Williams v. Dayton WaterWilliams v. Dayton Water
ΟΡΙΝΙΟΝ
Rendered on the 4th day of September, 2020.
TRAVIS LANIER WILLIAMS, 1955 Kipling Drive, Dayton, Ohio 45406 Plaintiff-Appellant, Pro Se
MARTIN W. GEHRES, Atty. Reg. No. 96711, Assistant City Attorney, City of Dayton Attorney‘s Office, 101 West Third Street, P.O. Box 22, Dayton, Ohio 45401 Attorney for Defendant-Appellee
{¶ 1} Travis Lanier Williams appeals from the dismissal of his action against the City of Dayton, Department of Water, claiming that the City should have accepted his international bills of exchange as payment for his water bills. For the following reasons, the trial court‘s judgment will be affirmed.
I. Facts and Procedural History
{¶ 2} Williams‘s complaint consists of a short civil complaint form and several attachments. From these documents, we glean the following facts.
{¶ 3} Williams received a bill in the amount of $187.42 from the City of Dayton‘s Department of Water. On September 26, 2019, in response to that bill, Williams sent the Department a self-prepared international bill of exchange, drawn on the United States Department of Treasury, for that amount. The City did not accept the purported bill of exchange as payment.
{¶ 4} On October 22, 2019, Williams received a notice from the Department of Water that the bill for water service for June 11, 2019 to September 11, 2019 remained unpaid and that service would be discontinued if payment were not received. On October 23, 2019, Williams mailed a second self-prepared international bill of exchange in the amount of $194.18, again drawn on the United States Department of Treasury, to the Department. That purported bill of exchange also was not accepted as payment.
{¶ 5} The same day (October 23), Williams filed a complaint in the Montgomery Court of Common Pleas against the City, claiming that the City should have accepted his bills of exchange as legal tender and payment for his water bills. He cited to
{¶ 6} The City responded to the complaint with a motion to dismiss pursuant to
{¶ 7} Williams did not respond to the motion to dismiss.
{¶ 8} On December 20, 2019, the trial court granted the City‘s motion to dismiss. First, the court noted that one Ohio court had held that a presented International “Bill of Exchange” was not a proper payment for a mortgage to prevent a foreclosure order. Bank of N.Y. v. Markos, 10th Dist. Franklin No. 05AP-906, 2006-Ohio-2073. Second, the court noted the numerous cases cited in the City‘s motion, all of which held that a dismissal of a case is proper under
{¶ 9} Williams appeals from the trial court‘s dismissal of his action.
II. Standard of Review
{¶ 10} A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, pursuant to
{¶ 11} “An order granting a
{¶ 12} In conducting that review, we are “bound to assume that the facts pleaded in the complaint are true, but the same does not apply to conclusions of law that the pleader contends are proved by those facts.” Thomas v. Progressive Cas. Ins. Co., Inc., 2011-Ohio-6712, 969 N.E.2d 1284, ¶ 8 (2d Dist.). We are not to consider “unsupported conclusions that may be included among, but not supported by, the factual allegations of the complaint.” Boyd at ¶ 13, quoting Wright v. Ghee, 10th Dist. Franklin No. 01AP-1459, 2002-Ohio-5487, ¶ 19.
{¶ 13} Although the rule itself states that matters to be considered on a
III. Williams‘s Claim Based on his “International Bill of Exchange”
{¶ 14} The trial court dismissed Williams‘s complaint, finding, as a matter of law, that Williams‘s purported international bills of exchange were not legal tender and, consequently, he did not state a viable claim that the City erred in failing to accept them. We agree with the trial court that Williams‘s self-prepared international bills of exchange were not legal tender and, as a matter of law, Williams did not state a viable claim that the City erred in failing to accept them as payment.
{¶ 15} At the outset,
Any payment, conveyance, transfer, assignment, or delivery of property or interest therein, made to or for the account of the United States, * * * shall to the extent thereof be a full acquittance and discharge for all purposes of the obligation of the person making the same; and no person shall be held liable in any court for or in respect to anything done or omitted in good faith in connection with the administration of, or in pursuance of and in reliance on, this section, or any rule, regulation, instruction, or direction issued hereunder.
{¶ 16}
{¶ 17} Williams‘s international bills of exchange appear to be based on a “Redemptionist” theory. As the Third Circuit summarized:
[T]he “Redemptionist” theory * * * propounds that a person has a split personality: a real person and a fictional person called the “strawman.” The “strawman” purportedly came into being when the United States went off the gold standard in 19[3]3, and, instead, pledged the strawman of its citizens as collateral for the country‘s national debt. Redemptionists claim that government has power only over the strawman and not over the live person, who remains free. Individuals can free themselves by filing UCC financing statements, thereby acquiring an interest in their strawman. Thereafter, the real person can demand that government officials pay enormous sums of money to use the strawman‘s name * * *.
Monroe v. Beard, 536 F.3d 198, 203, fn. 4 (3d Cir.2008).
{¶ 18} The federal district court in Connecticut further explained:
Another tenet of the Redemptionist theory is that when the United States Government “pledged the strawman of its citizens as collateral for the country‘s national debt,” it created an “exemption account” for each citizen, identified by each person‘s Social Security number. When citizens contract for debt, the theory goes, their debts are collateralized by their respective exemption accounts, essentially making the U.S. Government ultimately responsible for satisfaction of their debts. Moreover, each citizen‘s exemption account is virtually bottomless, meaning that those who understand this theory — and who file the appropriate UCC financing statements, and thereby become a free sovereign, a process known as “redemption” — never have to actually pay for anything.
(Citations omitted.) McLaughlin v. CitiMortgage, Inc., 726 F.Supp.2d 201, 210 (D.Conn.2010).
{¶ 19} Courts have uniformly rejected arguments that self-prepared documents created under the Redemptionist theory or one of its corollaries are valid legal tender. See, e.g., Bank of New York v. Markos, 10th Dist. Franklin No. 05AP-906, 2006-Ohio-2073, ¶ 18 (self-prepared international bill of exchange was not a valid payment of mortgage debt); Vachon v. Reverse Mtge. Sols., Inc., Case No. EDCV 16-02419-DMG (KES), 2017 WL 6628103, *6 (C.D.Cal. Aug. 11, 2017); Bryant v. Washington Mut. Bank, 524 F.Supp 2d 753 (W.D. Va. 2007); In re Hill, Case No. 1:14-bk-15544-SDR, 2015 WL 5575499, *3 (Bankr.E.D.Tenn. Sept. 18, 2015). Rather, they have consistently found that similar bills of exchange supposedly drawn on treasury accounts are no more than “worthless piece[s] of paper.” Bryant at 760; see also, e.g., U.S. Bank, N.A. v. Phillips, 366 Ill.App.3d 593, 852 N.E.2d 380 (2006).
{¶ 20} Viewing Williams‘s complaint, including the attached documents, in the light most favorable to him, Williams presented two self-prepared international bills of exchange drawn on the United States Treasury to the City to pay his water bills. We find no law, including
IV. Conclusion
{¶ 21} The trial court‘s judgment will be affirmed.
HALL, J. and WELBAUM, J., concur.
Copies sent to:
Travis L. Williams
Martin W. Gehres
Hon. Steven K. Dankof