Big Justice vs. Little Justice

I have a friend who I’ve talked to about “big justice” and “little justice”. One thing I’ve always had to battle in my lawsuits is the perception that fighting to go barefoot is just “little justice.” Oh, just put on some shoes. Oh, that’s too minor of an insult to fight.

I’ve had courts get mad at me for wasting their time. In my suit against the Columbus Metropolitan Library, I had the trial court judge there admonish me:

In closing, however, the Plaintiff is urged to reconsider the wisdom of continuing this lawsuit. His dispute with the Columbus Metropolitan Library has already been addressed in written decisions by two federal courts, and the Supreme Court of the United States then denied further review. Isn’t that enough? There are other choices for the Plaintiff ranging from allowing himself to wear appropriate foot coverings for the brief times when he is present in a Columbus Metropolitan Library, to simply using another local Library altogether – if there is one having no bare foot policy. This lawsuit is expending precious public resources. Plaintiff should ask himself whether, even if he is right on the law, the time and funds he is causing to be expended to defend the Library Board’s authority could not be much better spent on other proper public purposes in this time of increasingly tight State and local budgets.

(Emphasis added.)

That’s “little justice”. Even if I was right on the law, it was my fault for bringing the suit, and not the fault of the Library for continuing to fight my lawsuit. They could have just settled and expended much less time and funds, and in the end they would not have noticed a bit of difference, aside from having one more satisfied customer.

This is what the famed Gerry Spence (the lawyer for Karen Silkwood, among others) said about it. From an article in the Deseret News in 1984:

The courts have an unwritten rule, [Gerry Spence] said. “Little people must not have big justice. Little people must have little justice.”

I’ve made appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court and to the Ohio Supreme Court. And they make it clear that all they are interested in is “big justice”, cases that affect large numbers of people or are for large sums of money. But if they cannot, will not, address the little injustices, then the rot spreads, for any injustice is ultimately a “big justice”. A civilization that allows it has lost its way.

Let me finish with a part of a near-poem I found about “big justice” and “little justice”, here:

Justice is justice,

There is no concept of little justice or big justice or half gram of justice or one gram of justice!!!

Justice is not sold in carats in international markets,
Justice cannot be sold in grams on shops,
Justice cannot be displayed on shopping malls as ‘the big one’!!!

Justice is not a product,
Justice is justice,
Either there is justice or no justice,

Little justice is a sign of corruption,
Little justice is an upcoming disaster,

Little justice is bribery,
Little justice is weakness,

Justice is not a grant,
Justice is not an ‘extra facility’,
Justice is not a privilege,
Justice is not a ‘give and take’,
Justice is not an allowance,

Justice is the only available connection among people and society,
Justice is the birth of humanity,
Justice is not an invention,
Justice is the center of all gravities,

There is no concept of ‘shortfall’ in justice,
There is no concept of ‘we are trying our best’ in justice,

Either you do justice,
Or, you do not do justice,

There is no justification for lack of justice,
There is no justification for ‘packets of justice’,

Justice is not a manufacturing plant where you manufacture products on your choice,
Justice is not an agricultural land where you cultivate crops on choice,

Justice is neither ‘supply and demand’,
Justice is justice,
Either it exists or does not,

Nor is Justice a ‘percentage’!!!
‘Ten percent deprived’ means Justice Hundred percent absent,
There is no concept and justification for ten percent injustice,
Of course oxfordians do not have knowledge of that,
But their weak knowledge is not a concept,

There is no ideal in mathematics,
Mathematics is either correct or wrong,
Mathematics is pure justice,
Justice is pure mathematics,
Mathematics is everlasting,
Justice is everlasting,

Mathematics is always correct,
Justice is always correct,

There is no concept of ten percent wrong mathematics,
There is no concept of ten percent injustice,

Injustice is the termite for society,
It destroys society from within very silently,
The decoration abruptly collapses,

. . . without notice,
Because either there is justice or no justice,

Justice is not a piece of art,
That they decorate on walls and tables and rooms,
Justice is not a painting of modern slavery,
Justice is not an art of imperialism,

Justice is justice,
Either there is justice or no justice,

It seems that all we ever get is “little justice”, and that translates to no justice at all.