Opinion and Order sustained preliminary objections and dismissed the case against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (absolute sovereign immunity) and against the eight individually-named Lackawanna County judicial defendants (judicial immunity, sovereign immunity, and collateral estoppel). Following a full Lackawanna County bench recusal (one of the individual defendants was a sitting county judge), Senior Judge Arthur L. Zulick was specially assigned and issued this ruling after argument held 6/30/2026. Tufano appealed to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania (No. 1155 MDA 2026). Claims against Lackawanna County and Union Lodge No. 291 were not addressed by this order.
July 16, 2026 ruling source — ic-access.com ↗Tufano v. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
2026-01907 · 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 alleges that Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas judges have acted outside their judicial capacity and violated his civil rights by conspiring to deny his requests for default judgments and disregard dozens of his own properly-filed pro se motions while approving similar filings from opposing litigants.
He attributes this to the judges being Freemasons bound by a secret oath of loyalty to what he calls "the fraternal brotherhood of individuals who control the court system," quoting purported Masonic initiation oaths at length in the complaint, and alleges he is being discriminated against both for not being a Freemason and for representing himself without counsel. Defendants Lackawanna County and Union Lodge No. 291 (identified in the complaint as the Scranton Masonic Lodge) are named under the same theory.
Defendants
- Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
- Lackawanna County
- Union Lodge No 291
- Barrasse Michael J
- Moyle Margaret A Bisignani
- Gibbons James A
- Jarbola Andrew III
- Nealon Terrence R
- Powell Mark
- Ruggiero Frank
- Dempsey Mary D Walsh
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: Commonwealth of PA: absolute sovereign immunity. Judicial defendants: judicial immunity, sovereign immunity, and collateral estoppel. Update 2026-09-23: The appeal at Superior Court No. 1155 MDA 2026 has moved. The trial court entered a further order on July 28, 2026; the Superior Court docket number was entered on the county docket July 30, 2026; Tufano filed a statement on appeal together with an emergency motion to stay real-estate tax proceedings on Aug. 5, 2026; Senior Judge Arthur L. Zulick filed a 14-page statement pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) and a same-day order on Sept. 4, 2026; and on Sept. 14, 2026 an order directing the appellant to show cause was entered per curiam. None of these documents has been read — they are recorded from docket-entry text.
Research status: Verified via direct LPA portal lookup
Research notes: Direct LPA portal lookup (2026-08-20): naming Judge Gibbons among the defendants triggered a full Lackawanna County bench recusal (Order, 4/13/2026); case reassigned to Senior Judge Arthur L. Zulick. Following argument (6/30/2026), Zulick issued a 12-page Opinion and Order (7/16/2026) sustaining preliminary objections and dismissing the case against both the Commonwealth of PA (absolute sovereign immunity) and the eight individually-named judicial defendants (judicial immunity, sovereign immunity, collateral estoppel) -- the docket's own one-line entry description names only the Commonwealth, but the opinion's discussion and the order's parallel 'also dismissed with prejudice' phrasing confirm both were dismissed; the order's own paragraph on the judicial defendants was not independently re-read to confirm its exact wording. Tufano appealed 7/20/2026 (Superior Court No. 1155 MDA 2026); an unrelated 'Emergency Motion to Stay Real Estate Tax Proceedings' was filed 8/5/2026. Claims against Lackawanna County and Union Lodge No. 291 (never served) remain open/unresolved.
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.
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.
Appeal from Senior Judge Arthur L. Zulick's Opinion and Order of 2026-07-16 sustaining preliminary objections and dismissing with prejudice as to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (absolute sovereign immunity) and the eight individually-named judicial defendants (judicial immunity). Notice of Appeal filed 2026-07-20; docketed 2026-07-27. Verified 2026-09-10 against the Superior Court's own appeal docket sheet: case status Active, processing status 'Awaiting Original Record' with the record due 2026-09-18, no briefing schedule yet issued. The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts entered its appearance for the judicial appellees - Ruggiero, Powell, Nealon, Moyle, Jarbola, Gibbons, Dempsey and Barrasse - and the Office of Attorney General for the Commonwealth; Lackawanna County and Union Lodge No. 291 are recorded as unrepresented. The Superior Court records the case type as Toxic Tort. Related to Nos. 1154 and 1156 MDA 2026. Update 2026-09-23: the trial docket records that the Superior Court docket number was entered July 30, 2026; a statement on appeal and an emergency motion to stay real-estate tax proceedings were filed Aug. 5, 2026; a Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) statement and a same-day order followed Sept. 4, 2026; and on Sept. 14, 2026 an order directing the appellant to show cause was entered per curiam. Read from the trial docket only — ujsportal.pacourts.us refused connections this pass, so the appellate docket sheet itself was not obtained.
Record source — ujsportal.pacourts.us ↗Chronology events
Sequence does not by itself prove motive or causation.
