Lawyers "the virus ate my homework" defense no excuse

05/19/05 Widtfeldt v. United States et al U.S. Court of Appeals Case No. 04-3393 District of Nebraska Attorney James Widtfeldt claimed he was having a bad day with his computer that caused him to miss a briefing deadline in his pro se lawsuit against the USDA. The District Court sent out email notifications of his deadlines and dismissed the case when James failed to meet them. The Appeals Court did not believe in blaming a computer virus because he never logged on in the first place, and since his regular email was working, the 8th Circuit did not believe the virus ate my homework story. More trouble for James as the Nebraska Supreme Court had indefinitely suspended him earlier in February this year for calling a neighboring attorney a Hitler look-alike.