Order dated 2026-04-02 (Court of Common Pleas of Lackawanna County, No. 25-CV-5633), signed by James A. Gibbons, P.J., denies Tufano's motion for a stay of the real estate tax proceedings and his motion to recuse the trial judge. The order recounts that Tufano was given thirty days to amend his complaint (sufficient time to transfer title on the properties at issue) and rejects the recusal motion's characterization of the court's handling of his pro se filings. This ruling is procedural; the underlying Board of Assessment appeal against Lackawanna County and Tyler Technologies, Inc. was not decided on the merits. Tufano appealed the denial; docketed at the Superior Court of Pennsylvania as No. 723 MDA 2026.
April 2, 2026 ruling source — ic-access.com ↗Tufano v. Lackawanna County
2025-05633 · Lackawanna County
About this case
Evidentiary treatment: This summarizes the plaintiff's own allegations as stated in the complaint or docket record cited below. It reflects what was filed, not a court finding, and is not a determination that the allegations are true.
Plaintiff, proceeding pro se, brings a Board of Assessment appeal against Lackawanna County and Tyler Technologies, Inc. (the county's tax-assessment software vendor) concerning his property tax assessment; the trial court's later order references his “individual tax paying responsibilities” and a directive that he had thirty days to transfer title on certain properties addressed in an amended complaint. The Verified Complaint's full factual allegations were not independently transcribed this session — this summary is drawn from the case caption, docket, and the court's April 2026 order, not a direct read of the complaint's body text.
Defendants
Source record
This page separates court/ruling records, party filings, research classifications, secondary sources and public statements. Unknown or unresolved fields remain labelled as such.
Outcome and research status
Outcome reason: Court (James A. Gibbons, P.J.) denied Tufano's motion for a stay and his motion to recuse the trial judge (Order, 2026-04-02), rejecting the recusal motion's characterization of the judge's handling of his pro se filings. Tufano filed a Notice of Appeal and an Emergency Motion to Stay Real Estate Tax Proceedings (2026-04-06); the court ordered him to file a concise statement of matters complained of on appeal (2026-04-22), and the appeal is now docketed at the Superior Court of Pennsylvania as No. 723 MDA 2026, with the trial court's Rule 1925(a) opinion issued 2026-06-08. The underlying Board of Assessment appeal against Lackawanna County and Tyler Technologies, Inc. has not been decided on the merits.
Research status: Source-backed (direct LPA portal docket + case detail)
Research notes: Confirmed by direct review of the Verified Complaint and the 4/2/2026 Order via the Lackawanna Prothonotary's portal.
Related litigation
- Dispute group: Lackawanna County / Tyler Technologies
Court & ruling records
Findings recorded only where they are tied to an order, opinion or report and recommendation.
Record labels distinguish final orders/opinions, reports and recommendations, non-final orders, and tentative/indexed ruling records.
Superior Court of Pennsylvania, No. 723 MDA 2026. The court quashed sua sponte the appeal from the 2026-04-02 order denying Tufano's 'Motion to Recuse and Stay Proceeding', holding that an order denying recusal of a trial judge is not appealable as final or collateral (Kenis v. Perini Corp., 682 A.2d 845) and that an order denying a stay is generally interlocutory (Keesee v. Dougherty, 230 A.3d 1128). Its show-cause order of 2026-06-05 had also held that because the complaint pleaded civil fraud and civil conspiracy against Lackawanna County, a local agency, exclusive appellate jurisdiction lay in the Commonwealth Court under 42 Pa.C.S.A. 762(a)(7); Tufano did not respond to it. The court additionally dismissed the appeal for failure to pay the $91.25 filing fee. Reconsideration was denied on 2026-08-21 for want of jurisdiction. Read from the Superior Court's own appeal docket sheet, which sets the order out verbatim.
July 10, 2026 ruling source — ujsportal.pacourts.us ↗Appellate history
Appeals taken from this docket record, with what the research does and does not establish about each.
