Case research · C067

Tufano v. Tyler Technologies, Inc. et al

3:26-cv-00879 · U.S. District Court, Middle District of Pennsylvania

Pending; report and recommendation adopted June 25, 2026; interlocutory appeal docketed at the Third Circuit (No. 26-2698)Order adopted R&R (2026-06-25, non-final); Tufano appealed the denial of emergency injunctive relief and a stayPennsylvania
CourtU.S. District Court, Middle District of Pennsylvania
FiledApril 6, 2026
StatusPending; report and recommendation adopted June 25, 2026; interlocutory appeal docketed at the Third Circuit (No. 26-2698)
OutcomeOrder adopted R&R (2026-06-25, non-final); Tufano appealed the denial of emergency injunctive relief and a stay
Final disposition
JurisdictionPennsylvania
Pro se
Current / transferee court
Transferred case
Last researchedSeptember 23, 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 theft by deception (18 Pa. C.S.A. § 3922), civil fraud, civil conspiracy, a violation of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, retaliation/discrimination, a Fifth Amendment takings claim, a Fourteenth Amendment due-process claim, and a claim under the Pennsylvania Constitution's Uniformity Clause (Art. VIII, § 1), against Tyler Technologies, Inc. and Lackawanna County. He alleges the County hired Tyler Technologies to reassess property values and that the resulting reassessment grossly and fraudulently overvalued his three properties to increase tax revenue; he further alleges that, as a disabled person (citing impaired vision from eye surgeries and an SSA disability determination), he never received mailed notice of his assessment-appeal hearing at any of his three addresses on file, causing him to miss it, which he attributes to retaliation for filing this lawsuit.

He seeks a corrected valuation or reimbursement of an estimated $1.32 million in increased taxes over 40 years, roughly $3,000 in appraisal costs, $1.32 million in punitive damages, and separate damages of $40,000 (disability discrimination), $250,000 (non-economic), and $50,000 (retaliation), plus a jury trial.

Complaint / docket source — storage.courtlistener.com ↗

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: On June 25, 2026, the court adopted a Report & Recommendation (Chief Magistrate Judge Daryl F. Bloom). Tufano filed a Notice of Appeal on July 6, 2026 from the court's denial of his emergency motion for preliminary injunctive relief and motion to stay, and a motion for leave to appeal in forma pauperis on July 15, 2026. The case remains open at the district-court level. Update 2026-08-25: The report and recommendation (Doc. 6, Apr. 9, 2026, Chief Magistrate Judge Daryl F. Bloom) and the adopting order (Doc. 13, June 25, 2026, Judge Joseph F. Saporito Jr.) were both read in full. The recommended ground, not previously recorded here, is the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. sec. 1341, together with the comity doctrine: the R&R states that "the TIA precludes this Court from granting Tufano the relief he seeks" and that because the complaint asserts he was unable to use the state appeals process due to his own physical incapacitation, "there is no indication that the remedy in state court was inadequate such that federal intervention is warranted." The adopting order found the objections "unpersuasive and without merit," denied the pro se emergency motion for preliminary injunctive relief, and remanded the matter to Judge Bloom for further pretrial proceedings.

Research status: Source-backed (report and recommendation and adopting order both read in full via GovInfo)

Research notes: Docket snapshot only. Update 2026-08-25: The interlocutory appeal is docketed at the Third Circuit as No. 26-2698, confirmed from that docket's own "Appealed From" line naming M.D. Pa. 3:26-cv-00879, with the judgment date and notice-of-appeal date both matching this case. Appellee Tyler Technologies entered appearances (Daniel T. Brier and Frederick J. Lokuta) on July 22, 2026. Note a discrepancy carried in this record: the "IFP-on-appeal motion 2026-07-15" noted previously does not appear on appeal No. 26-2698, which has no in forma pauperis motion at all; the IFP motion in this cluster belongs to C057's appeal (No. 26-2838). The July 15 filing is more likely a district-court IFP filing and should not be treated as an appellate fact without further sourcing. The notice of appeal itself records "Filing Fee and Docket Fee NOT PAID. Filing fee $605."

