Thursday, July 28, 2005

Why do people think they can send a friend to Court for them?

So yesterday afternoon I'm in Who's your Daddy Court. Judge is late because he has to cover for another Judge so one of the other prosecutors calls the docket so we can get started settling cases. 45 cases, not too busy of an afternoon...And the first case on the docket she calls the name...Its a man's name, and a woman answers, "He couldn't be here, I'm here for him." Lawyer is momentarily stunned. She just writes it down and moves on.

A few names down the page and another person speaks up, "She's not here, but I'm here for her."

Lawyer calling the docket and I are looking at each other and laughing....

A few names down the page and yet another person answers for someone else-- except this time the person answers for both the Plaintiff and the Defendant...This was MadDog's case and he just drops his shoulders and looks at me, "Its going to be a long afternoon."

I'm giggling at this point and have to turn my back towards the room.

Ok people: when you are summoned to Court you cannot send your paramour/brother/sister or mother in your stead. But you probably wouldn't know that since almost none of you actually read the papers I send you that explains that to you. Now, if you're in the hospital or dead, I can see that, but these people didn't want to show up because they knew they were in danger of going to jail for not paying as ordered. I particularly liked the person who showed up for both sides of the case.

Then the (Post edited in case this person reads this and gets upset.) lawyer in town walks through the door. MadDog and I look at each other- oh laws who's going to have to deal with him? Bing! MadDog wins and he gets to deal with him. Yaay!

At one point I'm sitting in on the conversation and the lawyer gets mad because both MadDog and I agree that he can't do what he wants to do, but we tell him he's welcome to try. Lawyer glares at us and says, (post edited in case this person reads this and gets upset...) 2 hours later, the Judge agrees that MadDog and I do know the law. Ha. You cannot have three children by three different women in three different counties and combine them into one case in one County and divide the resulting child support between the three children.

Life lesson: Its sooo much more effective when someone says the law is X and you don't agree to go and pull the law or the case and say, "Well, huh, It appears to me that you might be mistaken here because this really seems to say Y. What do you have to suggest that the law is X?" (This technique is also known as "Walk softly and carry a big stick.") To which lawyers who can't admit they could be wrong usually reply, "Well, its clearly settled law." Any time someone tells you its clearly settled law, it almost always is not, in fact, clearly settled law, but something they pulled out of their asses.

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