And after two years of intense anticipation, it was remarkably anti-climatic, which I should have expected.
I was scared and nervous, but reports back to me are that I was calm, clear, focused, and my points were well made.
Now the waiting. I’m ok at the moment, and hopefully I won’t start barfing and having panic attacks until the opinion actually arrives. At which point someone else will have to read it.
Oy.
Thanks for keeping us updated. I have been following your story here on the SDMB since you began posting about it. Let us know how it turns out, good luck!
Story? Can I get a link so that I understand?
Yeah, that OP doesn’t tell me anything and as you mention it’s long and I’m not willing to read it, but I’m curious enough - can you just give us the Cliff’s Notes version?
Stoid started a Pit thread because she was pissed at lawyers, who wouldn’t answer her questions because they didn’t want to give legal advice outside the context of an attorney/client relationship.
Hijinks ensued.
ETA: If you mean the whole story about her case, then Stoid is suing her ex-husband to regain property she feels was unfairly ceded to him during their divorce, or at least to be paid off for her stake in it. A home and a business, IIRC. Stoid is representing herself in the suit, because the attorney who originally represented her allegedly fucked the whole thing up the first time around.
Vaguely.
Actually: Never married. Engaged, owned a house together as joint tenants, formed an LLC together that owned the website business we developed together.
He sued for dissolution of the LLC. The law requires that if the other members of the LLC (me) don’t want the LLC dissolved, they can elect to stop the dissolution by buying the member interest of the members who sued to dissolve (him). The law does not give the judge discretion of any kind apart from discretion regarding an appraised value; if the members elect the buyout, it is mandatory for the judge to follow the law.
Ex’s lawyer somehow convinced the judge to just ditch the law because he wanted it ditched, and to put the assets of the business up for sale at auction (for ex to buy, he planned). Also, ex’s lies led to a receiver, who destroyed the business and took all the money.
House: ex sued to force the sale of the house even though he had given me the right of first refusal, agreed with the value that the bank gave it 3 months earlier, and I offered him exactly what he would have received in a sale to a third party at that price. He wanted more; not based on a higher house value, based on the idea that since I was buying it, the costs that would normally be paid should not be factored. ( He was wrong, and there is case law that proves it). The only defense to a suit like that is waiver of the right to bring the suit based on a prior agreement to sell to the other party, as we had. The judge ignored that and ordered the house sold, even though by that time we were underwater.
The hijinks continued, including an accounting trial wherein the judge found that even though I had paid for everything for years and everyone had always agreed that was true, it evidently wasn’t true and somehow he paid for his half of everything with magical invisomoney.
And much, much more.
Known as a legal clusterfuck.
How long was the argument? ANd did they ask many (if any) questions?
Appellate Judge and the senior judiciary in my experience fall into two categories when faced with a new and inexperienced counsel. They are those who are helpful to a condecending extent and those who live to torture junior counsel.
I suspect the situation is similar with a petitioner in person.
Oh, and the thread: not pissed because they didn’t want to give legal advice; pissed because they insist (some, not all) that any question of any variety or character that has anything whatsoever to do with the subject of the law IS legal advice, which is ridiculous. And that disagreement is what led to the endless thread.
By the way, now that all is said and done, the ACTUAL piece of information I was trying to find from lawyers (cloaked as a question about bunnys and pancakes in the big thread) was this: have you ever, in your career, seen, read or heard about a case in which a court appointed receiver was required to disgorge the money he received for his services because the judgment leading to the appointment was reversed?
At the time everyone I talked to, including lawyers I actually know who have no problem giving actual advice, had never heard of such a thing and thought I was going to be disappointed - after all, teh guy did the work, he needs to be paid, right? But all I was trying to get at was the words, phrases, ideas that would lead me to the information I needed, which was: what happened when this came up in the past? Because, as you might imagine, I do not agree that the receiver’s need to be paid should supersede all other considerations.
And eventually I did figure out what I needed to research: good ol’ restitution. Then, once I got to digging I discovered that there’s boatloads of information on the subject not only of restitution, but specifically receivers and reversals and what happens in such a situation. ( my love of Witkin and Cal Jur and Lexis had kept me from finding what I needed since it didn’t exist in those particular sources). And for the curious: teh weight of legal authority leads to the conclusion that if a receiver is appointed erroneously, his compensation should not come out of the “fund” (read, the money of the parties) but from the party who wanted him appointed.
I found a fabulous quote just today that expresses my feelings exactly, and I shared it with the justices"To take a person’s property from him by an unauthorized proceeding and place it in the hands of a receiver and then subject him to the expenses of the proceeding would be very tranparently unjust, even if the courts had the power to do that." Western v. Watts, 1887.
My feelings exactly.
And nowhere in there do I want anything that even smells like advice. What I wanted was information.
Very short, I only wanted to clarify some points that were muddy in my brief and there were no questions.
The clerk of this division told me just yesterday that she has always been very impressed with this panel and how they interact with the self-represented, and that they are genuinely fair and respectful.
I was a little weirded out that there were no questions, because I was sure I had failed to make everything clear. But nope. But there was lots of eye contact and they were very attentive and seemed sympathetic, Not a “poor crazy psycho” sympathy, genuine sympathy. In a subtle way, because I did not go for anything emotional - I was very careful to argue the law, not my feelings or how fucked up this all is.
You’re still wrong, but congrats on the appeal.
This is an excellent, entirely objective, legally accurate description of what has happened so far.
This, too, is entirely true. A fine distinction drawn by a stellar legal mind.
Stoid:
Not sure why I’m even bothering with this question… call it morbid curiosity.
I’m assuming if you win any reversals of the lower court’s opinion, you will regard it – quite reasonably, I should add – as a vindication of your position with respect to that issue.
