The Political Whore

A Tampa woman who sued the city over an unpaid debt dating back to the Civil War era has dropped her case after lawyers for the city played the U.S. Constitution card.

Joan Kennedy Biddle sued in March for repayment of a promissory note given by Tampa to Biddle’s great-grandfather for military supplies needed to defend against Union troops in 1861. The original note, now a family heirloom, was for $299.58. Biddle just wanted what was fair: the amount of the original debt plus 8 percent. Compounded annually. For a total of $22.7 million.

I mean come on, her family had been carrying that debt for a long time. Fair’s fair, right?

After the suit was announced, the city quickly poked big holes in her case, including citing the 14th Amendment’s prohibition against repaying debts incurred while in rebellion against the United States (see Section 4). Tampa’s chief assistant city attorney Jerry Gewirtz delivered hundreds of documents to Biddle’s attorney Jim Purdy, who quickly called uncle.

Even though she dropped her suit, however, she is surely still seeing dollar signs dancing in her head, although not exactly like she had envisioned when she (or a really bad influence) came up with this scheme. Not only is she not going to be rich like Rick James, but she has reportedly agreed to pay the city $4,000 in legal fees, and she’s surrendering the original promissory note to the city.

Talk about an about-face! Even though Biddle’s case was shaky from the start, they must have some good lawyers over in city hall. Makes you wonder what else was in those documents.

Biddle should consider herself lucky. The feds could have gotten in on this and pulled some serious Patriot-Act-aiding-and-abetting-the-enemy stuff. She could have ended up at Gitmo.

Four thousand dollars and a family heirloom seems like a small price to pay for freedom. Then again, couldn’t the city at least have offered to give her family back the $300 it borrowed those many years ago, even if it couldn’t afford the interest?

(Oh, in another victory for the Confederacy, the self-proclaimed world’s largest Confederate flag is headed to Hillsborough County! More to come on that, we’re sure.)

photo credit: Mike Murrow

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