Related litigation

Court & ruling records

Findings recorded only where they are tied to an order, opinion or report and recommendation.

All 73 records →

Record labels distinguish final orders/opinions, reports and recommendations, non-final orders, and tentative/indexed ruling records.

Tax Injunction Act / comity dismissal recommended (R&R)
Report & recommendationApril 9, 2026

Report and recommendation (Doc. 6) describing the claim as alleging that Tyler Technologies, Inc., in collusion with Lackawanna County, improperly inflated the value of Tufano's properties so that the County could impose a higher tax. It concluded that "the TIA precludes this Court from granting Tufano the relief he seeks," and that because the complaint asserts he was unable to use the state appeals process due to his own physical incapacitation, "there is no indication that the remedy in state court was inadequate such that federal intervention is warranted." The recommended grounds are the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. sec. 1341, and the comity doctrine.

April 9, 2026 ruling source — govinfo.gov ↗
R&R adopted; preliminary-injunction motion denied
Report & recommendationJune 25, 2026

Order (Doc. 13) adopting the April 9, 2026 report and recommendation. The court found Tufano's objections (Doc. 7) "to be unpersuasive and without merit," adopted the report, denied the pro se emergency motion for preliminary injunctive relief (Doc. 2), and remanded the matter to the magistrate judge for all further pretrial proceedings.

June 25, 2026 ruling source — govinfo.gov ↗

Appellate history

Appeals taken from this docket record, with what the research does and does not establish about each.

All 30 appeals →

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.

26-2698
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third CircuitPendingDocket number recorded, status unverified

Notice of appeal July 6, 2026 · Docketed July 8, 2026

An interlocutory appeal from the denial of an emergency motion for preliminary injunctive relief and a motion to stay - the district-court case remained open. Notice of appeal filed 2026-07-06 with the $605 fee unpaid, followed by a motion for leave to appeal in forma pauperis on 2026-07-15. Re-checked 2026-09-10 against the Third Circuit's own mirrored docket, which runs to 2026-07-22 and records entries of appearance for Tyler Technologies, Inc. by Daniel T. Brier and Frederick J. Lokuta plus a corporate disclosure statement, with no termination date. The appeal is live and being defended; no disposition has issued.

Record source — courtlistener.com ↗

Filing-restriction indicators

Strength labels are research classifications, not judicial declarations that the litigant is vexatious.

ModerateNew federal complaint filed against overlapping defendants four days after denial of stay/recusal motions in related state action

C067 (M.D. Pa., filed 2026-04-06) names Tyler Technologies, Inc. and the County of Lackawanna -- the same core defendants as C017 -- just four days after the Lackawanna County court denied Tufano's stay and recusal motions in C017 (Order, 2026-04-02). Both cases remain open and pending, each on its own appeal.

No adjudication on the merits in either case; C017's underlying assessment appeal remains undecided and C067's R&R adoption denied only emergency injunctive relief.
Source — ic-access.com ↗

Chronology events

Sequence does not by itself prove motive or causation.

New complaint filed after prior adverse decision

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.

Lackawanna County / Tyler Technologies parallel litigation chronology · Federal docketSource — courtlistener.com ↗
Non-final order (R&R adopted)

The court adopted Chief Magistrate Judge Daryl F. Bloom's Report & Recommendation, denying Tufano's emergency motion for preliminary injunctive relief and motion to stay. The case remains open at the district-court level.

Lackawanna County / Tyler Technologies parallel litigation chronology · Court orderSource — courtlistener.com ↗
R&R adopted; injunction denied

The court adopted the April 9, 2026 report and recommendation, which had concluded that the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. sec. 1341, and the comity doctrine precluded the relief sought, overruled Tufano's objections as unpersuasive and without merit, and denied his emergency motion for preliminary injunctive relief.

Lackawanna County / Tyler Technologies parallel litigation chronology · Court order textSource — govinfo.gov ↗
Interlocutory appeal filed

Tufano filed a Notice of Appeal from the denial of emergency injunctive relief and the stay motion, followed by a motion for leave to appeal in forma pauperis (2026-07-15).

