Jurisdictional Disconnect over Unauthorized Practice of Law
This author practices her right to represent herself in court, which makes fighting Big Money more accessible.
There are allegations that I ran afoul of the laws against the unauthorized practice of law in two states.
In Arkansas, I helped prepare a deed of real estate from an individual to a living trust of which I was trustee, settlor and sole non-contingent beneficiary. Judge Susan Kaye Weaver said that deed is “void ab initio” and took the property rights away from me as trustee and also, because she is the judge and she said so, took away my personal rights as an individual.
Even though my title rep on another transaction said she sees similar deeds relied upon fairly often, I think that technically, someone unauthorized to practice law cannot write a deed. In my case, there are two questions. Can someone unauthorized to practice law fill in the name and property description on a deed written by an attorney? And, is an individual representing someone else, if she is the only person with an active right involved?
I also filed a complaint in Federal District Court for the Southern District of California that was a “derivative” claim for malpractice against some attorneys, Patrick McGarrigle, Ellis Stern and Alan Goldberg, who represented a limited liability company of which I owned 14%, and simultaneously represented the individual interests of my co-owners. Ellis Stern made a written opinion of the value of my shares in the company as $218,000 for the purpose of selling to his clients. One piece of real estate owned by the company sold 18 months later to a third party for $1.4 million for just my share. hmm?
The attorney defendants, the attorney firms representing them and the judge, Janis Sammartino, said nothing about a nonattorney filing a derivative suit. It seems they wanted me to advocate for the company, probably because it would be easy to cheat against me.
I found on my own that the derivative suit is “on behalf of” the company and dismissed the claims against the attorney defendants. I was clear that the dismissal was mandatory, even though it was under the voluntary dismissal statute.
Judge Sammartino ordered me to pay tens of thousands of dollars to the attorney defendants for attorney fees based on the premise that the dismissal meant the attorneys prevailed on an anti-SLAPP suit. (Usually, legal malpractice and conversion suits are not considered SLAPP, Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation.)
I said the complaint was null and void, as it was the unauthorized practice of law. (My error was unwitting, it was corrected immediately upon discovery, and Judge Sammartino had denied me limited scope representation to hire someone specifically to explain a derivative suit to me.) Any outcome of a null and void document is also null and void.
A Democratic poser who recently was appointed to judgeship by Joe Biden, Linda Lopez, affirmed Judge Sammartino’s error upon motion for reconsideration after the case was transferred between judges a few times. I say “Democratic poser” because Judge Linda Lopez treats individuals with disdain and a lack of compassion. As a Libertarian, the qualities I like about Democrats is that they claim to care about the average person more than the people and entities that have the most money.
So, now I am appealing two orders in two different jurisdictions and the jurisdictions handle the outcome of documents prepared on behalf of trusts and LLCs by a nonattorney differently.
I think the people who comprise our judiciary interpret the law in whatever way benefits their attorney friends and makes the courts inaccessible to any but Big Money.
Waking from A Court Induced Nightmare
This is a letter of Input for the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner’s report on violence against women and children in custody cases.
Laura Lynn Hammett
The litigation in my custody case culminated in my complaint sent to the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner almost a decade ago.
It was like waking from a nightmare to see the call for input to inform the Special Rapporteur on this issue concerning violence against women and children. My thanks to God and the United Nations for focusing a light on the devastating practice of our courts in the United States of America of giving no respect to the women and children who report abuse, beg for relief and are retaliated against by the judges who are supposed to protect them.
My struggle against the Court devoured 16 years of my life. There were several corrupt judges who presided, including Commissioner Alan H. Friedenthal (retired and deceased), Judge Elizabeth R. Feffer (retired), and Judge Marjorie S. Steinberg (retired). Mr. Friedenthal was a lifetime friend of an enemy to me, and I believe that, besides being an abusive man himself, he severed my parental rights as a political favor.
Fox news did a story about Commissioner Alan Friedenthal called “Lost in the System: Imbalanced Justice” that can still be found on YouTube. My work writing about the court corruption was featured in the piece.
These dishonorable people severed my parental rights completely. They then added insult to injury by charging me hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars for “child support”. I was gifted over $400,000 of non-liquid assets by my parents in 2009. Judge Feffer said this was my “income” and used the figure as an annual income to calculate child support. Eventually I was able to liquidate the property and had to give $279,000 to my former abuser, to reward him for separating my children and me completely.
The California State Court of Appeals, California Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court did nothing to help us.
