ST. LOUIS — U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry has dismissed with prejudice a nuisance lawsuit against waste disposal provider Republic Services.
In a dismissal order filed Sept. 13, Perry did not hold back in criticizing plaintiff Michael Smith and his attorney's handling of the litigation.
"Plaintiff’s Second Amended Complaint is difficult to understand and inconsistent, with unlabeled exhibits attached in no particular order," she wrote. "Even in the Court’s best attempt at interpreting the allegations of the Complaint in the light most favorable to plaintiff, I agree with defendants that the Complaint fails to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6).”
The case had been removed to federal court from St. Louis County Circuit Court earlier this year. In March, Perry issued a show cause order asking Smith's attorney, Donald Crank of St. Louis, why he failed to respond to multiple notifications that he needed to register to be admitted to the Eastern District of Missouri.
According to the order, Perry issued a second show cause order in May, acknowledging that he had been admitted to the court but still had not responded to Republic Service's motion to dismiss.
"Plaintiff requested an additional thirty to sixty days to respond, stating that he was never served with the motion to dismiss and was having difficulty with the federal electronic filing system," the order states. "At that time, I warned plaintiff that I had 'reviewed the motion to dismiss, the original state-court petition, and the amended petition and I agree[d] that the current pleadings [were] subject to dismissal for the substantive reasons stated in defendant’s motion.'"
She granted plaintiff another 45 days to file an amended complaint, which Perry indicated she "interpreted" as a response to a defense motion to dismiss and a second amended complaint.
She wrote in an August order that she "warned" the plaintiff that a response to a second motion to dismiss must address all issues raised by the defendant.
The response was a duplicate of the plaintiff's first answer, Perry wrote.
"He made no changes to his response despite the Court’s warning that 'his response must address all issues raised by defendants' because the Court’s initial review of the Second Amended Complaint indicated that defendants’ arguments were well taken," she wrote.