Tufano filed C038 in Lackawanna County against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Lackawanna County, Union Lodge No. 291, and eight individually-named Lackawanna County judges.
Source — ic-access.com ↗Naming sitting Lackawanna County Judge James A. Gibbons among the defendants triggered a full county bench recusal; the case was reassigned to Senior Judge Arthur L. Zulick.
Source — ic-access.com ↗Argument on preliminary objections was held before specially-assigned Senior Judge Arthur L. Zulick.
Source — ic-access.com ↗Opinion and Order sustained preliminary objections and dismissed the case against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (absolute sovereign immunity) and the eight individually-named judicial defendants (judicial immunity, sovereign immunity, collateral estoppel), with prejudice. Claims against Lackawanna County and Union Lodge No. 291 (never served) were not addressed by this order and remain open.
Source — ic-access.com ↗Tufano appealed the dismissal to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, No. 1155 MDA 2026.
Source — ic-access.com ↗Senior Judge Arthur L. Zulick filed a 14-page statement pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a), together with a same-day order.
Source — lpa-homes.org ↗An order directing the appellant to show cause was entered per curiam in the appeal at Superior Court No. 1155 MDA 2026.
Source — lpa-homes.org ↗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.
and they just don't allow prosay [pro se] litigants to participate in the court system. So I either have to appeal or file a lawsuit against the state of Pennsylvania and the county of Lacwan [Lackawanna] explaining hey I have followed the civil procedure they are refusing to acknowledge me as a prosay litigant and acknowledge my motions for default.
This is the strongest single find of the batch. the case tracker records C038 as Tufano v. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Lackawanna 2026-01907), filed 2026-03-23 — five days after this video — with Lackawanna County and Union Lodge No. 291 among the defendants whose claims remain unresolved. Here he states, in advance and in his own words, that he is going to sue the state of Pennsylvania and the county of Lackawanna, and gives the reason: refusal to rule on his default motions. The dataset's C038 record describes the case through its dismissal (judicial immunity, the Freemasonry allegations, the appeal); it does not record this stated origin, which is procedural and mundane by comparison.
Why this classification: Says that because the courts refuse to acknowledge him as a pro se litigant or rule on his default motions, he must either appeal or sue the Commonwealth and the county — a new action arising from the treatment of his existing ones.
Watch at 00:54 — 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 ↗they call up their buddies at Google and wipe their reviews clean. This is what these Illuminati Freemason degenerate psychopaths do all along while leaving fake reviews on my business to so people don't buy from me.
This moves this research's documented secret-society thread three months earlier than previously established. The batch-9 archive file for “Best Bar THIEF Jake Levy MAKING MILLIONS OFF ME” (2025-10-18) recorded that video as "the most explicit secret-society statement in the entire archive"; this one, from 2025-07-23, uses both "Illuminati" and "Freemason" explicitly and is earlier. It is also aimed at a freight forwarder and Google — a third unrelated commercial target, alongside the doctors/lawyers (Feb 2025) and the competitor (Oct 2025) — which strengthens the observation that the theory is applied generally across disputes rather than arising from any one of them.
Why this classification: Alleges the opposing business had its Google reviews cleared while fake reviews were left on his; conduct attributed to others.
Watch at 00:07 — youtube.com ↗Is it because he's a secret society member? Is it because he's in the Illuminati? Is it because he's a Freemason? Most likely.
The most explicit secret-society statement located anywhere in this research, and the only one that uses the words "Illuminati" and "Freemason" outright. Published 2025-10-18 — five months before C038 was filed (2026-03-23) naming Union Lodge No. 291 alongside eight Lackawanna judges, and nine months before “I SUED THE JUDGES!!!” (2026-07-20) stated the theory as that suit's legal basis. It also fills the gap between “Tufano v. Taban et al 3:25-cv-00011”'s Feb-2025 "in the club" framing and the C038 filing. Note the structure: three rhetorical questions answered by "Most likely" — an admission that it is speculation, which a commenter picks up on directly. Caution for any promotion pass: this is an unevidenced accusation about a named private individual. It is captured because he is a named defendant in tracked litigation (C093, C036, C068),— but it is a public statement of suspicion, not a finding of anything, and must not be recorded as though it were.
Why this classification: Attributes the court's treatment of him to the judge's supposed secret-society membership.
Watch at 00:33 — youtube.com ↗But the judge is bending over backwards for him and allowing this because they're all Freemason butt buddies and they're trying to screw me over to teach me a lesson that you can't defend yourself when Freemasons try to steal from you.
A dated datapoint on the secret-society thread, and an important one for its target: this is the theory aimed at a federal judge, four and a half months before C038 pleaded essentially the same theory against eight Lackawanna judges (filed 2026-03-23). The archive can now date the judges-are-Freemasons framing to 2025-11-03 in public statements, well before it entered a pleading.