“Luckily” my oldest son had behavioral problems that subjected him to juvenile court. We were blessed to have a good judge there who placed my then 17-year-old son with me 100% of the time. I was told that he would probably need to be institutionalized his entire life. Instead, he earned a college degree and is a wonderful father himself now. But he fell far below his potential for being a productive member of society. Before he was ripped away from me, he tested at the top of the charts for academic ability. Because of the lack of justice in our courts, he went to community college instead of MIT.
My younger son and I had no communication for five years, from the time he was 13 until three days before his 18th birthday. I am surprised I was not arrested and incarcerated when I violated the custody order those three days.
My younger son, who is brilliant and has a sweet soul, has not finished community college. He wanted to be a doctor like my father or to write computer programs, but instead he delivers pizza and does light construction. He has earned a real estate license but cannot afford to support himself through the initial months before earning a commission. He has PTSD and struggles with feelings of abandonment.
The worst damage is that we missed so much time together and my sons were taught that I abandoned them. No matter how illogical that is, considering that I took my fight for custody to the Supreme Court, twice, it is a permanent scar on their psyche.
My older son also has a permanent physical scar above his eye from when his father punched him in the face. (He was tried on criminal charges, and found not guilty. Still he retained 100% custody of my younger son.)
Eventually I was able to have the Committee on Judicial Performance convince the California Supreme Court to give a public admonishment against Commissioner Alan Friedenthal for the appearance of bias on my case. But the Draconian orders he and Judge Feffer made were left in place.
Several other judges have recused themselves from cases where I was a litigant since then. Unfortunately, some not so honest judges refused to recuse and instead use their position of power to punish me further for speaking out against the politically connected judicial officer.
Years have passed, but I am being tormented by Judge Janis L. Sammartino, Judge Todd W. Robinson and Judge Linda Lopez in a simple civil case in Federal District Court in the Southern District of California. I think it is retaliation for exposing the commissioner who was disciplined on my child custody case. I can think of no other reason three intelligent judges would ignore my most basic rights on the civil case.
I am diagnosed with PTSD, in large part caused by the trauma of losing my children to an abusive man and being let down so terribly by the people who are tasked with serving justice.
Thank you to the United Nations for any wake-up call it issues to the world. We need to stop these monsters from destroying the lives of our children and their loving mothers.
One Small Win for Laura Lynn; One Big Step for Justice
The United Nations is taking up a fight against injustice that I brought to their attention almost a decade ago.
About 2006, I started commenting on chat boards about corrupt court systems. Then I got hired by a now defunct online paper called Examiner.com, covering the family court in Southern California. Then I started this blog. About 2013, my computer was stolen, and thousands of posts were deleted by the thief. When they say to back up your work, believe them. When I get some spare time (to go with my spare change) I will repost a few of the stories that were gifted to me by a friend who saved hard copies.
My interest in the topic grew out of my own experiences, losing most of my parental rights to a man who I divorced after (I allege) he became physically abusive with me and our children. I don’t talk about that abuse much, but it is important to this story.
The family law courts in my case were presided over by Alan H. Friedenthal and Judge Elizabeth Feffer predominantly.
I appealed their orders and lost.
I went to the California Supreme Court and was denied review.
I went to the United States Supreme Court and was denied review.
My last step was applying to the United Nation’s Office of the High Commissioner. That was around 2013.
This morning I read some great news! Thank you to one of the women who helped in the fight to correct the horrible injustice being done in our family courts who sent the link to me.
Here is the press release. The formatting won’t work, but you can download the original at the bottom.
I can’t say it was my complaint that caused the UN to take action. I am sure it helped. To be able to have the Commissioner read a complaint, the complainant must first exhaust her remedies in her country, meaning a U.S. citizen must first file a petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court. I did.
Never give up.
Get loud.
Call for inputs – Custody cases, violence against women and violence against children
ISSUED BY
Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences
DEADLINE
15 December 2022
Purpose To inform the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls’ report on the nexus between custody and guardianship cases, violence against women and violence against children, with a focus on the abuse of the concept of “parental alienation” and related or similar concepts.
Background
Globally, 1 in 3 women has experienced violence in their lives – most of it taking place within the home or family. The COVID-19 pandemic considerably increased domestic violence in many countries, which implemented lockdown and confinement measures that also reduced women’s ability to report or seek assistance and protection. While many measures are adopted to tackle this silent pandemic, both at the national and the international levels, not enough attention is given to the interconnections between domestic violence and abuse and issues of child custody and parental relations.
