Brian Haas

bhaas@tennessean.com

Some prison inmates lift weights. Others pass the time playing cards.

Dale Maisano files thousands upon thousands of lawsuits, mostly complaining about the food.

Maisano, a 62-year-old prison inmate in Florence, Ariz., has filed — at last count — 5,813 federal lawsuits across the nation. Most of them have been filed in the last two years, and more than 1,800 of those have been filed in Nashville's federal court.

Most of the lawsuits are identical. A sampling:

"Stop the torture and give me food that will not make me ill." Another: "Daily I'm given a diet that causes the Plaintiff to be severely ill."

And what does he want in return?

$10 trillion (either in U.S. dollars or gold).

His targets have included governors, wardens, attorneys general and the Nashville-based Corizon Health, which provides medical care for inmates — and which explains why so many lawsuits have been filed here.

'Nuisance suits'

"I don't have any delusions I'm going to get that kind of money. I don't have any delusions I'm going to get any money," Maisano said Wednesday by phone from the prison in Arizona where he resides on a 15-year sentence for aggravated assault. "A lot of them are just nuisance suits. We're trying to get our point across."

And what's the point, exactly? That inmates aren't being given proper food and health care — a notion the Arizona Department of Corrections says isn't true.

"Inmate Maisano has access to appropriate health care and his diet needs are met," said Doug Nick, the department's spokesman. "The sheer volume of the lawsuits he has filed and the financial demands he makes speak for themselves."

That volume has gotten the attention of multiple federal judges, but it hasn't endeared him to them.

Forbidden to file

One judge in 1992 tried to curb Maisano's blitz, forbidding him from filing any lawsuits without the court's permission. Maisano ignored the order and, though he slowed down for a number of years, he kicked into overdrive in 2013.

That year, he filed more federal lawsuits than all the federal cases lodged in the states of Maine, New Hampshire and Wyoming combined. Even that doesn't compare to his pace this year — 3,356 as of Thursday.

His busiest day ever came Jan. 24, 2014, when he filed 249 lawsuits.

And while most lawsuits are dismissed the day they come in, some poor court clerk in Nashville or Phoenix is stuck entering his handwritten complaints into the docket.

Maisano said he's not crazy but "could use some mental health help." Despite having thousands of his complaints dismissed just as quickly as he's filed them, he said he believes his effort is working.

"If I would have filed five cases and let them go," he said, "would you be talking to me?"

Reach Brian Haas at 615-726-8968 and on Twitter @brianhaas.

Inmate's stream of lawsuits

Dale Maisano has been referred to charitably as "exceptionally litigious" by U.S. District Court Chief Judge William Haynes, who oversees the Middle District of Tennessee's federal courts.

While most of his lawsuits were filed in 2014, he's been at it since at least 1986. Here are his totals, through Aug. 12, 2014:

• Lawsuits filed in Middle Tennessee: 1,814

• Lawsuits filed in Arizona: 3,891

• Lawsuits filed in other courts: 108

• Total lawsuits filed since 1986: 5,813

Source: Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts