The Inmate Sued USA Today While Serving Time at Smithfield Correctional Facility.
A Pennsylvania Superior Court through out a lawsuit this week involving an illegal jailhouse gaming operation, according to Penn Live. In rendering its decision, the court described the case as “utterly frivolous”.
The lawsuit was filed by Alton Brown, a 60-year old inmate who has had a string of convictions for assault, robbery and theft. Brown sued the USA Today for breach of contract, because they stopped printing the Las Vegas odds soon after he signed up for a subscription to the newspaper. In his suit, Alton Brown claimed “breach of contract”, because the paper stopped publishing the bookmaker odds he needed to run his illegal gambling operation.
Sued a Former Publisher of USA Today
Technically, the defendant in the lawsuit was Larry Kramer, the former publisher and president of USA Today. The original lawsuit was filed in 2013, while Brown was a prisoner in Smithfield’s state prison, but it was tossed out by a judge in Huntingdon County. Later, Brown appealed the decision to the Superior Court, which just finished hearing the appeal.
Senior Judge William H. Platt wrote the opinion on the case. Judge Platt said that Alton Brown claimed “he needs this information to run his book-making operation in prison.”
Gambling Is Illegal in Prison
Citing rules against prisoners gambling while incarcerated by the Pennsylvania State Department of Corrections, the judges threw out the case. The judge also mentioned that Alton Brown has an 18-year history of frivolous lawsuits.
Several who commented on the case wondered if Alton Brown would be charged by prison officials with breaking the law in operating an illegal gambling ring. These people expressed a concern he would continue to file frivolous complaints without any consequences or backlash. Generally speaking, a person who is in the prison system a number of times for several different crimes does not consider the consequences of their bad actions, though.
Frivolous Lawsuits in America
Frivolous lawsuits are a plague on the judicial system, because they waist judges’ time and defendants’ money, while supporting unscrupulous lawyers who should know better than to get involved. Some states required those whose lawsuits are deemed frivolous to pay the legal fees for the defendant, which seems proper.
Not all such cases are as cut-and-dried. People often cite the McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit as a case of a frivolous lawsuit. Those people never knew that the woman suffered 3rd-degree burns over 16% of her body and her skinned was blackened from the scalding-hot coffee. The coffee burned down to the muscle, but is still cited as the number one example of a frivolous lawsuit.
Printing Vegas Odds in Newspapers
Newspapers in recent years have begun to stop printing the Las Vegas odds. As the American sports associations have argued repeatedly over the years that they want to distance themselves from legal or illegal sports betting, US newspapers have taken them at their word and stopped posting odds in the sports page, which might help promote gambling on college and pro sports.
Sports Leagues and Injury Reports
Leagues send out mixed signals. For instance, the NFL says it is against gambling, yet it enforces a strict policy on its teams to assure they release accurate injury information during the season. Those who do not file accurate Wednesday injury reports in the NFL regular season are fined for their reticence.
Several years ago, Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots was fined for not listing certain players as Questionable, though they later were unable to play. Since then, Belichick has often listed dozens of his players with Probable, Questionable, and Doubtful tags to cover himself under league policies. These many designations cause as much confusion as no information might.
Reasons for Detailed Injury Reports
Most seem to believe that the only reason the NFL would be so fastidious with its injury policies would be to support the Las Vegas sports betting industry. Spokesmen for the NFL have talked about maintaining competitive balance and assuring that all injuries are revealed equally. Another legitimate reason to publicize injury information is to let fans who are attending games if one of the stars will not be making an appearance, thus eliminating a possible source of fan disappointment.
Followers of the National Football League no doubt will make up their own opinions on the issue.
The Alton Brown in this story has no relation to the celebrity chef, Alton Brown, who is known for TV shows like “Good Eats” and “Iron Chef America”.
