Plaintiff in libel case makes it ridiculously personal

I think former judge Robert Lueck is obsessed with me.

His legal filings in his ongoing effort to sue the Review-Journal for libel are, well, unhinged.

He sued the paper and reporter Ed Vogel over stories published during his 2006 bid for a seat on the Family Court. Vogel recounted public records detailing how a district judge had sealed his child support dispute with an ex-wife.

In a rambling, 39-page motion fighting our attorneys' efforts to have the libel case tossed on summary judgment, Lueck quoted from one of my columns in which I discussed the merits of rationale debate. To which, Lueck implored, “Spare us the bull, Tom.”

He liked the sound of that so much he used it again on the next page.

Well, the judge did, in fact, grant the summary judgment and threw out of the case as meritless, because the paper had fairly and accurately quoted from public records.

Lueck has since filed a motion asking the judge to reopen the case because he “materially misapprehended the law.”

Not satisfied with arguing the facts of the case and the applicable law, Lueck used the opportunity to compare himself to me.

“Here are the differences between the plaintiff and the low esteemed Mr. Mitchell,” writes Lueck. “Plaintiff is a member of Mensa, the society of people whose IQs are in the upper 2% of the population. Tom is not.”

I wonder whether the judge who threw out the case is a member of Mensa.

Reminds me of something Voltaire once said, “I never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.”