My easement lawsuit kept me incredibly busy during July and August of 2022. And during that exact same time period, I needed to file a libel lawsuit. How could I do that if I couldn’t afford to hire a lawyer?
Fortunately, I remembered the old adage: “If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.”
As it happened, I was the busiest person I knew!
That’s why I decided to act pro se, which meant that I would represent myself, without the “benefit of counsel.”
And so, on July 11, 2022, I filed a libel lawsuit against the people who had falsely accused me of exposing myself: my neighbor, Sonia Bryant; her attorney, Tommy Chase Garrett; and Tommy’s law firm, Scheef & Stone.
My Libel Petition
In most states, if you want to sue somebody you file a document called a “complaint.” In Texas, you file the exact same document, but you call it a “petition.” Some people say the difference derives from the fact that, because Texas used to be part of Mexico, its legal system draws on terminology from Spanish and Mexican legal traditions. Other people say they have no idea why it’s called a petition and not a complaint, but that’s the way we’ve always done it, and if it was good enough for Davy Crockett, it’s good enough for me. Or something like that.
I had never filed a lawsuit by myself, unless you want to count a couple of small-claims cases. Basically, to file a case in small-claims court, all you have to do is fill out a form, pay a small fee, show up in court, and present your case to a Justice of the Peace. But filing a libel lawsuit in a real state court turned out to be a little trickier.
Q: How could I even begin to figure out how to create a libel petition?
A: Google.
Today the answer might be ChatGPT or whatever AI tool is trendy when you’re reading this. But ChatGPT had not yet been invented, so I had to resort to Google, which was the king of online search tools back in the primitive days of 2022. (The digital world is exploding so fast that last month’s marvel is this month’s antique.)
After Googling several dozen Texas libel petitions, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to include in my petition and how it should be formatted (14-point type, double-spaced, justified). So I got to work.
(If you’re thinking of doing something like this, I hope the information in this chapter will be helpful – but remember, this is just a starting point for your research. Don’t assume that something is smart or right just because I did it. And remember that this is specific to Texas, and that laws and procedures vary from state to state. Most importantly, don’t forget that I’m not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.)
I’ve attached the petition, which is not as difficult to read as your typical dense legal document. For one thing, it’s not loaded with legal jargon, mainly because I didn’t know a lot of legal jargon when I wrote it. If you don’t want to read the whole thing, here’s an informal but moderately detailed summary of my petition, section by section.
The Introduction
Here are a few of the elements in the introduction at the top of my petition.
“Plaintiff’s Original Petition” Why “original”? It’s not like I’d filed another version with which this could be confused. But I’d learned that lawyers label the first document they file of each type (a petition, a motion to dismiss, etc.) as “Original.” Had I later filed a revised version, it would have been “Plaintiff’s First Amended Petition,” and so on.
“To the Honorable Judge of Said Court” Is this actually necessary? Do judges insist on being constantly reminded that they’re “honorable”? Will they rule against you if you don’t flatter them right off the bat? I’m not brave enough to find out.
“Comes now Henry Mishkoff” I like this, it has a lyrical ring to it. I keep reading it as “Here comes Henry Mishkoff!” like it’s a royal presentation. Or maybe a warning. (Watch out!)
I. Discovery Control Plan Level
There are three levels of Discovery Control Plans; the plan you choose basically determines the schedule of your trial. After much research, I chose Level 2, because that’s mostly what everybody else did.
II. Parties and Service
In this section, I identified the parties to the lawsuit: I was the plaintiff; Sonia, Tommy, and Scheef & Stone were the defendants. I also described how and where the defendants could be “served,” because they had to be given official notice that they had been sued. I specified certified mail as the service method for all three defendants.
III. Jurisdiction and Venue
Here’s where I explained why the court had jurisdiction and why Collin County was the right place for me to sue everybody. I indicated that I was suing the defendants for more than a million bucks – not only because it was a nice, round number, but because I had to select a category, and that was the most appealing one on the list.
IV. Definitions
This is where I defined “defamation” and “libel.” You already know what they are, and so did the judge, and so did the defendants – but I’m a cautious guy, and if I was going to be throwing those terms around in my petition, I figured it would be a good idea to make sure we were all on the same page.
