“Game of Thrones” has just got real, no joke

Aug 10, 2015 21:01 GMT  ·  By

35-year-old Richard Luthmann, a lawyer from Staten Island, New York, was accused of fraud when one of his customers failed to pay the $500,000 (nearly €454,000) a judge ruled he owed the plaintiffs, an investment firm, and vanished without a trace instead. 

With the defendant nowhere in sight, the investment firm filed suit against the lawyer, hoping that this would get them their lost money back. Their claim: Richard Luthmann must have helped his customer avoid the payout. Hence, he is guilty of fraud.

What they didn't expect was that the attorney would challenge them to a trial by combat. Yup, the kind they had going on in “Game of Thrones” when Tyrion Lannister was accused of trying to kill Bran Stark and then again of killing Prince Joffrey.

His demand is perfectly legal, the Staten Island lawyer insists

Richard Luthmann argues that, since trials by combat were never officially outlawed in New York, he has a right to ask that a judge allow him to settle the case against him not in a court of law, but on the battlefield.

“Defendant invokes the common law writ of right and demands his common law right to Trial By Combat as against Plaintiffs and their counsel, whom plaintiff wishes to implead into the Trial By Combat by writ of right,” he wrote in his appeal.

As for his idea to seek trial by combat against the investment firm accusing him of committing fraud by helping his customer get out of the court-established payout, he says he merely wanted to prove a point about how the lawsuit against him was pure nonsense.

“They want to be absurd about what they're trying to do, then I'll give them back ridiculousness in kind," Richard Luthmann said in an interview, as cited by DM.

The Staten Island attorney has even settled on the perfect weapon

Admittedly, the 35-year-old lawyer does not actually expect a judge to give course to his demand. Quite the contrary, he wants the lawsuit against him to be dismissed.

Still, just in case he is allowed to exercise his allegedly legal right to a trial by combat, he says he will put on an armor and walk on the battlefield like king Robert Baratheon would, a war hammer in his hand.

Not ones with a sense of humor, the investment firm accusing Richard Luthmann of fraud and their lawyers are confident the lawsuit will go their way and the attorney's request for a trial by combat will be denied.

“It should be clear that we do not find the brief amusing and, we believe, neither will the court, both from a legal and ethical perspective,” lawyer Richard Chusid stated on behalf of the plaintiffs.