In 2019, the Platform of independent expert mechanisms on the elimination of discrimination and violence against women (EDVAW platform), of which the Special Rapporteur is a member, voiced its concern over patterns across various jurisdictions of the world that ignore intimate partner violence against women in determining child custody cases. Since then, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls has received reports and cases from different countries all over the world, in which such violence has been ignored and mothers have been penalized for making allegations by law enforcement and/or the judiciary responsible for determining custody cases.
The tendency to dismiss the history of domestic violence and abuse in custody cases extends to cases where mothers or children have brought forward credible allegations of child physical or sexual abuse. In several countries, family courts tend to judge such allegations as deliberate efforts by the mothers to manipulate their child and pull them away from their father. This supposed effort by a parent alleging abuse is often termed “parental alienation.” The term generally refers to the presumption that a child’s fear or rejection of one parent, typically the noncustodial parent, stems from the malevolent influence of the preferred, typically the custodial parent.
Although these concepts lack a universal clinical or scientific definition, emerging patterns across various jurisdictions of the world indicate courts worldwide are using the concept of “parental alienation” or similar concepts explicitly or are allowing for its instrumentalization. The vast majority of those accused of ‘alienating’ their child while alleging abuse are women. Consequently, many women victims of violence and abuse face double victimization as they are punished for alleging abuse, including by losing custody or at times being imprisoned. Children who are victims of violence and abuse by a parent (in many cases the father) often continue to be subjected to such violence and abuse, against themselves and/or the other parent (in most cases the mother) post-separation, through imposed contact with the abusive parent. These dynamics often allow parents to be intimidated, coerced or forced by their abusive ex-partners and pressured by the courts to withdraw their allegations of abuse or to agree to a specific custody arrangement. In many instances, when given the risk of losing contact with their children and the high impunity the violence committed by their partner, women end up withdrawing their allegations or not reporting at all. According to experts, in many cases, the perpetrators of violence have deliberately inflicted violence on their children as a continuation of the violence inflicted on their partner who is the parent of their children and therefore a continuation of the attempt and process of controlling the target (i.e. the mother).
Several reasons account for the regular and widespread dismissal of intimate partner violence history and incidents by family courts when examining custody cases. These include harmful gender stereotypes and discriminatory gender bias among family law judges. Often, gender stereotypes are aided and abetted by discriminatory status laws in some countries, many of which are motivated by cultural, religious and social grounds. A very powerful bias, shared by many welfare and judicial systems, is that the right of a father to maintain contact with his children should override any other consideration. This is often justified with reference to the “the best interest of the child”, so that it is argued that the child’s best interest is to maintain contact with their father under all circumstances, even if the father has been abusive towards the mother or the child.
In its General Recommendation No. 33 of 2015 on women’s access to justice, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women recognized that stereotypes and gender prejudices in the judicial system impede access to justice and may particularly affect women, victims and survivors of violence. The Committee further recognized that such stereotyping could cause judges to misrepresent or misapply the law and can result in perpetrators of violence not being held legally accountable for violations of women’s rights, thereby upholding a culture of impunity.
Under international law, States have a responsibility to take all measures necessary to prevent violence against women and children. According to article 5 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, States have an obligation to ensure that gender stereotyping is addressed and dealt with adequately. Furthermore, article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child provides that the right for the child should be protected from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury, abuse, or maltreatment, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parents. Where it occurs, the failure to address intimate partner violence and violence against children in custody rights and visitation decisions is a form of violence against women and their children and a violation of the human rights to life and security that could amount to torture. It also violates the best interest of the child legal standard.
In 2014, the CEDAW Committee recommended that any history of domestic violence and abuse must be considered when determining visitation schedules to ensure that these do not endanger women or children. In the case Gonzalez Carreño versus Spain (2014), where an abusive father murdered his daughter and then took his own life during an unsupervised visit, the Committee found that, by ordering unsupervised visits without giving sufficient consideration to the background of domestic violence, Spanish authorities had failed to fulfil their due diligence obligations under the Convention (para. 9.7). Since then, the CEDAW Committee has issued a number of Concluding Observations in which it directed States Parties to abolish the use of the concept of parental alienation in court cases, and conduct compulsory judicial training on domestic violence, including on the effect that exposure to domestic violence has on children. Regional monitoring bodies such as GREVIO, which monitors the Istanbul Convention, and MESECVI, which follows up on the implementation of the Belem do Paro Convention, have also made similar requests.
