I am relatively new to these boards but have been on The InterTubes since about 1993, and I have to say that this is pretty much the most amazing series of threads I’ve ever witnessed. Stoid is the gift that keeps on giving.
That is all.
Stoid, you said something in your last screed which I must take exception to. Mind you, as you know (or should), I’ve not commented directly upon your situation on this board (at least, not since shortly after it first arose), and I offer none now. For all I know, your position is legally and factually correct; for all I know, it is neither (and since I’ve not read the pleadings, nor had any chance to evaluate the evidence, including the testimony of adverse parties and witnesses, I’m certainly not going to take one side’s word on it). And unlike all the attorneys and assorted others in here who have repeatedly told you that you are living in a fantasy world, I’ve simply sat and read and not done much about it.
Indeed, the start of this thread was more a tongue-in-cheek effort at poking fun at your thread about attorneys than it was an attempt to issue commentary upon your desire for “help” here; to the extent it was pointed at anyone, it was pointed at everyone who seeks such “information,” not just you in particular.
But you assert in your last post that no attorneys ever come back and try to reply to your efforts to cite cases or statutes to support your opinions. This is simply not true.
For the most recent example, you made an assertion about “hearsay” evidence. Your assertion shows a fundamental failure to understand the evidentiary exception that is the “hearsay” rule. This is not surprising; as I recall my Evidence course spent something like a third of a year going over the rule, its underpinnings, its applications, and its exceptions. Even good attorneys don’t always get the technical ins and outs of it right, and some evidence is debateable as to whether the “rule” applies. Nevertheless, not one, but two attorneys as I recall engaged your assertion of “hearsay” with not just an explanation of why you were wrong, but with citation to the applicable rules. When you came back with a post that contains your own citations, there were at least two posts which dealt with your citations and explained why you were incorrect in what you were saying. Instead of going, “Oh, I see, so this means this! But if that’s true, what about the other thing?” you simply posted an even denser, more incorrect interpretation of the rules involved. At which point all people who have any sense whatsoever did what I did the minute you sent me your email way back when explaining your situation and asking for some help: dropped the issue like a hot rock because it becomes abundantly clear that you have NO intention of listening to advice of any sort, however well-meaning, which doesn’t conform to your own viewpoint on the subject.
So instead of engaging in a serious, and enlightening for you, discussion of hearsay, the relevant exceptions to the general rule, and the application of the rule in the first place (which I assure you, had you chosen to engage in, would have delighted many an attorney around here because hearsay is a fun rule to discuss!), you simply again managed to throw a wet blanket upon the situation.
Whether you are wrong or right, dogged refusal to engage in level-headed discussion, involving concession of points when needed, further requests for enlightenment, etc., does nothing but inspire people to consider your efforts on your behalf as lacking rationality. If you want to change that, you need to reconsider how you deal with the posters here.
Because fundamentally, you are right about one thing: attorneys are NOT always right about everything law related (which is why we end up arguing among ourselves here while sipping that single malt and mulling over which of us has to be Bricker’s footstool next month).
Slightly off-topic, but does anyone know where I can get a well-worn photo of Douglas Fairbanks getting his salad tossed by Mary Pickford?
This has been a really major irritation and frustration. I have not “blown up” at anyone. There has been a bizarre list of behaviors and attitudes attributed to me that have no basis in anything I’ve actually done, (such as the suggestion that I’m litigation-crazy and anyone who gets near me risks being sued. I haven’t sued a single person in my life, ever, and its hard to imagine I would when I’ve skipped so many genuine opportunities and reasons to do so in the past.) and have been mostly, it appears, connected to the fact that I have not simply accepted anything that was asserted “at” me, so to speak, and the fact that I’ve used a lot of emphasis in certain posts when I’ve become intensely frustrated. (I always use a lot of emphasis, in life and in writing, when I’m frustrated or excited. Most particularly when someone does not seem to be paying attention to points I’ve made. But large fonts, underlines and bold hardly qualify as crazy or blowing up).
As for your words about the article, I accept what you say. I did not read the article, first, because my browser indicated that it was 87 pages long. Second, because I am a case freak, and the person who posted that article (Hello Again?) made it a point to cite those particular cases, evidently to prove the point. So, rather than simply accept the one-sentence summaries which, on the very face of them, did not appear to support the argument being made*, or read the long article which ventured far afield of this partiular argument, I went straight to the cases themselves. (I am a case reader because summaries aren’t enough. Sometimes they aren’t even really accurate. My lawyer friend told me that a major legal concept that is now accepted as law became so because someone quoted a summary in a case, it was accepted as accurate and quoted repeatedly in other cases for years after, which sort of made it law - an idea that mortifies me, especially as to this topic: the idea of corporations as natural persons. It wasn’t every aspect of that idea, but some part of it.) The only thing anyone said was that it was “just” quotes without “meaningful analysis” and I think that’s a horseshit response. While there was evidently more information in the article as a whole, and other cases, etc, dimissing the cases themselves as mere trifles without “meaningful” analysis is ridiculous because case law IS meaningful analysis OF law BY appeallate justices, who are the people who INTERPRET the law. Dismissing cases makes you (generic) look like a damn fool, not me.
