August 3, 2008

Mat Staver: FAIL

Mat Staver is the dean of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University law school. He's turned up here before.

Counselor Staver got smacked around a little bit by a federal district court in Colorado last week. Uproarious legal commentator and Coloradan Subject to Complete Defeasance has the details.

Erica Corder is a former high school valedictorian who decided to become a teen preacher to her graduating class by personally and deceitfully appropriating government facilities and equipment.

She — with Staver's assistance — ended up suing the school for various alleged violations of her "rights," and the court last week granted the school's motion to dismiss every one of those claims.

One of the highlights of the district court's order (.pdf; 16 pgs.) has the judge reminding Staver that despite Staver's insistence that he was not asking for an injunction against the school, an injunction is specifically what he'd requested in his original complaint, which also contained baseless cries of Christian persecution.

The perfunctory dismissal of Staver's equal protection claim is likewise entertaining, in that there wasn't anybody in a similar situation to Ms. Corder to be equally protected against. Generally you need a party with whom to compare yourself when making an equal protection claim; that's what the "equal" part refers to.

Meanwhile on Dean Mat Staver's official Liberty University webpage, it's alleged that Staver provides a "legal education that distinguishes Liberty from any other law school."

Several clues as to what distinguishes this law school from all the others are contained in the Colorado district court's order, such as: When replying to your opponent's motion for dismissal of your complaint, it's always good practice to conveniently forget what it is exactly you were asking for in that complaint.

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