COA affirms dismissal of appeal from inmate with ‘penchant for litigation’

A South Bend man with a history of filing dozens of “meritless actions” has once again failed to convince the Court of Appeals of Indiana that he was wronged by the justice system, drawing it to further tighten the boundaries of his filing abilities.

After Mario Sims was convicted of burglary, rape and criminal deviate conduct in 1995, he alleged on appeal that those convictions were a result of a purported conspiracy against him within St. Joseph County.

By 2003, Sims was involved in at least 47 state court appeals, nearly all of which had been unsuccessful and were directly or indirectly related to his arrest, prosecution, conviction, or confinement for those crimes.

The Court of Appeals ultimately imposed conditions on any future lawsuits Sims might initiate in Sims v. Scopelitis, 797 N.E.2d 348, 349 n.2 (Ind. Ct. App. 2003), trans. denied (2004) to deter him from abuse of the judicial system, describing him as having a “penchant for litigation.”

Those conditions include:

• Before filing a suit, Sims must submit to the trial court a copy of the complaint he wishes to file.
• He must file a copy of all relevant documents pertaining to the ultimate disposition of all previous cases he instituted against the same defendant or emanating, directly or indirectly, from any alleged conspiracy by public officials.
• He must file a legal brief, complete with competent legal argument and citation to authority, explaining to the court why the new action is not subject to dismissal by application of the doctrines of res judicata, collateral estoppel or law of the case,
• He is required to verify his new complaint pursuant to Indiana Trial Rule 11(B).
• He must attach a separate copy of this final section of the instant opinion to the complaint.

Sims pursued several more appeals after that ruling, including a suit against several South Bend city officials. His most recent appeal claimed the St. Joseph Circuit Court improperly dismissed his complaint that alleges police misconduct in the form of planting evidence concerning his 1995 convictions and concealment of evidence of the misconduct by South Bend city officials.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of that complaint on Friday in the case of Mario Sims v. Pete Buttigieg; Mike Schmul; Tim Corbett; St. Joseph County, by the Board of Commissioners of St. Joseph County, Indiana; City of South Bend, Indiana; Stephanie Steele, as Corporation Counsel for the City of South Bend; Tasha Reed Outlaw; AnnCarol Nash; and Cristal Brisco, 21A-CT-2309.

It noted that the gist of Sims’ contention on appeal was that the trial court incorrectly dismissed his complaint because he “complied with Scopelitis and the trial court was required to allow the case to proceed.”

“We infer from his statement that Sims believes as long as he submits to the trial court all the materials required by Scopelitis, his lawsuit will be allowed to proceed. This is undoubtedly not the case,” Senior Judge Ezra Friedlander wrote. “As indicated by the words ‘prior to filing any such lawsuit,’ the Scopelitis conditions are pre-filing screening requirements that are to be satisfied in order to allow the court to review Sims’ claims and bar them from going forward if they are duplicative of his sundry previous actions and thus without merit.

“Therefore, simply submitting the required Scopelitis materials does not make approval for filing automatic; if that were the case, the screening process would be pointless,” he continued.

Pursuant to the screening procedure set out in Scopelitis, the appellate court concluded that Sims’ present lawsuit “should never have been filed.” It also found no procedural error in the trial court performing its mandated Scopelitis review after the premature filing of the complaint.

Further, because the trial court determined that Sims’ claims in the complaint cannot go forward, the appellees were not in default for not filing an answer or other responsive pleading as claimed by Sims in his appellate brief.

After making specific clarifications for Sims’ future filings, the COA concluded that any inaccuracy in the trial court’s chronological case summary entry was simply a clerical error.

“Based on the foregoing, we conclude the trial court properly dismissed Sims’ complaint with prejudice,” Friedlander wrote.