When I get the chance, i will look at that article some more. But I will make this bold assertion regarding what I will and will not accept: any assertion by anyone that opinions written by reviewing courts are:
- Impossible to understand without someone else “interpreting” them
- Meaningless
And one other thing: the call for at least ONE case to SHOW how crazy-wacky-nuts people can be and the horrible risk to a lawyer because of it is legitimate. The fact that no one has produced a case that comes close to the sorts of scenarios being argued for is not necessary conclusive, but it’s not really legitimate to sneer at people who ask for it as thought it’s ridiculous, either. Of course people sue over stupid shit, that’s understood. But lawyers in these threads have been trying to equate some message board bonehead who asks an anonymous handle to point at some case law and then tries to sue over it with the kinds of cases that were offered as cites in the former thread, and I think that’s a lame comparison. I think the message board bonehead would have a hard time even filing the suit against “Jodi” or “DSYoung” or “BillDo” in the first place, dont’ you?
All I want is a degree of reasonableness, rather than knee jerk, over-the-top assertions. Or maybe…silence. If you don’t want to participate…don’t! Super easy. And if I call you and ask you a question you don’t want to answer, just say you would rather not answer the questions I have, seeing as how I have not retained your services.
All I ask is not to be treated like an idiot, a crazy person, or a leech just because I asked. You can say no without being an ass about it. Excuse me…an arrogant asshat about it. 
- The argument was: answering a question, either on a message board or in a phone conversation, like “Have you ever seen or heard of any cases where X happened, and if you have, can you direct me to them so I can learn more about what happened?” is actually a request for “advice”. Or, okay, if it turned out that maybe, possibly, it really was not actually, truly “advice” in the strict English sense of the word that normal people understand, then it could be claimed to be advice by a nutjob like me that was going to sue anyone for answering it and then they would lose their license. And the very first question that started all this was even less likely to be seen as “advice” in my opinion, it was an invitation to discuss the meaning and theories of the legal concepts of evidence, findings, and conclusions, and how they interact, and the meaning and theories and lines between law and equity. Hardly “advice”.
“Slightly” off-topic? 
VP, you are my very favorite brand of crazy. 
I thought she’s already crashed and burned at the trial level, and now she’s seeking life support in the appellate division?
I am a lousy writer. I am fucking FANTASTIC editor. THAT, I’m obsessive about. I RE-write stuff that counts a hundred times. I can take 20 hours to write 5 pages if it matters.
These are message board posts. You get the first pass.
AH!
The penny drops. The wizard is revealed.
The whole reason you brought your shit into this form is to ask lawyers to do something they cannot do without forming an attorney-client relationship. And you deride us for refusing to do so, under the rubric of your own personal definitions of the words “information” and “advice” (which, like your analysis of why a statement is or is not hearsay is any indicator, demonstrates below average intelligence and abject incorrectness throughout)
Unless I misunderstood and you’re talking about psychiatric help? Which I would definitely consider.
JODI, DSY:
Please, sincerely (hearsay argument doesn’t count, that was mostly for the hell of it and to show what I ended up showing - lawyers will talk about it if its to put me in my place. If I’d come in asking to discuss theories about hearsay I have no evidence to incline me to the belief that I would have received a helpful and respectful engagement of the topic, any more than I got that when I asked about law& equity and findings.) show me where attorneys came in and tried to tell me something about the topics I asked about and I blew them off?
Not examples that have anything whatsoever to do with the arguments about why I should get an attorney, why its advice, or all the other collateral bullshit that everything ended up being about.
But the stuff that I genuinely wanted to know about.
If I did that, I truly want to see it, because I don’t think I did. Mostly because I came in asking because I did not feel comfortable in my understanding and I was seeking to improve it, that is why** I asked** in the first place. And if I challenged something, it was because an answer I was given didnt’ address some other part and I wanted to know more as it related to that other part.
I didn’t come in spoiling for a fight, and I didn’t come in to be told I was right. I came in to understand things better and I hoped that discussing it with lawyers would help. And, let us not forget, please, that I very clearly and very specifically asked NOT to be harassed about my decision to represent myself, and my thread descended into that almost entirely.
The pit thread was specific and focused and for the 87th time: I would never pit you for simply declining to answer my questions. The pitting was for telling me I wanted advice.
That was me, so I’ll expand on what I said.
A bunch of block quotes from cases are not an argument for your proposition. They may be arguments for whatever the fundamental issues were for the cases in question, if you happened to pick the right parts of the cases to quote. Even if you find a case 100% on point for the argument you are making (and this is an extreme rarity), you must set up why it is on point. To just quote a bunch of case law without even explaining what it is is an unconvincing cop-out.
On the whole hearsay question, without commenting on whether you’ve analyzed it correctly, I’ll say that I usually find it helpful to start with the definition of hearsay and work from there. That definition is generally stated as “an out-of-court statement, offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted” (just to be exact, offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted out of court, not to prove the truth of the statement made in court).
Help is not advice.