V. Facts
Everything preceding this section had pretty much been boilerplate, but now we were getting into the nitty-gritty of the actual issues that defined this specific case.
A: The Defamatory Statement. In this section, I explained in detail what the defendants did and why it was libelous. I pointed out that the dictionary defined “to expose oneself” as “to show one’s sexual organs in public,” and that there were no non-defamatory interpretations of the defendants’ accusation. To make sure the court understood the seriousness of the accusation, I pointed out that “indecent exposure is explicitly defined as a sex crime in Texas.”
B: Elements of Libel. I explained why the defendants’ accusation fit the requirements for a libel claim in Texas: The statement was published and defamatory, and the defendants were negligent regarding the truth of their accusation. I added that I didn’t need to prove they were malicious because that’s necessary only for public figures (which I’m not). Also, I didn’t have to prove that I was actually harmed, because the law says that accusations of sexual misconduct are so injurious that just making that kind of accusation is harmful.
C: Privilege and Immunity. In this section, I explored two of the defenses that I expected the defendants to invoke: the Judicial Proceedings Privilege (which allows anybody to say pretty much anything they want to say in a lawsuit) and the Doctrine of Attorney Immunity (which further protects lawyers from being subjected to the kinds of legal indignities that we mere mortals are forced to suffer). I briefly explained why neither of these defenses applied to this case.
VI. Defendants’ Liability
I explained why each of the defendants was liable, using the signature block of their counterclaim (where they had accused me of exposing myself) as evidence: Tommy signed the counterclaim on behalf of himself, his employer (Scheef & Stone) and the defendant (Sonia Bryant).
VII. Cause of Action: Libel
In this section, I explained in detail what the defendants did and why I was suing them for it. If you read only one section of the petition, this should be it. It starts on page 10, and it’s an easy read. Check it out.
VIII. Retraction
I had asked for a retraction back in June, but I didn’t get one, so I decided to try again, this time more publicly. (Spoiler: I still haven’t gotten one.)
IX. Damages
In this section, I explained why I was asking for so much money. For example, I said: “Plaintiff will have to suffer the uncertainty of not knowing whether he’s losing potential employers, clients, publishers, agents, investors, attorneys, and even friends because they’re familiar with Defendants’ accusation and feel that it’s prudent to avoid associating with Plaintiff. And Plaintiff will have to suffer through this horrible uncertainty for the rest of his life.”
X. Jury Demand
In this section, I demanded a jury trial. If you don’t demand a jury trial, you get a bench trial. In a jury trial, the judge rules on matters of law, but the jury rules on the facts. In a bench trial, the judge rules on both the law and the facts. I wanted to present the facts of my case to a jury, so I demanded a jury trial. (No, it’s not that I’m a demanding guy, that’s just the way you’re supposed to say it.)
XI. Conditions Precedent
The entirety of what I said in this section was: “All conditions precedent to Plaintiff’s claim for relief have been performed or have occurred.” This simply means that I did everything I was supposed to do before I filed my petition. I noticed this language was in other petitions, and I couldn’t think of any reason not to include it, so I just stuck it in near the end.
XII. Request for Disclosure
This was my reminder to the defendants that they were required to disclose certain information to me within 30 days, without waiting for me to ask for it. I submitted my disclosures to the defendants within 30 days. The defendants never submitted their disclosures to me.
Lawyers apparently get to pick and choose which rules they want to follow.
XIII. Prayer
In this section, I asked the court to send citations to the defendants so they’d know I was suing them. I asked the court to award me specific types of damages and “such further relief, both general and special, at law or in equity, to which Plaintiff may show himself to be justly entitled” – which meant that if the court wanted to award me money for things I hadn’t even thought to ask for, I’d take it.
Why is this section called a “prayer”? I couldn’t find any explanation other than “we’ve always done it that way.” I suspect that, just as judges like to be reminded at the beginning of a petition about how “honorable” they are, they also like to be reminded at the end of the petition that they have god-like powers and that you should “pray” to them.
“…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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