Despite a strong indication that the parental alienation concept has become a tool for denial of domestic and child abuse, leading to further discrimination and harm to women and children, data on the treatment of the history of intimate partner violence and other forms of domestic violence and abuse when family courts assess custody cases continues to be limited. Data is also limited regarding the degree to which family courts use a gender analysis in their decisions.
Given the correlation between the resort to the concept of parental alienation and the persistence of gender-based violence against women, the topic requires urgent attention. A holistic and coordinated approach based on the existing international and regional standards is required in such cases at the national level, not only to uphold the principle of the best interest of the child but also the principle of non-discrimination against women and equality between women and men. This approach is confirmed by jurisprudence of various international courts, UN treaty bodies and other relevant mechanisms.
Objectives
The aim of this report is to examine the ways in which family courts in different world regions refer to parental alienation, or similar concepts, in custody cases and how this may lead to double victimisation of victims of domestic violence of abuse. It also aims to document the many ways in which family courts ignore the history and existence of domestic and family violence and abuse in the context of custody cases, as well as their grave consequences on mothers and their children. It hopes to draw attention to the scale and manifestation in many countries, spanning all regions of the World. The report will also offer recommendations for States and other stakeholders to address the situation.
The Special Rapporteur kindly seeks the support of States, National Human Rights Institutions, civil society actors, international organizations, academics, and other stakeholders to provide updated information on:
- The different manifestations or specific types of domestic and intimate partner violence experienced by women and children, including the use of “parental alienation” and related concepts in child custody and access cases. Please also include a description of the different forms of violence that may be experienced by the mother and child as well as fundamental human rights violations, where relevant.
- The factors behind the increased number of allegations of parental alienation cases in custody battles and/or disputes involving allegations of domestic violence and abuse against women, and its differentiated impact on specific groups of women and children.
- The way in which different groups of women and children experience this phenomenon differently based on any intersecting elements such as age, sex, gender, race, ethnicity, legal residence, religious or political belief or other considerations and the factors that contribute to these situations.
- The role that professionals play, including welfare workers, child protection services, guardian ad-litem, psychologists, psychiatrists, and how they are regulated in any way as expert witnesses.
- The consequences of the disregard for the history of domestic violence and abuse and intimate partner violence or the penalising of such allegations in custody cases on the human rights of both the mother and the child, and the interrelationship between these rights.
- The challenges in collecting disaggregated data on courts’ practices concerning custody cases, the areas/sectors for which data is particularly lacking and the reasons for such challenges.
- The good practices, strategies adopted by different organs of the State or other non-State actors, at local, national, regional, or international level to improve the due consideration of domestic and family violence, including intimate partner violence against women and abuse of children in determining child custody, as well as in providing remedies and redress for victims/survivors.
- Recommendations for preventing the inadequate consideration of a history of domestic violence and abuse and gender stereotyping in custody cases to restore the human rights of mothers and their children, as well as ensure that survivors/victims are effectively protected and assisted.
- Any other issue of relevance that are vital for consideration but that may not have been mentioned in this call for inputs.
Whenever possible and available, inputs should provide updated quantitative and disaggregated data on the issues presented.
All submissions will be published on the mandate webpage on the OHCHR website, unless otherwise indicated in your submission.
Next Steps
Inputs should be sent by e-mail by 15 December 2022
E-mail address:
hrc-sr-vaw@un.org
E-mail subject line:
Input for SR VAWG’s report on violence against women and children in custody cases
Word limit:
2,000 words
File formats:
Word, PDF
Accepted languages:
Arabic, English, French, Spanish
Is Judge Linda Lopez Any Better Than A Mafia Thug? No.
I filed the following opposition yesterday, setting up for an appeal of a punitive fee shifting judgment in Federal District Court for the Southern District of California.
The format doesn’t transfer well, and I am up against another big deadline on a different case. Sorry.
The pdf is posted at the bottom with a pdf you can download of the accompanying brief.
Judges decide what the legislature meant when it authorizes an award of “reasonable attorney fees”. Precedence is to use a supply and demand standard and call it the “prevailing rate”. The judges decide that lawyers can charge $460 per hour and still drum up enough business to keep all lawyers busy.
Of course, this is a fallacy. No one would hire the lawyers if the judges didn’t force them to. Most lawyers would be out of work if it was up to We the People.
TO: THE COURT AND ALL PARTIES OF RECORD:
I, Laura Lynn Hammett (“Plaintiff”), for this Plaintiff’s Opposition to Defendants
Ellis Roy Stern, Alan G. Goldberg and Stern & Goldberg’s (together “S & G”) Combined
Motion for Attorney’ Fees (ECF No. 271) state:
The Court issued an order (ECF No. 284) on my ex parte motion to strike S & G’s
motion for attorney fees (ECF No. 282).