Help is help. In this case, help understanding the law. Help with getting more information so I can understand things better.
You will call that advice. I believe we’ve done this dance, and my legs are tired.
Unfortunately, what you don’t understand is that, since it is my law license, professional reputation, and malpractice premium on the chopping block, my definition (incidentally, shared by such fringe groups as the entire legal bar and society at large) is the only one that matters.
I’m not sure how to tell you this, Stoid, but that letter that you posted…the one you sent to your ex? That reads pretty much just like your posts here. So if that’s an example of something that matters that you spent a lot of time editing…yikes.
It depends on how you define “blew them off”? If you would include “utterly and completely rejected the validity of their opintions” in the definition, then I would say that virtually every single post you made in the thread that inspired this one would count.
The fact that it’s advice is not “collateral bullshit.” That is is the very heart of the reason why no one – and I meal literally no one, on Board or off – was willing to answer your inquiry in the manner you desired. It is central to the the subject of your last thread, which was in effect “Why won’t lawyers tell me what I want them to?” The fact that you consider that issue “collateral bullshit” is yet another example of how you completely dismiss out of hand anything you don’t agree with.
I’m not saying you need to smooch our collective asses or anything, but just as an FYI, if you’re going to ask any bunch of professionals for help, maybe you shouldn’t lay the groundwork by informing them repeatedly of how unethical, incompetent, and unfair they are as a group. Even if we felt it was professionally acceptable to help you – which most of us clearly do not – it kind of kills the desire to do so, y’know?
I ABSOLUTELY AGREE!!!
Which is why I did that. HelloAgain linked to the article and listed the cases one single-sentence summaries.
Because that’s SUCH and UNCONVINCING COPOUT, I READ the cases.
And determined, through READING them, that they did NOT prove what Hello Again ASSUMED they proved!!
TA…FUCKING…DA.
(I have no idea if HA is a lawyer or not, but I do know that by that time, there was a whole lot of energy devoted to wanting to make ME wrong. So everyone in the thread, including YOU, evidently, didn’t stop to consider how lame HA’s post was! No, you dumped on MY busting of that post. I read the cases. I read the cites IN the cases that referred to OTHER cases. I looked deeper than HA bothered to. But I was the one who was being lazy and unconvincing???
And I’m supposed to have loads of respect for this kind of response to me? How about some consistency? How about some intellectual honesty? I’m the one being told that I don’t consider points that don’t support what i want to believe? Are you kidding?
What is the legal equivalent for “Physician, heal thyself”?
Yes, I know. Which is why my example can make your eyes cross. The witness made a statement that he made a statement to prove that he made the statement.
It’s incredibly convoluted no matter what angle you come at it, and I do feel pretty sure that I understand the law I quoted correctly, but I’m not sure I understand it in relation to this particular instance, precisely because it’s statements being made about statements being made, it’s eating its own tail.
If it could be undertaken sans snark or ego or a need to be right from any quarter, just for the exercise of it, I think it’s an interesting discussion.
The one part that I’m pretty sure I’m tripping over is the part about the statement regarding his state of mind. He (the witness) is not saying that the declarant (himself) “declared” outside of court that he was angry, and he (witness) remembers that the declarant (himself) “declared” that he was angry, and that “declaration” made outside court that he remembers the declarant making proves that the declarant (himself) also told the defendant that he didn’t want her to pay those expenses, which is actually what i think the law meant.
What he(the witness) is testifying is that he remembers that he (the declarant) did (somehow) “state” (which is an assertive statement, oral, written or behavioral, as in a nod or shrug) to the defendant that he did not want the expenses paid. He (the witness) states that he remembers that he (the declarant) did in fact somehow express this idea because he is testifying in court that he remembers now that he was angry then, and the implication is that his memory and reportage of having “stated” these things is probably accurate, based on his (witness) recollection of his anger.
Whew.
I’d love to put that in front of a law professor. Because hearsay can and does exist on multiple levels, and I’d say this is such a case.
(At the end of the day, it boils down to “I told her this” with no supporting information, testimony, details, documents or anything else. Nothing. Zip. Zero. And this assertion, if believed, is entirely to his direct benefit. And this meets the Plaintiff’s burden of proof??? Really truly? Tell me it’s not, because that would be far too depressing.)
I never said you were being lazy. But frankly, quoting big gobs of text is a lot less difficult than summarizing them down to a sentence or two.
Sorry, no eye-crossing. This is something you cover in about week 2 of Evidence, at the latest.
As others have mentioned, you may want to consider the difference between “admissible” and “probative”.
Sure, multiple hearsay exists. See FRE 805.
Just because the other party has managed to proffer self-serving but admissible evidence doesn’t mean that the evidence proffered has much probative value.
Stoid, did anyone ever tell you that maybe you cannot win this fight and you should accept it?
The case, not this argument.
You know that two parties can go to court, and both sides can believe they are right and the law is on their side, right? And you know that at least one side HAS to lose, right? And if you know this, you have to allow for the possibilty that continuing along that course may result in continued losing, expense and bitterness?
I only ask because, for some reason, reading your words reminds me of The War of the Roses.