Taking an appeal is a party’s filing, not a ruling — only an appellate court’s own disposition is a finding, and a disposition recorded here is a docket fact rather than reasoning unless the order itself was read. An appeal continues the action it arises from, so appeals are never counted as additional lawsuits: the case and originating-action counts published elsewhere on this site are unaffected by this section. Where a docket number or a current status is not recorded, that is a stated gap in the research, not a finding that none exists. See Methodology.
An interlocutory appeal from the Order of 2026-04-02 (James A. Gibbons, P.J.) denying a stay and denying recusal of the trial judge - not from a final judgment. Notice of Appeal filed 2026-04-06; docketed in the Superior Court 2026-05-05. Verified 2026-09-10 against the Superior Court's own appeal docket sheet, whose DISPOSITION INFORMATION block records a final disposition of Quash Sua Sponte, per curiam, dated 2026-07-10, with the order's reasoning set out verbatim. The rule to show cause of 2026-06-05 raised two grounds - that the appeal belonged in the Commonwealth Court because the complaint pleaded fraud and civil conspiracy against Lackawanna County, a local agency, and that an order denying recusal or a stay is not appealable - and Tufano did not respond to it. A separate order of the same date directed payment of the $91.25 fee; his 2026-06-17 response attached a $202.91 Lackawanna County card transaction the court held did not correlate with this appeal's fee. An Application for Reconsideration filed 2026-08-12 was denied 2026-08-21 for want of jurisdiction. The underlying Board of Assessment action continues in the trial court.
Record source — ujsportal.pacourts.us ↗Chronology events
Sequence does not by itself prove motive or causation.
Tufano filed a Board of Assessment appeal (C017) in Lackawanna County against Lackawanna County and Tyler Technologies, Inc.
Source — ic-access.com ↗The court denied Tufano's motion for a stay of the real estate tax proceedings and his motion to recuse the trial judge, rejecting the recusal motion's characterization of the court's handling of his pro se filings. The underlying Board of Assessment appeal was not decided on the merits.
Source — ic-access.com ↗Tufano filed a federal complaint, C067, against Tyler Technologies, Inc. and the County of Lackawanna -- the same core defendants named in C017 -- four days after the court denied his stay and recusal motions in C017.
Source — courtlistener.com ↗The trial court issued its Rule 1925(a) opinion in connection with Tufano's appeal of the stay/recusal denial (Superior Court No. 723 MDA 2026).
Source — ic-access.com ↗Public video statements
Public statements are displayed separately from court findings. Quotations are transcribed from the video’s own YouTube auto-generated captions and timestamped from the caption cues covering the passage quoted. The Strong / Moderate / Context tier is this project’s research classification of how closely a statement bears on the documented filing patterns — it is not a judicial finding. Any second badge names the filing-restriction factor the statement’s own words describe; it records what the speaker said, not that a court found it.
How quotations are marked: An ellipsis (…) inside a quotation marks words left out between two passages of the same video, which can sit some minutes apart. The omitted wording is not reproduced here, and a clip on the statement supercut plays the whole span from the quotation’s first word to its last — so it includes the omitted material. Quotations without an ellipsis are continuous speech.
but we're going to file a new lawsuit in the federal court. And we also appealed the state lawsuit because uh the county is just a bunch of crooks. And the next round of appeal hearings is for next year. So there is no way for me to rectify this tax situation without using the court system. Now I'm screwed.
He announces a new federal action on the same dispute immediately after an adverse ruling in the state case, and separately confirms an appeal, saying there is no way to resolve the tax situation without using the court system.
Why this classification: A tracked dispute is identified and he describes starting a fresh action in a second forum after losing motions in the first, which is the filing conduct the indicators document; the appeal he mentions is deliberately not counted, since a direct appeal within the same case is not a new or repeat action.
Watch at 01:32 — youtube.com ↗That lawsuit against the county that I mentioned earlier was just basically thrown out by the county judge. No surprise. So, we sent it to the appeals court. It's now in the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. That appeal process has started. But we also filed a separate lawsuit in the federal court stating that the state court did not follow due process
Describes in sequence an adverse ruling in the county case, an appeal now in the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, and separately a new federal action filed on the ground that the state court denied due process. His description of the state case as thrown out differs from the tracked docket record, which shows two interlocutory motions denied and that denial appealed, with the underlying assessment appeal not yet decided on the merits.
