Default-judgment motion denied without prejudice
After previously ordering Tufano to provide Rule 4 proof of service, the court denied his motion for default judgment without prejudice.
May 21, 2026 ruling source — courtlistener.com ↗Tufano v. Burgess
3:26-cv-00397 · U.S. District Court, Middle District of Pennsylvania
Pending in current docket snapshotDefault-judgment motion denied without prejudice (non-final)Pennsylvania
CourtU.S. District Court, Middle District of Pennsylvania
FiledFebruary 17, 2026
StatusPending in current docket snapshot
OutcomeDefault-judgment motion denied without prejudice (non-final)
Final dispositionNon-final; later merits/status check needed
JurisdictionPennsylvania
Pro seYes
Current / transferee court—
Transferred case—
Last researchedOctober 3, 2026
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 Frank Tufano, pro se, alleges defamation of character (42 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ch. 83), tortious interference with business relationships, and civil conspiracy against Richard Burgess, an online creator known as “Vegan Gains.” He alleges Burgess has for several years produced weekly YouTube videos and livestreams making false and derogatory statements about him and his food business, and encouraged followers to mass-report his content and post hateful comments, causing reputational and business harm.
The complaint requests a temporary restraining order barring Burgess and his followers from speaking about Tufano, and seeks roughly $123,000/year in claimed lost profits (totaling $615,000 for five years of alleged harassment), plus a jury trial.
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: Tufano moved for default judgment on Apr. 14, 2026. After an order requiring proof of Rule 4 service and a proof-of-service filing, the court denied the default-judgment motion without prejudice on May 21, 2026.
Research status: Source-backed docket through Aug. 7, 2026
Research notes: The public federal docket is current through Aug. 7, 2026 and shows no later entry after the May 21 denial of default judgment without prejudice. Update 2026-10-03: The defendant list was wrong in two ways and both are corrected. The court’s own docket record names two defendants, Richard Burgess and Vegan Gains, where this record held one; and it gives the first defendant’s full name, where this record held the bare surname. Nothing is recorded here about the second defendant beyond the fact that the docket names it a party. The docket has not moved since May 21, 2026, when the motion for default judgment was denied without prejudice.
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.
Chronology events
Sequence does not by itself prove motive or causation.
Default judgment denied without prejudice
The court denied Tufano's default-judgment motion in Burgess without prejudice after previously requiring proof of Rule 4 service.
Source — courtlistener.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.
These quotations can no longer be checked at their source. Every quotation on this site was transcribed from the speaker’s own YouTube channel. That channel was removed in October 2026; on 23 October 2026 all 980 catalogued video ids returned “not found”, and the channel address itself no longer resolves. YouTube’s own basis for removing it is not part of any record this project can verify, so none is asserted here. Nothing was withdrawn by this project.
What survives is the evidence, not the link. The verbatim caption transcript each quotation was read from was archived, dated, at the time the video was catalogued, and the timestamp on each card is the moment in that transcript where the words appear. The transcripts are held unaltered and are not republished. What a reader can no longer do is open the original and hear it, and nothing on this site can restore that. Seventy-four statements — those whose own words name a core filing-restriction factor — survive as clips in this project’s own compilation, and those cards link into it at the right moment. Nothing else is re-hosted. See Methodology.
Dispute background statement¶
and then a vegan youtuber proceeded to slander and defame the kickstarter questioning where the meat was from in addition to making a bunch of false statements about the business
Published 2019-04-17, this states — in tort vocabulary — the grievance later pleaded in C062, Tufano v. Burgess (M.D. Pa. 3:26-cv-00397), filed 2026-02-17. The recorded claims summary for C062 alleges "defamation of character (42 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ch. 83), tortious interference with business relationships, and civil conspiracy" and says the defendant "has for several years produced weekly YouTube videos and livestreams making false and derogatory statements about him and his food business." Two of those three phrases — defame and false statements about the business — are spoken here, 2,498 days before the complaint was filed (2019-04-17 to 2026-02-17, differenced in code). No filing, court, lawyer, threat to sue or legal proceeding of any kind is mentioned in this video; the words are used as accusation, not as a description of litigation, so no filing-conduct factor applies and the tier is not Strong. Possible case/dispute link: C062 (Tufano v. Burgess), tentative and unconfirmed. The transcript here says only "a vegan youtuber"; the party is named five minutes and eighteen seconds later, at [6:10] (see the next block). C062 carries a blank dispute_id, so it is reachable only through lawsuits.csv and research_notes.csv, not through disputes.csv.