Why this classification: Attributes the court's rulings to a shared fraternal affiliation between the judge and the opposing party.
Watch at 02:03 — youtube.com ↗I just spoke to a judge today. I submitted this document explaining, hey, there's five default motions in these cases. It's been months. Why haven't you ruled on them?
A specific, dated, docket-checkable claim — five pending motions for default judgment across Lackawanna cases, unruled on for "months" as of 2026-03-18, plus an in-person exchange with a judge the same day. This is exactly the kind of assertion a research-pa-court-records pass against the LPA Prothonotary portal could confirm or refute directly.
Why this classification: Confirms filing a document asking why five default motions across his cases have gone unruled for months.
Watch at 00:33 — youtube.com ↗And what really got me was I came here to file two new appeals after sorting that out. And they wouldn't take the money for the new appeal without also receiving a check to the superior court, but they took payment on the phone for their fee for the previous case which got dismissed.
He states on camera that he came to the courthouse to file two new appeals, and exactly two Notices of Appeal, taken in the two cases linked here, were docketed five days after publication. He names no case or docket number, so the match rests on the count and the interval.
Why this classification: An announced but not yet made filing with a checkable outcome five days later. It stays below Strong because both filings are appeals within existing cases, which the published rubric excludes from the adverse-decision factor, and because no case is named on camera.
Watch at 00:24 — youtube.com ↗Our court system is a money funnel for the elite. It is a completely fabricated fake fraudulent mirage of nonsense used to protect these secret society members and help them profit off of anyone else.
Another dated point on the secret-society thread — here applied to the court system as a whole, in the context of a commercial shipping dispute, four months after C038 pleaded the theory against named judges and a named lodge. Adds to the pattern that the theory is applied across unrelated disputes rather than arising from any one.
Why this classification: Describes the court system as a fabricated mechanism operated to protect and enrich a connected class.
Watch / source — youtube.com ↗And they just jerk you around, say, "Oh, the judges are immune. You can't sue judges.
Independently consistent with C038's recorded disposition — Senior Judge Arthur L. Zulick's 7/16/2026 Opinion and Order dismissed the Commonwealth on absolute sovereign immunity and the eight judicial defendants on judicial immunity, sovereign immunity, and collateral estoppel. This is the creator's characterization of that ruling, four days after it issued; it is a party statement about a court finding, not the finding.
Why this classification: Reports being met with judicial immunity as the answer to his suits against judges, and treats it as evasion.
Watch at 00:17 — youtube.com ↗They're not acknowledging that the judicial representatives acted outside of their jurisdiction on behalf of these secret societies and had a personal religious secret societal belief that they acted upon outside of their judicial duties.
Articulates the legal theory behind the suit — that judicial immunity should not apply because the judges acted outside their judicial capacity on behalf of a secret/religious society. This corresponds directly to C038's naming of Union Lodge No. 291 (a Masonic lodge) as a co-defendant alongside the judges. It is the clearest first-person statement of that theory located in this research so far.
Why this classification: Argues the immunity ruling ignores his theory that the judges acted outside their jurisdiction on secret-society motives.
Watch at 00:35 — youtube.com ↗They're ignoring that and just throwing the cases out. And and again, what can I do besides make it as public as possible and ask you guys to share my
States that public dissemination is the remaining course of action after adverse rulings — relevant to the general adverse-ruling → public-statement pattern the this dataset layer tracks. Sentence is cut off by the video's end.
Why this classification: Says the cases are being thrown out without engaging his argument, leaving publicity as his only remaining option.
Watch at 00:47 — youtube.com ↗really going after plastic surgeons as a whole and the the legal industry and all these judges
States an intended widening of scope beyond the original defendant to entire professional classes — surgeons, lawyers, judges. The tracked docket already shows this shape (C063/C066 Tufano v. The State of California et al, and C038 against eight Lackawanna judges), so this is a stated intent that the filing record independently corroborates.
Why this classification: Describes widening the effort to plastic surgeons as a class, the legal industry, and the judges.
Watch at 00:36 — 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.
- When will Taban ADMIT DEFEAT?!Watch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- Is our Court System FAKE?!Watch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- I SUED THE JUDGES!!!Watch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- CROOKED County ClerkWatch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- Pro Se Litigants ARE NOT ALLOWED!!!Watch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- This Lawyer should be DISBARREDWatch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- Best Bar THIEF Jake Levy MAKING MILLIONS OFF MEWatch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
- All-Ways forwarding gets their Reviews cleaned up AFTER RUINING $20,000 OF MY MEATWatch on YouTube — youtube.com ↗
Cite this page
Frank Tufano Litigation Research. "Tufano v. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (2026-01907)". Research last verified September 23, 2026. https://suedbyfranktufano.com/cases/2026-01907-tufano-v-the-commonwealth-of-pennsylvania/