There were a couple of developments last week in the ongoing saga of Melvin Dummar, the Utah native who claims to have done a good deed for gazillionaire Howard Hughes back in the ’60s and has spent the last four decades getting hosed because of it. Neither event was especially good news for poor old Mel.
No doubt the most significant was a decision by U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins to deny Dummar’s motion to take testimony from key witnesses he needs to hear from in order to push forward with his lawsuit. (Recall if you will that Dummar is trying to sue for the cut of Hughes’ fortune he was promised by the infamous “Mormon Will,” which a Nevada court decreed was a fraud way back in the ’70s.)
Jenkins is the same judge who dismissed Dummar’s suit back in January. As I understand his reasoning (and I’m not entirely sure I do), he thinks Melvin can’t sue for the money and that he needs to instead work on convincing the Nevada court to reverse its ruling that the Mormon Will was fake; Melvin’s attorney says that’s not possible or necessary, because the Hughes estate has been disbursed and no longer exists. Instead, the current lawsuit seeks to obtain money from Hughes’ cousin William Rice Lummis and former Hughes employee Frank William Gay, who are accused in the suit of defrauding the Nevada court in 1978 and screwing Melvin Dummar out of his fortune.
Dummar and his attorney are concerned that the witnesses they need to speak with are all getting old and may not be around to depose all that much longer. And it’s a valid argument, considering that Frank Gay himself died only a few days ago. (That would be the other bit of bad news for Melvin I mentioned in the intro. It’s hard to sue a corpse, after all.)
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m inclined to believe Dummar’s story, and that certain powerful individuals (as well as his own naivete) conspired to wreck his credibility in order to keep the Hughes fortune under their control. I suspect, however, that I’m in a minority, that probably a whole lot of the general population, at least the percentage of it that knows who he is, thinks Melvin is a kook. Judge Jenkins certainly appears to. And because of that, I also suspect this lawsuit is a quixotic exercise that will ultimately end in disappointment and frustration for him. People like Jenkins will just keep throwing roadblocks in his way until time and attrition make sure there’s no point in the legal system revisiting the case, because no one will be left who cares.
Sad… just once, I’d like to see the real world imitate Hollywood a little bit and let the amiable loser actually win the fight, instead of remaining a schmuck his whole life. It’s not over yet, but I don’t have high hopes for Melvin. And at this point, he probably doesn’t either…