Source removed. Quoted at 00:42 in the archived transcript.
Dispute background statement¶
what's suspicious is that vegan gains was questioning where the meat was from on his live stream then kickstarter suddenly starts asking me questions about where the meat was from when i told them where the meat was from they suspended me
This is the naming quote. "vegan gains" is the online handle of the C062 defendant, whose surname is a tracked alias (D0056); the handle itself appears nowhere in aliases.csv and resolves only through the C062 claims summary, which glosses him exactly this way. The quote asserts a causal chain — the creator's livestream, then the platform's questions, then suspension — which is the civil-conspiracy and tortious-interference theory C062 pleads, stated on camera 2,498 days before filing. Again it describes the opponent's conduct, not his own filing behaviour, which is why this is Moderate rather than Strong. Possible case/dispute link: C062 (Tufano v. Burgess), tentative and unconfirmed — the handle-to-party identification rests on the C062 claims summary's own gloss, not on an alias row.
Source removed. Quoted at 06:10 in the archived transcript.
Dispute background statement¶
still masturbating over athlean-x videos are you mesmerised by vegan gains as fat SEPs [unresolved]
"vegan gains" is the online handle of Richard Burgess, the sole defendant in C062, Tufano v. Burgess (U.S. District Court, Middle District of Pennsylvania, filed 2026-02-17), recorded in aliases.csv as D0056. Computed in code: 2019-12-20 → 2026-02-17 = 2,251 days. So this video names the C062 defendant, in a hostile register, 2,251 days before the complaint against him was filed — and the C062 claims summary alleges Burgess had "for several years" been producing derogatory content about him, which this places a dated antagonism against. No filing, court or lawyer is mentioned anywhere in this video; the relevance is purely chronological. Possible case/dispute link: C062 — adjacency, not the pleaded grievance. ⚠ Direction trap 4 applies squarely: the C062 complaint pleads that Burgess made false and derogatory statements about Tufano; this quote is Tufano mocking his own viewers for watching Burgess, which is the opposite direction and a different grievance. What it supports is that the two were mutually known and antagonistic six years before the filing — not that anything pleaded in C062 occurred here. C062 has a blank dispute_id, so its absence from disputes.csv means nothing.
Source removed. Quoted at 00:10 in the archived transcript.
Dispute background statement¶
is to claim I'm homophobic they're massed reporting and flagging my videos attempting to get me D platformed [= deplatformed] carnivores want the same thing
The mass-reporting-to-deplatform grievance is the conduct pleaded six years later in C062 (Tufano v. Burgess), whose claims summary alleges the defendant "encouraged followers to mass-report his content". Here it is narrated as it happens, with no proceeding contemplated in this sentence. The earliest mass-reporting statement currently in video_statements.csv is published 2024-04-01, i.e. 1,484 days after this video (2020-03-09 to 2024-04-01, differenced in code). Possible case/dispute link: C062 grievance subject-matter only, tentative and unconfirmed — no party is named in this sentence.
Source removed. Quoted at 03:18 in the archived transcript.
Dispute background statement¶
daily videos why I'm not doing as many Vlogs it was because um had to be out of commission for a little while but I I did not get beat up by a vegan girl uh to Tomy [unresolved] did not swing her chest at me I I'm completely fine I am I am good to go
The retraction proper, and the reason it is recorded as a quote rather than a note: it is the only thing in the researched material that prevents an earlier comic Short's assault narrative from being taken as a real injury. He denies the beating in terms, denies the specific comic detail, states he is "completely fine", and attributes his absence from daily uploads to being "out of commission" for the surgery instead. Note precisely what is and is not retracted: he retracts the assault, not the blurred vision — which is real, and which another archived video documents at day 14 ("vision is still blurry"). The comic Short borrowed a true symptom for a false cause. The caption's "to Tomy" remains unresolved.
Source removed. Quoted at 00:36 in the archived transcript.
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.
- IM SORRY it was a jokeSource removed
- They want me GONESource removed
- Bodybuilding Progress Update 3 Months inSource removed
- VEGANS Tried to SABOTAGE my Meat CompanySource removed
Cite this page
Frank Tufano Litigation Research. "Tufano v. Burgess (3:26-cv-00397)". Research last verified October 3, 2026. https://suedbyfranktufano.com/cases/3-26-cv-00397-tufano-v-burgess/