The Court’s opinion, inter alia: “This Court’s prior orders already determined that the
S&G Defendants and MKZ Defendants were prevailing parties, based on the Court’s
analysis under Coltrain v. Shewalter, 66 Cal. App. 4th 94 (1998), and awarded fees to the
Attorney Defendants for expenses incurred up to the Court’s initial order granting fees.
See ECF Nos. 111 at 48; 266 at 9-10. In other words, the substance of the present fee
motions is not whether Plaintiff’s claims against the Attorney Defendants was barred by
the anti-SLAPP statute or whether an award of fees is mandatory under that statute, but
whether the fees sought by the Attorney Defendants is reasonable.”
The Court is wrong again. The “law of the case” is not controlling where it is a clear
error, such as here. The law of the case is not controlling where the judge who wrote it
appeared to have a bias and should have recused. The law of the case is not controlling
before it is affirmed by the Court of Appeals.
Therefore, I am reasserting my previous arguments against awarding any attorney fees
pursuant to Cal. Code Civ. Proc. Sec. 425.16(C)(1) in order to preserve the arguments for
appeal.
My repeated arguments:
- The Court appeared to have a bias and retaliated against me for complaining about
clerk “JPP” altering the docket, then altering it back without indication on the
docket after I told him I had a copy of the unaltered version. Until she was recused,
which never happened, the proceedings were tainted. - The derivative cause of action for legal malpractice arising from S & G’s dual
representation of Silver Strand Plaza, LLC (“SSP”) and individual members of SSP
and all proceedings based on it that cause of action are null and void because I filed
on behalf of a limited liability company. - Neither cause of action against S & G was Strategic Litigation Against Public
Participation (“SLAPP”), therefore failing the first prong of the anti-SLAPP test. - The “voluntary dismissal” was mandated. That is why I dismissed the causes and
there can therefore be no presumption that S & G was the prevailing party. - The denial of leave to hire an attorney on limited scope made equal protection for
me impossible because I am not a net-worth-elite person. The Southern District of
California is split from other districts in the Circuit and throughout the country.
The result of having no mechanism to retain limited scope representation is to
render the “anti-SLAPP” statute, Cal. Code Civ. Proc. Sec. 425.16(C)(1)
unconstitutional as applied in the Southern District of California. (A notice
pursuant to FRCP 5.1 will be filed and served with a copy of these papers promptly
on the Attorney General of the State of California by certified mail or
electronically.)
I am adding argument pursuant to intervening-change-in-law that was issued October
20, 2022, Wakefield v. ViSalus, Inc., 2022 WL 11530386 United States Court of Appeals,
Ninth Circuit, that questions the constitutionality of awarding an oppressive award, even
if mandated by statute.
The aggregate attorney fee awards against me are unreasonable, oppressive and
violate my Constitutional rights, and therefore, if not reversed should be reduced
drastically.
I am asking this Court to deny any further attorney fees to S & G and will ask the
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the prior orders which were based on clear
error.
This opposition is based on this Plaintiff’s Opposition to Defendants Ellis Roy Stern,
Alan G. Goldberg and Stern & Goldberg’s Combined Motion for Attorney’ Fees, the
accompanying Brief Memorandum of Points and Authorities, the Affidavit of Laura Lynn
Hammett, as well as the pleadings and papers filed herein, and any oral argument
presented at the time of hearing, should the Court desire oral argument.
Respectfully submitted,
Is it Real or is it Parody? I Couldn’t Make This Shit Up.
The following post is a press release from a fantastic outfit called Institute for Justice. They take up legal issues involving judicial corruption and legislation that denies our constitutional rights.
I wish I had more time to look for gems on their site, but I’m on a five-day countdown to filing my own appellate brief about what I believe was an illegal taking of my real property.
So here is a link for you. https://ij.org/about-us/
And here is a story about government officials trying to shut down a fun Facebook page that parodied police.
A handful of people called the police station to ask if the stories were true.
Just so you know, my own stories posted on this blog are true to the best of my knowledge and belief. But then, Judge Lee P. Rudofsky would point out that a “belief is not a fact”. Uh, Judge R., did you take third grade math? Sets and numbers. All sports are not baseball, but baseball is a sport. All boys are not Bobby, but Bobby is a boy. All my jokes are funny, but not all funny jokes are mine.
Okay, it was a long day. Enjoy the read.
