Ann Arbor snooze - Miss your court date and your lawsuit against the library should be dismissed

Remember the library patron who was banned from the Ann Arbor District Library?  According to Jo Collins Mathis, Ann Arbor News, online at mlive.com (Nov 9), his case is likely to be dismissed if he misses his third chance to appear before the court.

   

Refresher: Last June, Fredric Maxwell sued the library in federal district court for $115,000 and demanded a full-page public apology in several newspapers, and other unspecified damages. He claims that he was banned after using "the 'f' word" to an employee.  The library claims that it suspended him after three separate incidents of misbehavior, not for the use of one word.

   

Current status: Maxwell missed court hearings on Sept. 9 and Nov. 4, and District Court Judge George Caram Steeh last week ordered him to appear on Dec. 7. The case may be dismissed if Maxwell misses that hearing, a real possibility given that he has since moved to Colorado and told the court that he doesn't foresee living in Ann Arbor until after his "unconstitutional ban" expires.

"I seriously doubt I'll be back to Ann Arbor in the near future, especially given the way other public libraries, most notably the Boulder Public Library, have welcomed me."

In September, the Ann Arbor District Library amended its behavior policy to allow an appeals process for patrons to have a hearing before the full Board of Trustees. 

My personal take: I'm frankly surprised that an appeals process before the Board was not already part of the policy. My source is the Ann Arbor news, so if any of my Ann Arbor friends say the newspaper got that wrong, shout out. I worked at the Ann Arbor library back in the day with the greatest of librarians.  I lived across the street from the library in the same house that Madonna is said to have lived in when she was a student. The place was straight out of Desperately Seeking Susan -- a mess with some very unusual items in the basement. A good friend in Ann Arbor told me to make my blog entries more personal - so there you go!   Anyway, an appeals process is crucial to make a library's behavior policy legally enforceable...particularly when action such as suspension of library privileges is at issue.

Comments

[Mary]

To Fredric - hey thanks for your update.

Mary

[Fredric Alan Maxwell]

Hey, Mary, I appreciate your comments. I'm the guy suing the AADL. Your report is accurate that the library has no appeals process. Had, that is, until after I filed suit then they implemented one -- which doesn't cover me. I was forced to sue. They've spent over $50,000 of the taxpayer's money fighting this, at the same time arguing that they have "governmental immunity" from anything they say about me while at the same time are claiming that the f-word is obscene -- funny how, in their view, The New Yorker is now obscene -- and that my suit is frivolous (if it had been, the judge would have thrown it out during the two hearings that we've had already). Mary, I dedicate my last book to my late librarian Mom, and profusely thank the 15 libraries nationwide that helped me researchign the text. Wahtsmore, I've thrice testified before congress about public access at our de facto library, and my pieces about libraries have appeared in places like Newsweek and Harper's. Alas, I'm simply fed up with the AADL. I mean, they're recovering from an embezzelement scandel yet are anything but transparent -- even claiming that things such as their annual budget aren't covered under FOIA. For more info see my "Are Tar and Featehr Next?" Op-Ed piece in the July 25 Ann Arbor News. Let's face it, Ann Arbor now talks left but walks right, yet when I went to ALbion then U of M, it talked left and walked that way, too. And so I packed up my stuff, renamed my can Tar and Feathers, and am writing about the process and problem for a few pubs including the ALA's Public Librarys. I can be reached at [email protected]