The Saga of Stoid and the Law continues, of course. Will it ever end?
Anyway, I got a little Christmas miracle.
Judge Thing (as in Miss Thing) got a transfer downtown. (Which is normally a good thing, a boost, but the rumor mill says otherwise in this case…) Two days before a critically important hearing.
Oy.
I’ll skip the details, they’re boring for non-law freaks. My ex’s Lawyer From Hell did his Lawyer From Hell boogie on the new judge… even a little worse than usual: he filed a motion that was brimming with falsehoods about the facts of the case and the facts of the judgements that were made by Judge Thing. He was essentially trying to manipulate the new judge into giving his client the few things that they didn’t get already, by lying.
Because I’m self-represented, I don’t have the same room to say “He’s a goddamn liar” as blatantly as I would if I had a bar number. So I patiently, calmly, and without making a fuss, opposed the motion and included the documents proving that the truth was generally the polar opposite of what the Lawyer From Hell claimed it was.
And low and behold, there came a miracle the day before Christmas. A ruling. Four pages long. And for the first time in three years of lies on lies on lies on lies on lies on lies…about facts, evidence, the law itself… repeatedly and relentlessly disproved by me with uncontroverted, irrefutable documentary evidence…finally, a judge paid enough attention to actually “admonish Plaintiff’s counsel” for his bad behavior.
I was really beginning to wonder if I’d stepped through the looking glass - Judge Thing had a very Red Queen quality, not to mention the rest of the madness.
A girlfriend momentarily accused me of foolishly believing that justice will always prevail… but I have never counted on that. What I was counting on, what I’ve been so completely flummoxed by, is that at least the law itself would prevail.
My faith is renewed.
Plaintiff just filed a substitution of attorney for the appeal and got a second extension on filing his brief. His Lawyer From Hell has been fighting this to the mat for more than three years…and when he’s already late with the respondent’s brief he bows out? Nope. Hiding behind his client.
My prediction: no brief will be forthcoming.
I’ll keep ya posted…