Why this classification: He himself separates the appeal from the new federal suit, and the new federal action after losing below is exactly the core conduct the filing-after-an-adverse-decision factor names, in a dispute the video identifies by county, appraiser and appellate court. The tier rests on the filing sequence he describes, not on the accuracy of his characterisation of the ruling.
Watch at 01:32 — youtube.com ↗Like, I already tried that. They just throw it out. I sued all the New York judges in the Saladino case for being corrupt. I sued all the Pennsylvania judges in Lacawana County that are messing with my taxes trying to steal my property for being corrupt.
The creator's own account of having sued judges in two jurisdictions. The Pennsylvania half maps closely onto C038 (Tufano v. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Lackawanna County 2026-01907), whose defendant list in the case tracker includes eight individually-named Lackawanna judges (Barrasse, Moyle, Gibbons, Jarbola, Nealon, Powell, Ruggiero, Dempsey). "Messing with my taxes trying to steal my property" matches the real-estate-tax/assessment subject matter of C017 (Tufano v. Lackawanna County, the Board of Assessment appeal) and C038's own docketed "Emergency Motion to Stay Real Estate Tax Proceedings." The New York half is not matched to any CASES row.
Why this classification: Recounts having sued the New York judges in the Saladino case and the Lackawanna County judges over the tax assessments, notes 'they just throw it out,' and presents both as already-tried avenues.
Watch at 00:02 — youtube.com ↗The first lawsuit I filed was thrown away by the judge. And now I'm going to have to file a second lawsuit. They're probably just going to do the same thing.
Announces a second action on the county assessment grievance immediately after saying the first was thrown out, and predicts the same result.
Why this classification: States that a first action on this grievance was dismissed and that a second will follow. Repeat filing on the same dispute, after an adverse decision, with the dispute identified.
Watch at 00:14 — youtube.com ↗So these people, these elite that have been trying to steal my building for the last two years, now what? I'm just going to file another set of lawsuits for the judge to wipe his ass with again.
Announces another set of lawsuits on the county assessment grievance and in the same sentence predicts that the court will discard them.
Why this classification: Announces a further set of actions on a grievance already litigated twice and adversely decided, and identifies the dispute.
Watch at 01:41 — youtube.com ↗When I sued them in the state court, the judge wiped his tushy with it like my uh legal complaint was toilet paper and then I filed an appeal. They threw it out again. I went to the federal court, same thing. The federal court said, "Oh, well this is the state court's jurisdiction."
A first-person account of a state suit, an appeal and then a federal suit on the same assessment grievance, ending with the federal court declining jurisdiction.
Why this classification: Narrates successive filings on a single grievance across two court systems, each following an adverse result, with the dispute identified.
Watch at 00:56 — youtube.com ↗So last year, the county I live in in Pennsylvania increased the taxes on everyone's property. They took in this third party company, Tyler Technologies, like quadrupled 10 times every single person's property value. Of course, everyone filed appeals and all that nonsense.
Names Tyler Technologies and the county reassessment from the transcript itself rather than from the title, setting out the factual background of the tracked assessment dispute. It describes the reassessment, not any filing of his own.
Why this classification: Two tracked defendants in the assessment dispute are named or unmistakably described, which supports Moderate, but the statement reports the county's conduct and announces no filing.
Watch / source — youtube.com ↗I submitted an appeal. They never contacted me for the appeal. Possibly because I filed the lawsuit against the county and maybe they purposefully didn't put it in the mailbox.
A first-person confirmation of an existing lawsuit against the county, coupled with a suggestion that the county withheld his appeal notice because of that filing. The speaker himself hedges the retaliation claim with possibly and maybe.
Why this classification: Confirms a filing he has made and alleges bias in how he was then treated, but no docket number or court is spoken, so the case link stays tentative and the tier stays Moderate.
