'Sovereign citizen' type files $38 quadrillion lawsuit

A Las Vegas man, claiming damages in a dispute over a piece of desert land, has filed a $38 quadrillion lawsuit against the landowner's lawyers, the Las Vegas Daily Herald reports. Among the amusing facts:

Anderson said the property has been valued $36 billion and asked for 12.5 percent of that value, $4.5 billion. He also asked for additional compensatory damages of four times that amount and punitive damages of 200 times the amount, which added up to $918 billion. In his initial complaint, Anderson said silence on the matter by the defendants would constitute a binding contract.

Silence on the matter constitutes a binding contract! Now that's the way to get things done. I guess a lot of people who wrote the President on various matters are owed some money and favors, if that's where we set the bar.

The key to this story is in the second sentence:

John Theodore Anderson, also known as John-Theodore:Anderson in his filings ...

See the weird punctuation? That's the sign of an adherent of the "sovereign citizen" movement, which I mentioned in my last entry. Basically they believe in alternate theories of American law, theories which lead to fantastic assertions like "silence on the matter constitutes a binding contract."

It's all very amusing -- unless you become the target of one of these wack jobs, I guess, and wind up with all kinds of liens and frivolous lawsuits filed against you.