Lackawanna County / Tyler Technologies parallel litigation chronology · Federal docketSource — 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.

Repeated/escalatory filing
Strong pattern relevanceFiling after an adverse decisionThreatened or prospective filing01:32

Lackawanna County trying to STEAL MY PROPERTY!!! · April 6, 2026

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.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 01:32 — youtube.com ↗
Repeated/escalatory filing
Strong pattern relevanceFiling after an adverse decisionAdverse outcome described01:32

Lackawanna County STEALING PROPERTY?! · May 26, 2026

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.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 01:32 — youtube.com ↗
Prospective repeated filing / cost imposition
Strong pattern relevanceRepeat filing on the same disputeFiling after an adverse decision00:14

Lackawanna is a CORRUPT SH*THOLE · August 5, 2026

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.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 00:14 — youtube.com ↗
Prospective repeated filing / cost imposition
Strong pattern relevanceRepeat filing on the same disputeFiling after an adverse decision01:41

Lackawanna County TAX THIEVES · August 5, 2026

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.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 01:41 — youtube.com ↗
Repeated/escalatory filing
Strong pattern relevanceRepeat filing on the same disputeFiling after an adverse decision00:56

Government TAX THIEVES · August 6, 2026

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.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 00:56 — youtube.com ↗
Dispute background statement
Moderate pattern relevance00:00

Crooked County of Lackawanna wants to 10X MY TAXES!!! · January 30, 2026

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.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch / source — youtube.com ↗
Legal escalation / contemplated proceeding
Moderate pattern relevanceThreatened or prospective filing02:02

Lackawanna County trying to STEAL MY PROPERTY!!! · April 6, 2026

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.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 02:02 — youtube.com ↗
Adverse-ruling reaction / judicial allegation
Moderate pattern relevanceFiling announced or confirmedJudicial or forum bias alleged02:06

Lackawanna County STEALING PROPERTY?! · May 26, 2026

And I'm explaining to the federal court, they're corrupt. Can you please help me? That's literally what my filing basically says. It says, "This state judge, this county judge is corrupt as hell. Can you please do something? Can you stay the tax proceedings until this is solved?

His account of what his federal filing asks for: that the state and county judges are corrupt and that the tax proceedings be stayed. It is his own paraphrase, hedged with the word basically, and must not be read as the wording of any court document.

Why this classification: It confirms a filing he has made and alleges corruption in the forum below, which is Moderate territory, but the corruption claim is an allegation rather than a finding and none of the three core filing-conduct factors is present.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 02:06 — youtube.com ↗
Dispute background statement
Moderate pattern relevance00:00

Lackawanna is a CORRUPT SH*THOLE · August 5, 2026

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.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch / source — youtube.com ↗
Court-proceeding reaction
Moderate pattern relevanceAdverse outcome described00:15

Lackawanna County TAX THIEVES · August 5, 2026

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.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 00:15 — youtube.com ↗
Dispute background statement
Moderate pattern relevance00:00

Government TAX THIEVES · August 6, 2026

they hired a third party company because I guess they didn't want to get their hands dirty named Tyler Technologies... And my building went from $40,000 to almost $2 million.

Names the assessment contractor and gives the figures the dispute turns on, against a private appraisal he cites separately.

Why this classification: Supplies the figures the dispute turns on; no filing conduct.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch / source — youtube.com ↗
Legal escalation / contemplated proceeding
Moderate pattern relevanceThreatened or prospective filing01:39

Government TAX THIEVES · August 6, 2026

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.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 01:39 — youtube.com ↗
Dispute background statement
Moderate pattern relevance00:13

My Lawsuits ARE LEGIT · August 15, 2026

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.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

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.

Cite this page
Frank Tufano Litigation Research. "Tufano v. Tyler Technologies, Inc. et al (3:26-cv-00879)". Research last verified September 23, 2026. https://suedbyfranktufano.com/cases/3-26-cv-00879-tufano-v-tyler-technologies-inc-et-al/