*****************
The Babylon Bee, a right-leaning satirical news site, joined The Onion in calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to take up Novak v. Parma and clearly protect the right of parody under the First Amendment. Anthony Novak was arrested and prosecuted for a felony after he made an obviously fake Facebook page mocking his local Parma Police Department. Anthony’s lawsuit for the violation of his civil rights was thrown out after the officers were granted qualified immunity.
“Parody is fundamental to free speech and the broad support for Anthony demonstrates why the Supreme Court needs to take up his case and affirm his First Amendment rights,” said IJ Senior Attorney Patrick Jaicomo. “No one should be arrested for making jokes online and no one feels that more than people who do it for a living. We thank both The Babylon Bee and The Onion for stepping up to defend free speech.”
At the same time the Babylon Bee filed their brief with the Court, it also released its own parody brief on its website claiming: “We Have Filed an Amicus Brief Arguing That Parody Is Dangerous.” The humorous brief, formatted just like a real brief, purports to support the Parma Police Department and city of Parma while the actual brief filed with the Court clearly supports Anthony Novak’s suit against the two.
As with The Onion’s brief, The Babylon Bee argues strongly against the notion that the police should receive qualified immunity from Anthony’s suit because he did not include a disclaimer on his Facebook page saying it was parody. Both sites point to numerous examples of their “fake news” being taken seriously by some individuals.
In addition to the amicus briefs from the two parody sites, the Cato Institute, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and the Rutherford Institute offered their support for the Court taking up the case.
The Cato brief asks the Court to clarify that the First Amendment protects social media. Additionally, the brief points out that Anthony’s parody was speech, not conduct. Anthony was prosecuted for “impeding police operations” even though his parody only resulted in a handful of people calling the police non-emergency line and was only online for 12 hours.
The FIRE brief points out the absurdity of qualified immunity’s requirement that plaintiffs point to another case with similar facts before their own lawsuit can move forward. This led the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to initially deny qualified immunity in the suit and then later grant it when more facts had been established in the case, but still the case went before a jury.
The Rutherford Institute brief focuses on how the 6th Circuit distorted the standard for probable cause in order to grant qualified immunity. The brief also maintains that all of the acts that prompted the arrest are clearly established protected speech.
“These amicus briefs show that people across the political spectrum agree that what happened to Anthony was wrong, and that the Supreme Court should take his case to ensure that the officers who arrested him will be held accountable for their unconstitutional actions.” said IJ Attorney Caroline Grace Brothers.
Institute For Justice Takes on Tyranical Judges like………………Susan Kaye Weaver of Arkansas
Great news! The Institute for Justice (IJ) teamed up with a West Virginia man whose rights were violated by a Raleigh County family court judge. IJ and Matthew Gibson are urging the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a lower court’s ruling that Judge Louise Goldston was not entitled to judicial immunity after she abruptly halted a court hearing, ordered everyone present to go to Matthew’s house, searched through his belongings without a warrant, and threatened to arrest him when he began recording the encounter.
Judicial immunity is a judge-made doctrine that shields judges from being held civilly liable when they violate someone’s rights while acting in their judicial capacity.
“Judicial immunity should only apply when judges are actually acting as judges. Leading a search party is not acting like a judge,” said IJ Attorney Tori Clark. “The lower court was completely correct when it denied Judge Goldston’s claim that she was entitled to judicial immunity, and we urge the Appeals Court to uphold that ruling.”
The incident occurred in March 2020 during a divorce proceeding between Matthew and his ex-wife, at which Matthew had no legal representation. Judge Goldston abruptly ended the hearing, asked Matthew for his address, and ordered Matthew, his ex-wife, her attorney, and several law enforcement officers to go to Matthew’s home. When they arrived at the home, Judge Goldston led a search party through Matthew’s home, including his basement and gun safe. Matthew told the judge she could not enter his home without a warrant, to which she responded, “Oh yeah, I will.”
As the search party progressed, Matthew’s ex-wife claimed several items in the home belonged to her. Each time she did so, Judge Goldston ordered her to take them, even though some of them actually belonged to Matthew or his kids.
While Matthew’s ex-wife grabbed the possessions, Judge Goldston made herself at home, walking barefoot through the house and lounging in Matthew’s rocking chair. Matthew and his girlfriend attempted to record the encounter, but Judge Goldston threatened him with arrest and ordered one of the bailiffs to seize his phone.
“It was incredibly frustrating to have my rights and my privacy violated that day,” Matthew said. “This lawsuit is about standing up for my rights and ensuring other people have a way to get justice when their rights are violated.”