Watch at 00:26 — youtube.com ↗But now in my lawsuit, I have to file a stay on the property taxes next year because they evaluated my $300,000 building for guess how much? 1.6 million. They're going to try to charge me something crazy like 30 or 40,000 in taxes.
Announces a stay application he has not yet made within an existing lawsuit and states the assessment figures behind it. The tracked docket later records a stay motion denied on 2 April 2026 and an emergency motion to stay real estate tax proceedings filed on 6 April 2026.
Why this classification: An announced but unmade filing is a prospective filing, which is not a core factor, so it holds at Moderate despite the later docket correspondence.
Watch at 01:45 — youtube.com ↗And they just they just screwed me over every step of the way. They lie about mailing stuff out. That's the main thing. They're lying about saying they mailed me the appeal. Like the appeal process is fraudulent. I I'm I'm I'm hoping the county I'm actually just going to file an appeal in the case and get this taken to the higher court immediately because it's already a bunch of complete nonsense.
Alleges that the county's appeal process is fraudulent and announces an intention to appeal in the case and take it to a higher court. A notice of appeal was later docketed in the tracked case at the Superior Court of Pennsylvania.
Why this classification: What he announces is a direct appeal within the same case, which the published protocol treats as the ordinary appellate remedy rather than a new or repeat action, so no core factor applies and the tier stays Moderate.
Watch at 02:21 — youtube.com ↗So, I submitted an appeal hearing and I also filed a lawsuit against the county at the same time. But because I filed a lawsuit against the county, they did some internal sketchy stuff and purposefully did not notify me of my hearing date
He confirms on camera that he sued Lackawanna County in parallel with the administrative assessment appeal, and frames the county's failure to notify him of a hearing date as retaliation for that filing. This is his own account of the origin of the tracked state case.
Why this classification: It is a first-person confirmation of a filing he made in a case the dataset tracks, and the assessment-appeal subject matter matches the docket record closely; the retaliation allegation is his own and remains uncorroborated.
Watch at 00:16 — youtube.com ↗And the court case in the local state court against the county, you can guess the judge is in bed with the county and completely dismissed my case and is not allowing me to represent myself despite being discriminated against twice by the county. one for being visually disabled and not receiving the first hearing notice and then being retaliated against for filing a lawsuit against the county.
A direct allegation that the trial judge is aligned with the county, together with his characterisation that the case was completely dismissed. The docket records the case as pending on the merits, with his motions for a stay and to recuse denied four days earlier, so the characterisation and the record disagree.
Why this classification: It reacts to rulings in an identified tracked case and alleges bias by the judge in it, which is what lifts it above general commentary; his dismissal characterisation is recorded only as what he said and is not adopted as case status.
Watch at 00:51 — youtube.com ↗But now I have to file a federal case, file all these appeals, maybe even have to pay a crooked lawyer to fix this, even though I don't want to because I have a feeling as soon as I give a lawyer any money, they're just going to completely screw me over.
States the multi-forum plan explicitly, a federal case plus all these appeals, and gives his stated reason for continuing to act without counsel.
Why this classification: It describes filings he says he still has to make in an identified dispute, which is prospective rather than completed filing conduct, and it restates a plan given more concretely earlier in the same video.
Watch at 02:02 — youtube.com ↗But what I shouldn't have done was I filed a lawsuit against the county beforehand for being discriminated against.
Confirms in his own words that he sued the county over the assessment dispute and dates that filing as preceding his appraisal request. It is one of the few statements on the channel in which he characterises one of his own filings as a tactical error.
Why this classification: He confirms a filing he has actually made in a dispute the video identifies by county and by appraiser, but no docket number is spoken and the statement describes no repeat or post-adverse-decision filing, so it is Moderate rather than Strong.
Watch at 00:31 — youtube.com ↗But because I did sue the county, they had some like internal personal vendetta against me and purposefully did not notify me of the uh appraisal dispute hearing.