In the apparently unlikely event that the appellate court should completely affirm the lower court, will you:
(a) acknowledge that perhaps your view of the issues of law were not completely accurate, or
(b) Look back and realize that these appellate judges, as welcoming and perspicacious as they seemed at the time, are actually idiots, much as the trial judge was?
Stoid,
glad to hear it went well for you - it can be intimidating appearing in front of an appellate court.
From what the clerk told you, did it sound like this particular panel specializes in hearing appeals from self-represented individuals?
Specializes? Is such a thing possible? I was just there the day before getting a feel for the room, so to speak (about the third time I’d done that) and I asked her afterwards about the protocol, and she was saying that the justices were very nice in general. Then I said “What about with pro pers?” (The California term for self-represented) and she said they were great.
Not gonna get involved in y’all’s debate, but just out curiousity – as an attorney, would you subject yourself or your peers to the same dichotomy? Imagine, say, after an unsuccessful appeal your fellow attorney Bob confesses that he still believes his interpretation of the case was correct. Will you then say to him, “well how about that Bob, I guess you’re really saying that you believe the judge is actually an idiot, right?”
Actually, you “bothered” so you could take another shot at me, that’s apparent.
It was only in the last week that I finally discovered ONE case that featured someone trying to convince the trial court to ignore the plain language of the statute and deny the defendant the right to buyout the plaintiff. It was filed just last year, and frustratingly, is unpublished, which is why I didn’t find it sooner. But it was a relief, because one thing I’ve learned about the law: no matter how wacky something is, it ain’t new. Dig long enough and you’ll find an instance of it happening before. (Although since this case was just last year it would seem that my case is technically the first one, as I think I might have filed first… hmmm). And both the appellate court and the trial court in that case agreed with me, so the lower court’s judgment was actually affirmed.
So if the court affirms the judgment in my case, I can’t begin to imagine what I will think or feel, because I would have to read the opinion itself to see how they got there. I lack the imagination necessary to see how it’s possible. Even the trial judge in my case couldn’t find a good way to justify it, which is why the words of the judgment make zip sense - and this is exactly the way it reads, nothing deleted in between:
Really? the membership interest I already own I can buy for cash? Gosh, thanks! And if the Plaintiff can “also” have the right to “bid on the assets of the Subject Business”, what exactly am I buying for cash? It seems to me that if this actually made any sense to begin with, the two things are mutually exclusive. Either you dissolve the company and sell the assets, or one member buys the OTHER member’s interest. This scenario is as old as corporate law itself, usually it’s dissolve the corp & sell the assets or the other shareholders buy the dissenting/complaining shareholders shares. Maybe the corporation itself buys out the complainers. But it’s one or the other, not both.
She also ruled, after I actually acted on the law in desperation, that I was too late. I argued in the hearing on her tentaive ruling that Cases A, B, and C specifically state there are no time limits But she didn’t change the tentative.
Then I found in the transcripts the conversation during the trial wherein the lawyers are discussing Corporations Code 17351 and the judge plainly acknowledges that she must rule before the section is invoked (re my buying him out) and yet 24 hours later, after stating in her verdict that I have the right then to buy him out under the code, his lawyer interrupts, begins by (inaccurately and falsely) stating that the code doesn’t say who can be the purchasing party (the non-moving party is the purchaser) so his client can… several pages of completely nonsensical discussion between both lawyers and the judge occurs, and she ends by saying, without saying why, that the assets will be put up for auction to the highest bidder.
So she erred on the same subject three different times and ways, none of them making any sense or being legally correct.
For the record, in it’s entirety, the applicable code section:
All the related case law is about corporations, except for a case filed last year that agreed that coporation law is directly analagous, since the statutes are nearly identical. Then a corporations case filed last year referenced that LLC case as directly analagous to corporations law, bringing it full circle. And corporations law has firmly established that:
a) it is mandatory for the court to permit the non-movers to buyout the movers
b) there are no time limits
Also, in case anyone wonders, the court found deadlock as our reason, although the plaintiff stated clearly that he brought suit to protect his interests. In the unpublished case, the trial court found that the defendant had actually engaged in fraud and misconduct and the plaintiff asked teh court to deny the defendant’s right to buyout the plaintiff on that basis, and let the plaintiff buy out the defendant instead. The trial court and the appellate court both agreed:
Lastly, for those still paying attention: “special proceedings” are created by statute, and that means that judges have no discretion of any kind to do anything other than what the statute specifically tells them they can do. LLC/Corp dissolutions are special proceedings. That is why the decision language above keeps saying “the statute contains no provision” “Section 2000 does not authorize” and so forth.
So once again… if the court affirms the judgment in my case, I will be absolutely fascinated to see how they pull it off.
So the court made its judgment under section 17351, and you are arguing that they should have applied section 2000 because you found a case saying it was analogous…is that it? Because it seems like your argument that the court had to allow you to buy out his interest, and had to give you an unlimited amount of time, only exists if section 2000 is controlling. If you use 17351 then the court doesn’t have to give you an unlimited amount of time to buy and the court was in its rights to deny your dilatory payment because you tried to pay after the time limit specified in the decree expired.
And I’m not sure why you are arguing about the basis the court dissolved the company? Clearly there is dissent and deadlock here? This doesn’t seem relevant to me.
I would be very interested to read the lower court’s decision as well as the decision of the appellate court. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was affirmed, but what do I know, I’m not an expert in California/appellate law. If someone could tell me if I’m right or where I have gone wrong, I’d appreciate it.
But I’m not sure about what exactly the appellate court is reviewing. Could you tell us?
Best of luck, Stoid. While I fear your battle is quixotic, it takes serious cajones to front a Court of Appeal with zero training (and even with training). I hope for your sake my misgivings about all this are misplaced.
Was the other side represented? Did they appear?