Judge Goldston’s actions were so far out of bounds that they received widespread condemnation. She was charged with multiple ethics violations, censured, and fined. The West Virginia High Court even condemned her actions as unbecoming of a judge.
“When a judge acts like a police officer and leads a search party, that threatens the neutrality of the judicial process and chips away at a bedrock American principle: the separation of powers,” said IJ Attorney Anya Bidwell. “Judges don’t get to act like police simply because they think they can do a better job.”
When Matthew sued Judge Goldston for violating his constitutional rights, she asserted that she was entitled to judicial immunity and that Matthew’s claims should thus be thrown out. However, the federal district court rejected her claim because her actions were clearly not judicial. Judge Goldston appealed the trial court’s decision to the Fourth Circuit, claiming that she should be entitled to immunity and that Matthew’s case should be thrown out. Now, Matthew has teamed up with IJ to ensure the lower court’s decision remains in place and that Judge Goldston isn’t above the law simply because she wears a robe.
As part of its Project on Immunity and Accountability, IJ has been standing up against various forms of immunities that prevent Americans from receiving justice when their rights are violated by government officials. Those cases include one where police officers claimed qualified immunity after arresting an Ohio man for making a parody Facebook page, another where a road-raging police officer claimed qualified immunity after he blocked a man in his driveway and held him at gunpoint for passing the officer on the road, and yet another one where a mayor, a chief of police, and a special investigator engineered a scheme to throw a 72-year-old council woman in jail for speaking out against their ally, a city manager. These doctrines are inconsistent with America’s founding principle that where there is a right, there must be a remedy.
Check out the story and learn about IJ’s other projects by clicking here:
Is Federal Judge Linda Lopez for the Southern District of California Cognitively Impaired or Purposefully Abusive?
My time is full, so I’ll keep my comments brief. But writing to you, my friends, helps my thoughts gel for my appeal.
Judge Linda Lopez issued a few orders in a case in which I am plaintiff in pro se.
Here is an excerpt from one:
Plaintiff argues that the award of attorneys’ fees to the Attorney Defendants should
be vacated because the legal malpractice cause of action alleged, and later voluntarily
dismissed, was a derivative cause of action that Plaintiff could not properly assert as a party
appearing pro se and without license to practice law. ECF No. 177-2 at 2. In support of her
argument, Plaintiff cites to City of Downey v. Johnson, 263 Cal. App. 2d 775 (1968),
Russell v. Dopp, 36 Cal. App. 4th 765 (1995) and Davis Test Only Smog Testing v. Dep’t
of Consumer Affairs, 15 Cal. App. 5th 1009 (2017).
Though the factual circumstances of each case differ from those in this case and
from each other, the three cases cited by Plaintiff generally stand for the proposition that a
judgment obtained by an unlicensed person representing another cannot be sustained. See
Johnson, 263 Cal. App. 2d at 783 (“[W]e have a lay person not a member in good standing
of any bar practicing law illegally, although perhaps unwittingly. We therefore feel
constrained to hold the judgment invalid[.]”); Russell, 36 Cal. App. 4th at 775 (“an
unlicensed person cannot appear . . . for another person, and . . . the resulting judgment is
a nullity”); Davis Test Only Smog Testing, 15 Cal. App. 5th at 1016 (quoting the language
in Russell). Because no judgment was rendered on Plaintiff’s now-dismissed claims against
the Attorney Defendants, none of the cases cited by Plaintiff support a finding of clear error
by this Court.
*********
So, if I understand Judge Lopez correctly, she proposes that legal proceedings advocated by a person unlicensed to practice law on behalf of a different “person” (natural or legal entity) are not void, unless a judgment is rendered. And she does not count an order of dismissal as a “judgment”.
So Judge Lopez’ soul sister, Judge Susan Weaver of Arkansas denied me the right to advocate for myself as trustee, settlor and sole beneficiary of a trust, because she said, “as far as the Living Trust, she’s not an attorney and can’t represent them”. But Linda Lopez says that complaints and motions based on those complaints are perfectly valid, as long as they are dismissed, and attorney fee awards paying her fellow attorneys almost $100,000 based on the unauthorized advocacy are perfectly valid.
Judge Linda Lopez is Not a People Person
Judge Linda Lopez was recently promoted from Magistrate Judge to Federal District Court Judge in the Southern District of California.
When I have more time, I will analyze her orders in depth.
Today, I will post a motion I filed this morning that you can download and a related motion I filed yesterday.
