Handsome Debonair Guy v. Family Dollar Store Owner

Complaint: I, Handsome Debonair Guy, was assaulted by Family Dollar Store employees. While I was shoplifting. They broke my ribs and gouged my throat with 2-inch fingernails. Now I'm suing for (a) $3.5 million, or (b) an out-of-court settlement for $350K and court fees and "(5) single bars of gold - 1 oz each," or (c) $1M cash and court fees.

Judge: Plaintiffs generally can't proceed anonymously. There are some exceptions, but it's up to the plaintiff to show they apply. You're suing "under the pseudonym 'Handsome Debonair Guy,'" but you haven't asked permission to do that. Let me explain how you can ask for such permission.

Response: No, you don't understand. I used to be Maurice Kingwood, but in 2005 I officially changed my name to Handsome Debonair Guy. While I was in jail. See, here's the New York court order so stating.

Oddly, that appears to be a winning argument for Mr. Guy on this point, though I think he's going nowhere with his federal claim (which is for alleged violations of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, but those apply only to government action and not to the Family Dollar Store).

Comments

[Ridgeway]

“$1M cash and court fees”

I am guessing that “Dr. Evil” was unavailable when he went for the name change.

Personally, I’d have gone for Hercules Rockefeller, Rembrandt Q. Einstein or Max Power, but chacun a son gout.

[SRG]

This is hysterical.

[Brett Bellmore]

Why "oddly"? Sure sounds like a valid argument to me.

[David Nieporent]

Of course it's a valid argument, if true. It's odd that it is true; if one had to bet, it would be that someone suing under that moniker was trolling, rather than that he actually legally changed his name to that.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sure, I was just a little confused, since Eugene had explained why it was a perfectly valid legal argument before stating that it had oddly been successful. I suppose he was just being humorous, and I didn't get it.

[John F. Carr]

Somebody must have tried changing his name to "United States of America" or "US Treasury" to cash a whole bunch of checks payable to the government. How did it end up?

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Then he changed his name back to Joe Biden.

[santamonica811]

I don't get it.

[John F. Carr]

The docket is here: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66716898/handsome-debonair-guy-v-family-dollar-store-owner/

Some curious guy has made the case documents available on courtlistener.

[Scribe]

Handsome Debonair Guy isn't too good at math, though. Each of his three alternative demands for damages have wildly different values.

[Abdul Abulbul Amir]

So what? He would be happy with any of them.

[mulched]

What about the poor schmuck who has to clerk in the Pro Se Intake Unit? (See last page of Response)

[Stephen Lathrop]

Off topic, but thematically related: I remember from the 1970s a case titled, Boomer vs. Feeble. I purport to remember that it was a real case, and that Boomer won.

[neurodoc]

1) I believe that most or all of these "dollar store" operations have raised the price on their merchandise from $1 to $1.25, so we may be dealing with mislabeling here.

2) If one were inclined to shoplifting, why would they attempt it in a dollar store rather than somewhere with more appealing loot?

[DRM]

Family Dollar isn't a "dollar store" in the sense of "everything's $1"; it's a "dollar store" in the sense of "everything is priced in integer dollars". Basically, it (and its rival Dollar General) are the modern iteration of the five-and-dime.

The major chain of everything-is-$1 stores was Dollar Tree (which as it happens has been the corporate parent of Family Dollar since 2014); it's Dollar Tree that raised its price-for-everything to $1.25.

[Bruce Hayden]

In MT, we have a combined Dollar Tree/Family Dollar store. And last summer the Dollar Tree segment raised most, but not all of their prices to $1.25.

I was a bit surprised the first time I entered a Family Dollar store to find that relatively few of their prices were actually $1. Most were in even multiples of $1. We also have 99¢ stores here in Phoenix (also in Las Vegas). They started at 99¢, moved up to 99.99¢, and then started selling some items at $1.99, $2.99, etc. I was caught once by the scam, but now I just double check prices - if it isn’t marked at a higher price, it is still 99.99¢. They do have more selection than Dollar Tree, but are far less numerous. And they no longer seem to have the real steals that they used to have when they would pick up overages that didn’t sell elsewhere of much more expensive food items. Now, they seem to do just what Dollar Tree does - mostly hire big companies to package their products in quantities so that they can make money at $1.

[Dr. Ed 2]

3 broken ribs arresting a shoplifter strikes me as a tad excessive -- is he going to argue agents of the police?

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, we haven't seen the video in question; Maybe he's omitting mention of some aggravating actions on his part.

[Longtobefree]

Such as shoplifting?
His head should be on a spike in front of the store.

[Brett Bellmore]

He does seem pretty casual about admitting to the court that he was acting criminally at the time.

But, no, I meant aggravating actions in the sense of him maybe having nailed the store employee who tried to stop him in the nads, or something of that sort.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

That would work. Let's try it out in a few places and watch the results. Then as necessary resort to drawing and quartering [which, to be honest, I never really understood the quartering part because the punished would already be quite dead by the time you ripped them apart, but then the effect on the audience must have been spectacular].

[Brett Bellmore]

Nah, actually they would try very hard to NOT quite kill you until towards the end. A bad case of road rash, then disemboweling, (Which is survivable for a rather nasty long time if they stop there.) setting fire you your intestines, hanging you without the neck breaking jerk at the end, and cutting you down short of suffocating quite to death. Then finally they'd behead you, ideally still alive at that point, and tear your dead body to pieces.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Yes, there are women who can hold their own -- but they don't have 2 inch nails...

[KenveeB]

"Oddly, that appears to be a winning argument for Mr. Guy on this point" -- Why is it odd that it's a winning argument that he's allowed to proceed under his own name? It's hilarious that he was allowed to take that name legally, but once he did, there's nothing wrong with him being allowed to sue under it.