was able to let me know that I’d messed up:
“I accepted your petition this morning. You paid for 3 Certified Mailings $75 each, but didn’t include $8 for each citation that goes inside the mailer for $24. Please file a cover letter with 3 $8 citations using optional service and I will get those out as soon as I receive the payment of $24.”
So I logged back into eFile Texas and used my recently acquired submission skills to send the missing 24 bucks to the District Clerk’s office. And shortly thereafter, Ms. Rogers wrote back to tell me:
“I have received and accept the $24 fees for the citations and I will get those out in today’s mail.”
I also learned that I’d been assigned case number 471-03472-2022. The “471” was the court number, which meant that my libel case would be heard in the court of Judge Andrea Bouressa, the same judge who had denied my request for a temporary injunction in my easement case less than six weeks earlier.
I have to admit that I was a little nervous. But mostly I was satisfied that I hadn’t let Tommy defame me without at least trying to do something about it. Win or lose, I had refused to roll over just because I was attacked by a big law firm with a huge budget and massive resources.
I was defending myself.
And sometimes, the best defense is a good offense.
“…to take arms
against a sea of troubles,
and, by opposing, end them.”
– William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Document Links
The libel petition
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