A bill aimed at restricting inmates from filing frivolous lawsuits at public expense was given first-round approval April 2.<\/p>\n
Under LB793 as introduced by Omaha Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh, an inmate who previously has filed three civil lawsuits deemed by a court to be frivolous would be prohibited from filing a civil case at the public\u2019s expense. An inmate could continue to file civil suits at his or her personal expense.<\/p>\n
Exceptions to the rule would include criminal appeals and cases when an inmate could prove an imminent danger of bodily harm. A Judiciary Committee amendment, adopted 32-1, removed the requirement that a threat of bodily harm be imminent.<\/p>\n
If approved, the \u201cthree-strike\u201d rule would apply only to lawsuits filed after passage of the law.<\/p>\n
Lautenbaugh said frivolous lawsuits clog the state\u2019s justice system and cost counties \u2013 particularly Douglas, Lancaster and Johnson \u2013 a considerable amount of money. One inmate filed 665 cases, he said, including 88 cases in one year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is an extreme example and I don\u2019t know if we\u2019ll see the likes of him again,\u201d Lautenbaugh said, \u201cbut I think it\u2019s important that we do try to put some limit in place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sen. Brenda Council of Omaha opposed the bill, saying it would place unnecessary limits on inmate\u2019s access to the courts. While a few inmates may intentionally have abused the system in the past, she said, courts and judges already have the means to constrain those individuals without potentially restricting access to others who simply may not understand the intricacies of the legal system.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re talking about inmates \u2026 they\u2019re not lawyers, they don\u2019t know how to frame the allegations,\u201d Council said.<\/p>\n
Lautenbaugh said the bill sets a high bar for denying an inmate the ability to file a lawsuit at public expense and is not intended to deny meritorious claims.<\/p>\n
The bill advanced on a 36-1 vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A bill aimed at restricting inmates from filing frivolous lawsuits at public expense was given first-round approval April 2. Under<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-7307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-sen-scott-lautenbaugh"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7307"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7310,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7307\/revisions\/7310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}