Keeping US courts busy with a ploy named sue

By RICHARD KELLY

There are those in the United States who tie up the courts with questionable lawsuits. Then there's Patricia Alice McColm.

McColm, who has filed more than 50 lawsuits and hundreds of police complaints over the past 25 years, was described by a San Francisco judge as the "most vexatious litigant" the jurist had ever seen. McColm then sued the judge for libel.

But her days as a resident in the neighbourhood she has made a legal battleground may be numbered. A couple of weeks ago the company that holds the mortgage on her house was set to foreclose. McColm allegedly hadn't made a mortgage payment in two years and was almost $90,000 in arrears, but she managed to stave off foreclosure by filing a bankruptcy brief.

Now her house is up for sale. Let the buyer beware. There are several liens on the property from contractors who say they are owed for work done on the house.

Real estate agents, fearful of lawsuits themselves, prepare packets of newspaper clippings about McColm for prospective buyers of neighbouring homes.

Marc Balistreri read all the clippings and decided to move in next door anyway. He figured he and his wife would keep to themselves, wouldn't cause any trouble and just do their best to avoid her.

"As a courtesy, I asked her if she minded if I did some construction work to our house," says Balistreri. "She asked me to keep the work to between 9 am and 5 pm and I thought that was more than reasonable. Then she asked me to put it in writing."

Sensing that a written document with McColm could lead to future problems, Balistreri refused and soon found himself in front of the Board of Appeals.

McColm tied up his building permit for months and then slapped a harassment suit on him, claiming he was slamming his side door intentionally to bother her. A judge granted a temporary restraining order barring use of the door, though the order was later dismissed.

"I've only been here since October [1999] and I've already got a five-inch stack of legal documents dealing with her," he says.

McColm, 54, represents herself in most cases. In 1984 she graduated from Golden Gate University law school in San Francisco but failed the bar exam twice.

She then sued the State Bar for infliction of emotional distress, claiming examiners discriminated against her after she told them she was disabled (she claims to suffer from disabilities stemming from accidents), putting her in a room that was too hot one day and too cold the next. One examiner also chewed gum loudly, she said, and distracted her.

Since being declared a "vexatious litigant" in California she is barred from filing lawsuits without the permission of a judge. She is also required, in some cases, to put up a bond to cover the legal costs of defendants should she lose a case she brings to trial.

It's an extreme measure, rarely imposed in a country where unfettered access to courts is considered a fundamental right. A new, stricter law went into effect in California in 1990 providing a statewide listing of those declared vexatious. The list is now 35 pages long and numbers 420 people.

McColm portrays herself as a battler up against powerful, monied interests such as insurance companies and public corporations. She sees herself as harassed by neighbours and a clique of "dictators" running the local residents' association, merely for asserting her basic rights.

Her neighbours don't see it that way, and express disbelief about how long it took the courts to declare her vexatious.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Jack Berman did just that in 1991, but when McColm appealed, the judge reversed his decision and said later in an interview that he didn't want to endure the hassle of her inevitable litigation. (She then sued him for his comments.)

As a teenager, McColm danced with the Tucson Ballet in Arizona and in the mid-70s acted professionally.

She eventually wound up in San Francisco and taught at the American Conservatory Theater. She lists a TV commercial and episodes of the soap opera Days of Our Lives as credits on her resume.

In the late 70s McColm lectured in broadcasting at San Francisco State University. She was denied tenure and filed suit in 1980 for sex discrimination - a case she lost 11 years later.

McColm has suffered an alarming number of mishaps and accidents over the years, according to her filings.

She's claimed over injuries suffered in a bank, two department stores, a city square, a supermarket, a hospital, at the hands of her doctor and dentist and in nine car accidents.

She's sued the Federal Government, the Bank of America, the city of San Francisco (at least four times), two newspapers which published articles about her and two judges who were quoted in those articles.

She's also filed claims alleging assault or threat of assault by neighbours, a female attorney, tradesmen, a private investigator and a postal worker.

Though McColm has claimed her suits are filed out of principle or to prevent future mishaps befalling others, lawyers who have opposed her contend it is not so much principle as money that drives her. They say her threat is of long, costly legal battles unless the defendant's insurer coughs up cash settlements.

She has won numerous "nuisance" settlements. She was paid $1500 in 1988 by an insurance company to settle a suit in which she claimed her toes had been run over by a shopping cart, for example.

In another case, she won a $5000 insurance settlement after an eight-year dispute over noise in a neighbour's backyard.

"She has an incredible ability to use the legal system and the police as a club to beat her opponents into submission," says Alex Bannon, an Oakland lawyer who defended a carpet cleaner whom McColm claimed literally pulled the rug from under her (allegedly breaking her toe) when she refused to pay his bill.

When Marc Balistreri bought the house next door to McColm , the San Francisco real estate market was red hot and many homes were frequently selling far above the asking price.

His bid was an estimated $75,000 to $100,000 below market value for similar houses in the neighbourhood, and it was snapped up by the seller.

"I can honestly say I have one of the 10 worst neighbours you could possibly have in the United States," he says flatly.

"Some days I want to kill her and sometimes I just marvel at her tenacity."