In Schmalfeldt v. Grady et al, Bill Schmalfeldt makes a plea in his introduction to the Memorandum of Law in opposition to the motions filed by the defendants to dismiss the case, or at a minimum fix the complaint so it can be properly defended.

In reality, it’s a gripe:

The main question of this case is whether a person has the right to seek judicial relief from people who have been hounding, harassing, threatening, libeling and conspiring against him for years.

This is missing important facts. He’s sued in all the places he’s lived, save for Iowa, and lost. At least once, he asked for and was granted dismissal with prejudice. Some claims may fall under res judicata from this previous dismissal  It’s hard to know because his complaint lacks specifics to allegations being made.

Can a person who moves from Maryland to Wisconsin to Iowa to South Carolina rely on the Federal Court System to seek justice against individuals whose online actions extend beyond the borders of the forum state of South Carolina, but who have definitely affected the Plaintiff and his attempted business dealings in South Carolina?

This runs under the assumption that the defendants are writing his words and his history for him. That “internet is forever” thing may actually work against him.

Can libelous statements written before the Plaintiff moved to the forum state but read by potential landlords in the forum state be brought to the attention of the Court?

If one were to ask Schmalfeldt this question: “I see you have a restraining order against you in North Carolina. Can you explain that?”, what do you think Schmalfeldt’s answer would be? The better question is, how long do you think the potential landlord might come to the conclusion, “Oh boy, do we have a live one here..”?

Can conspiracy conducted by Defendants before plaintiff moved to forum state, as well as conspiracy that continues to this date, be shown to a forum state jury?

Can reckless conduct/wanton misconduct that occurred when Plaintiff lived in Maryland, Wisconsin and Iowa be mentioned in the complaint along with the same torts that continue to occur even now?

Plaintiff has determined that after years of suffering abuse at the hands of the Defendants, his only chance of making it stop is to hit the Defendants where it hurts the most, in the wallet.

What Schmalfeldt wants you to believe is that he is the target of a nefarious cabal in which the stated purpose of this group is to make Schmalfeldt’s life a living hell.

If Specific Personal Jurisdiction is denied, the Plaintiff is faced with the choice of dropping his case altogether, ending his attempt to live the rest of his life without being harassed by these Internet Bullies, or giving up his search for justice in his new home state and seeking specific personal jurisdiction over defendants living in Illinois, Maryland, Tennessee and North Carolina, or picking one of the defendants’ home states and facing the same problem with specific personal jurisdiction from the three defendants who do not live in that state.

The honorable Court should rule that South Carolina can and does exercise specific personal jurisdiction over the diverse defendants and that the Plaintiff is free to present evidence to the jury of how the tortuous actions of the Defendants over the past several years have led to the problems the Plaintiff faces today and the damages caused by those willful, malicious actions.

Failing to show he’s tried this before and lost because of his own incompetence, he’s pleading “I’m being denied justice if you don’t allow me to litigate my claims in front of a jury and ignore the facially defective claims in my complaint.”

If one were to read the above without any context of Schmalfeldt’s history, one would think this group of people were terrorizing him to the point where he had to regularly move. His only hope is to convince a bunch of South Carolina lackeys in a jury box that he has been wronged for too long and he deserves justice.

Obviously, none of this is actually true.  Schmalfeldt generally writes without context or facts while pushing a victim narrative hoping the reader will impute their own conclusions that he is a good person, but meek and defenseless.  His only recourse is to take it to court and be granted the justice he desperately seeks.

At least, that what he wants the Judge to the think. Justice, however, is not about taking sides; it’s weighing the facts and evidence and rendering a verdict on the issues presented assuming, of course, it makes it past all the procedural hurdles.

If one takes the time to read through Schmalfeldt’s history to get a proper context, you slowly begin to realize there are things in that fictional narrative that just don’t add up.

Here are some undisputed facts about Bill:

He was suing individuals in the US District Court of Maryland in 2015. When his wife passed away, he abruptly moved from Maryland to Wisconsin a few weeks later, but not before dismissing his suit with prejudice.

After moving to Wisconsin, he once again filed a federal lawsuit in Milwaukee and it was dismissed for jurisdictional grounds.  While there, he picked up a couple more restraining orders – two in North Carolina and one in Illinois.

Shortly after the Wisconsin dismissal, Schmalfeldt attempted to address jurisdictional concerns by traveling to Illinois and filing a lawsuit in Chicago, using the district’s generosity of having a law firm assigned to represent him.  Within a month, that suit was dismissed on advice of the attorney  (Note: Schmalfeldt never revealed “the why” of having it dismissed.)

Later, Schmalfeldt applied for, and received a driver’s license from Wisconsin.  Then he purchased a vehicle to drive. (Note: he gave up driving several years before because of “Parkinson’s” disease.  Somehow, it went into remission.)

Later, Schmalfeldt abruptly moved to Clinton, Iowa, and worked at a radio station for approximately one month.  He continued to live in Iowa for a couple of months. (Note: Schmalfeldt has never explained why he only worked for a month and was let go.)

During the last couple of months in Iowa, Schmalfeldt claimed that his tires were slashed and blamed it on Patrick Grady.  He claimed Patrick Grady ratted Hoge out for telling Grady to commit a criminal act. Clinton PD suspended the investigation a few days later. (Note: I am not aware that either Hoge or Grady were ever contacted by any police agency. If they were, nothing ever came from it.)

In April of 2017, Schmalfeldt admitted that he drove to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, twice (1000 miles one way) where he eventually moved.  He gave up his car and driver’s license and has subsequently claimed the return of his progressive Parkinson’s disease.

Schmalfeldt regularly writes and publishes commentary on his blogs that insult, degrade, and inflame the same people he’s suing. Although no one hardly ever comments on his blogs, those that have an opposing view or challenge him, he promptly removes.

Example of some of his recent commentary with graphic illustration:

https://twitter.com/MBFreeSpeech/status/903244185947578372

Here are some facts about the defendants:

None of the individuals named in the suit traveled to Wisconsin, Iowa or South Carolina at any time to physically harass or intimidate Schmalfeldt.

No one has made direct contact with Schmalfeldt, except for John Hoge, which has been strictly for legal purposes. Schmalfeldt, however, has made many unsolicited contacts via twitter, phone, text, and email, including family members and places of employment, to each defendant. He has received restraining orders from some of this activity.

Each of the defendants, with the exception of Johnson and Grady, has an active blog that chronicles Schmalfeldt’s activities.  The Krendler blog is written by an anonymous individual. It contains more insulting and mocking commentary about Schmalfeldt. Schmalfeldt claimed at one time he was Krendler and tried to publish a book admitting he was Krendler under an elaborate ruse.

This is Schmalfeldt’s argument:

The charges of harassment and libel are from the writings and comments on the defendants’ blogs; that they are false in nature; they tell libelous and defamatory untruths about him; and that the blogs allow commenters to express opinions that feed from those same defamatory comments.  He claims this is a form of harassment, and that because it can be accessible to landlords in South Carolina, it adversely affects his ability to lease housing because, in reality, these blogs are targeting businesses in the state.

In order to be harassed, he has to GO to these sites.  That’s like saying he has to go to a bar across town to hear the gossip about him and then calls the police for being harassed.

The thing about this gripe is the fatal demand: He wants the history of this feud to be litigated in court under the belief that it will back up his claims for a major award of monetary damages.  What could possibly go wrong?

As the saying goes: Be careful what you wish for.