Briefly, attorney defendants represented by attorneys were granted an anti-SLAPP motion against me for causes of action that are not covered by the anti-SLAPP statute, legal malpractice and conversion. They were granted fees, of course.
I tried to make an interlocutory appeal as provided for in California CCP sec. 425.16(i) and 904.1. The Ninth Circuit would not consider the matter until all claims against all parties were dismissed.
I tried to have the order vacated, in part because the Judge who granted it, Janis L. Sammartino, was biased against me and refused to recuse herself before making the order. Judge Linda Lopez was the first magistrate judge on the case and appears to have the same venomous bias.
The Attorney Defendants then filed two separate motions for attorney fees incurred after the initial award.
Judge Lopez has a good rule. She requires parties who are filing substantially similar motions asking for the same relief to file a consolidated motion.
I made an ex parte motion asking to combine my response to both sets of movants. I mentioned that they violated the rule about consolidation.
Judge Lopez ordered the Clerk to strike my motion because I failed to follow another rule that says parties must meet and confer before filing an ex parte motion.
My friends and even my enemies know I am ill. It is not critical. Y’all are stuck with me for a few more years anyhow, barring a catastrophic injury.
It is difficult to always act with the grace I wish for.
So, I decided that since Judge Linda Lopez was going to hold me to the rules, I am going to zealously pursue my own interests and have the redundant motions stricken. I anticipate Judge Lopez will find for the Attorney Defendants, but not because they are right.
UPDATE: Judge Linda Lopez denied my motion to strike. No surprise. She said that since I said both responses are substantially the same, with just the names changed, that I must file the two separate responses. Since there is an aggregate page count for all motions due on the same day, she halved the allowable length of my response.
What Jesus had to Say to Lawyers
45 Then answered one of the lawyers, and said unto him, Master, thus saying thou reproachest us also.
46 And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.
47 Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
48 Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres.
49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute:
50 That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation;
51 From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.
52 Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.
53 And as he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things:
54 Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him.
KJV public domain but with thanks to BibleGateway.com
Reverse Robin Hood: How Rich Legal System Insiders Rob from the Poor (and Middle Class)
What is your hourly wage? $15? $100?
Or are you an attorney who charges $250 to $550 per hour? And do you double bill your time shamelessly?
The attorney does have to pay his rent out of that astronomical fee. But he charges the client for his assistant and secretarial time on top of his hourly wage.
But, lawyers argue, regular folk are not required to hire an attorney. They can do the work themselves, if it is on their own behalf.
Except that so many judges have a bias against self-represented litigants. I have had judges base decisions against me on sentences the judges misquoted. (Judge Lee P. Rudofsky did this to me.) I have had a judge act with such an appearance of bias he received public discipline. (Former Commissioner Alan H. Friedenthal, deceased.) I have had Judge Susan Weaver do mental contortions in order to transfer ownership of 40 acres with a beautiful cabin from me as trustee to a man who wrote his intentions to defraud me in an exhibit that I showed to the judge.
Judge Weaver relied on the interpretation of the law against the unauthorized practice of law to apply to trustees who try to represent the interests of all the persons involved in the trust relationship.
My contention is that since I am the sole beneficiary, grantor and trustee, and I removed all contingent beneficiaries, I am allowed to represent everyone in the trust relationship now. This is a question that may need to be decided by SCOTUS.
Most trusts would not want to remove contingent beneficiaries. One of the main reasons to create a trust is to avoid probate. Judge Weaver drained my trust of all assets and gave a judgment against the trust that would make it foolish to put any more assets into the trust. So, as is, the trust was useless for the terminated contingent beneficiaries.
Even without a corrupt judge on the case, lawyers are expensive. As an individual I have a case on appeal involving an LLC. The actual money damages in the case are capped at about $120,000. An award of emotional distress and punitive damages is highly speculative. The attorney fees on a similar case were about $1M. No attorney wants to take this case on contingency. It does not make cents for them. (Pardon my pun.)
If you don’t already have “extra money” laying around, like $1,000,000, your trust will not be able to afford attorney fees.
If anyone sues the trustee for trust assets, the poor and middle-class trusts will be forced to settle or maybe just lose everything. The trusts will be drained of assets whether by the trustee’s attorney or the opposing party.
This is a serious disincentive for anyone but the affluent to create a trust.
One attorney estimated probate costs to be four times as high as creating a trust that avoids probate. (4% of assets instead of 1%)
As with sales tax, the less money a person has, the more probate costs hurt. Their heirs, of course.
A Higher Law 