Case closed.

Melanie Steele, the former dot-com millionairess, was recently slapped with a $257,675 judgment in a case that showed just how important title insurance can be.

If you recall, Stewart Tide Guaranty Co. unwillingly paid a negotiated settlement of $185,000 to clear a $2.55 million IRS lien originally filed against Steele. Stewart failed to pick up on that little item when the house it was attached to was sold and had to make good on the policy it issued the new owner.

Stewart Title then sued Steele for the money plus another $72,675 for expenses.

"I am not in a financially secure position to hire an attorney," Steele said in a one-page letter to the Pulaski County Circuit Court on July 27. "If this court wishes to proceed with this invalid case I will do my best to achieve the impossible and attain an attorney not in my resident state of this of Arkansas [sic]."

When Stewart filed a motion for a summary judgment, Steele didn't respond. The Pulaski County Circuit Court judge then issued the order against Steele.

Steele couldn't be reached for comment.

Back in 2000 and 2001, Steele spent more than $4 million on 12 houses in Pulaski County before running out of money and becoming the subject of several lawsuits. The source of her short-lived wealth, she told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in late 2000, was stock in a dot-com company called Webvan that she had been given by Borders Bookstore founder Louis Borders, which she sold for $14 million before Webvan ran out of gas on the information superhighway.

(Back in July, she told us that she was expecting a refund from the IRS of almost $3.9 million. Guess that hasn't materialized.)