Restates the fact of the filing and attributes an adverse administrative outcome, missing the second-round appraisal hearing, to a personal vendetta by the county. The conduct alleged is the opposing party's, not the court's.
Why this classification: It confirms the same filing again and adds a retaliation allegation against the opposing party rather than the forum; there is no repeat filing and no adverse judicial decision in it, so Moderate is the ceiling.
Watch at 01:09 — youtube.com ↗So, it's just a bunch of nonsense. It's just this local court jerking me around. I need to throw flyers all around the street about how all these people are crooked. And I mean, it doesn't matter at this point. It's ridiculous. They're just going to dismiss my case anyway and try to steal my properties.
He says he needs to hand out flyers about the local court and its staff, and in the same breath predicts the court will dismiss his case and take his properties. This is the first instance in the archive of the flyer tactic aimed at a court rather than at a medical defendant.
Why this classification: Alleges that a court is crooked and will decide against him regardless, which is a forum-bias allegation rather than a description of any filing. The cost-imposition factor is not used because the pressure described is reputational leafleting, not an opponent's legal spend.
Watch at 02:27 — youtube.com ↗So, the county is basically saying my building's worth 2 million when it's worth a few hundred thousand... when I filed the appeal, the first time they didn't notify me of the hearing, so I missed it. The second time they just returned my mail and then didn't even let me submit the appeal paperwork.
A summary of the administrative history behind the assessment litigation - two appeal attempts, both said to have failed for procedural reasons rather than on the merits.
Why this classification: Describes administrative appeals that did not proceed, rather than any court ruling or filing.
Watch / source — youtube.com ↗And then after filing two lawsuits against the county, the county judge wiped his with my lawsuit as if it was toilet paper and just threw it out. Now, this year, the appeal hearings were due August 1st, which was several days ago. I mailed them in... when they were returned to me in the mail.
Confirms two prior county suits in his own count and dates the administrative appeal deadline he says he missed.
Why this classification: Reports the outcome of two prior actions; a docket fact rather than conduct.
Watch at 00:15 — youtube.com ↗And the issue is last year I was having surgery. I was disabled. I was hospitalized most of the year and I wasn't properly notified.
Connects the medical timeline to the assessment dispute as the stated reason the first appeal hearing was missed.
Why this classification: Explains a missed hearing; no filing conduct is described.
Watch at 00:31 — youtube.com ↗And there's nothing I can do. What more can I do besides file the lawsuits? You know, no attorneys are going to help me.
States a rationale for continuing to file - that no alternative remains and no attorney will act for him.
Why this classification: Frames continued filing as the only remaining option. It is prospective but names no specific further action, so it falls short of the Strong rubric.
Watch at 01:39 — youtube.com ↗from the HVAC guy stealing $30,000 worth of refrigerant and causing $100,000 in freezer damage to my business, the Wagu beef rotting in a shipping container, my house flooding and getting destroyed, all these people stealing my business ideas. It's like the the county trying to tax me and steal my property.
The most compact first-person map of the disputes in the archive, naming several tracked grievances in one passage with figures attached.
Why this classification: Lists the underlying grievances; no filing conduct is described.
Watch at 00:13 — youtube.com ↗Related video research
Each video has its own research page with its verified publish date, timestamped statements and case links. A researched link between a video and a docket record is not a finding of causation in either direction.
- My Lawsuits ARE LEGITWatch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- Government TAX THIEVESWatch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- Lackawanna County TAX THIEVESWatch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- Lackawanna is a CORRUPT SH*THOLEWatch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- I SUED THE JUDGES!!!Watch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- CROOKED County ClerkWatch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- Lackawanna County STEALING PROPERTY?!Watch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- Lackawanna County trying to STEAL MY PROPERTY!!!Watch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- Crooked County of Lackawanna wants to 10X MY TAXES!!!Watch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
Cite this page
Frank Tufano Litigation Research. "Tufano v. Lackawanna County (2025-05633)". Research last verified September 23, 2026. https://suedbyfranktufano.com/cases/2025-05633-tufano-v-lackawanna-county/