Announcing: Free Doc of the Day
Downloadable File Stamped Court Crap
This is NOT legal advice.
Heck, sometimes judges like Billy Roy Wilson in the Eastern District of Arkansas would dismiss my case or deny my motion without waiting for a response from my opponent. (Billy Roy Wilson is his real name. If I was being snarky, I would have called him Billy Bob.)
Before I attained pauper status, maybe because of it, I paid $800 per month for a Westlaw subscription.
(Hint: You can visit a law library and use its subscription for free. The internal search engine is fantastic. Once you find the documents you want to study and cite, you can email them to yourself by clicking a button and typing your email address. The only disadvantage to this is you need to drive there during normal hours and I don’t suggest wearing your robe or a towel turban on your head.)
I used to email my documents to Westlaw at west.briefsandtrialdocsubmissions@thomson.com to the Content Specialist. I haven’t tried this since letting my subscription lapse.
Usually, they wrote back. “Thank you for your submission. The document will be loaded to Westlaw within 3 business days. We appreciate your contributions to our database.”
I knew I was on Santa’s naughty list when they wrote, “Thank you for your submission. We will consider adding your document to our database.”
Here are two accepted documents, a motion to disqualify Judge Janis L. Sammartino and an affidavit in support. Enjoy the read.
It is usually a pleasure to hear from my readers. Especially if you have some dirt about judicial officers you want to share. I honor requests for confidentiality or to protect my sources. Bohemian_books@yahoo.com
Judge Lee P. Rudofsky Cover-up of Litigation Misconduct
Judge Rudofsky in the Federal District Court of Eastern Arkansas gave summary judgment to the defendant in my FDCPA and Invasion of Privacy case against Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC yesterday.
I tried to apologize about my blog posts to Judge Rudofsky during my closing arguments at a telephonic hearing. The judge, who is usually polite, cut me short. He said not to apologize and explained that he values the First Amendment.
Some advice I got from my sister Roberta Kramer who was an attorney, is to always accept a compliment. If someone says you look nice today, don’t retort, “Oh no! I have this big zit on my nose!”
My corollary is, always accept an apology.
It is not easy for a person to apologize. It helps the person who is apologizing. You may find your common ground with the apologetic person. And it may help you to understand your contribution to the conflict.
For example, if a husband says, “I am sorry I was so grumpy today when we were driving in that horrible traffic”, the respectful wife will accept his apology. “Thank you, my love. It was frustrating, and it was kind of you to keep me company. I know how much you hate driving in a busy city.”
So, here is my apology in full.
I am sorry for any embarrassment or disrespect Judge Rudofsky feels from my posts.
That does not mean that I wrote or intend to write anything false or malicious. As he recognized, I have not written anything threatening.
It is like this. Once when my son was about four years old, we were walking in the supermarket parking lot. There were two morbidly obese people walking in front of us. My son shrieked in his loudest voice, “Look how fat they are Mom!”
OMG. I was mortified. Even remembering the story, my face gets red from embarrassment. I am sorry my son said that.
But they were fat.
There was just no advantage to my son speaking his observations out loud. Not that loud.
There is, hopefully, a good purpose for me to write about corrupt, unethical, or plain stupid acts by judicial officers. Even though most citizens have lost faith in our legal system, there is still a chance we can bring it back to what it was meant to be. A way to provide justice for all.
So, here is today’s exposé.
In the litigation, the lawyers for Portfolio Recovery lied. For example, James Trefil of Troutman Pepper (AKA Troutman Sanders) said PRA changed the balance on my account from $2,297.63 to zero “in light of the litigation”. He expanded by saying the debt was “waived”. But there was no 1099-C cancellation of debt issued within the time required by the IRS.
It is PRA’s known practice to issue 1099-Cs when it cancels a debt. Even if the debtor disputes the debt. Do a Dogpile search of “Portfolio Recovery Associates issued me a 1099-C” and you will find plenty of reading to fill your spare time.
Judge Rudofsky was not persuaded by what he called the “inference” that can be made from that. The judge said no reasonable juror can think that PRA set the balance to zero and did not issue a 1099-C because their investigation showed there was no credible evidence the debt was mine. In fact, he said the debt was mine. (That is a subtle error that I will address at the Court of Appeals. It is telling that Judge Rudofsky is well aware of the subtle difference when establishing PRA’s innocence on my case. He knew it was my burden to prove the debt did not exist on an FDCPA claim but ignored that the debtor’s lack of proof is not enough to establish there was a debt in a case against the debtor.)
Worse, PRA submitted business records that were falsified. I pointed out some of the falsifications. Judge Rudofsky ignored those obvious fraudulent exhibits.
Worse, I cannot give you specifics. I cannot post two documents created by PRA with conflicting data side by side. Because Judge Rudofsky allowed the fraudulent documents to be filed under seal.
Before yesterday’s hearing, the jury was out on Lee P. The jury is now in.
It sorrows me to say, guilty.
Email: bohemian_books@yahoo.com
Is Judge Lee P. Rudofsky Out of His Mind?
I am spending another beautiful day that I should be hiking – reading through the documents in my case against debt buyer Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Publicly traded PRA Group, Inc.
What I am reading is making me want to spit. The title I really want to use for this post: “Is Judge Lee P. Rudofsky Out of His Fucking Mind?”
I am trying to tone things down, as the team of attorneys defending PRA has taken to giving copies of selected posts to the Judge. Here is the response Judge Rudofsky wrote as a text entry on the docket last time.
“ORDER: In Defendant’s Reply Brief 204 , Defendant included what appeared to be blog posts [204-3] that Ms. Hammett has written about this case. My review of the brief required a review of the blog posts. And that raises a question for the parties. In my mind, my knowledge of the existence and content of these blog posts does not require recusal under either 28 U.S.C. 455 or the applicable judicial canons. While Ms. Hammett expresses strong disagreement with some of my rulings, and sometimes does so with strong or colorful language, nothing in the posts strikes me as so insulting or personally antagonistic that it requires or counsels my recusal. It is true that one of her posts could be read as saying she “hates” me, but that would be taking her words out of context. What she actually said was that I was “a Judge [she] hate[s] to hate.” In that context, the impact of the word “hate” is mitigated almost entirely. It is also
true that, in her posts, she called me “sneaky,” “dangerous,” and “dishonorable, “as well as implying I am not an honest Judge. But, again, in context she was really just disagreeing with my rulings and the way I recited the record in my summary judgment decision. That kind of criticism (from non-lawyers) of public
officials, including judges, is expected, entirely fair game, and part of what makes this country great. Of course, I disagree with her characterizations of my motives. But her statements and words are not the type of personal invective that would make it difficult to remain impartial. Having said all of that, if either party believes that recusal is required or appropriate here, that party should file a recusal motion no later than 14 days from the date of this order. If that occurs, the other party will have 7 days to respond. Signed by Judge Lee P. Rudofsky on 3/16/2023. (hml) (Entered: 03/16/2023)”
I read an article about how generally the protagonist of a story must be likable, but some of the great protagonists were not. Think Dorian Gray and Anna Karenina.
Well, Judge Rudofsky will be a likable antagonist in any book that comes of this ordeal.
What can his motivations be for misquoting me, saying that I agreed that I owed a debt to PRA? He is not mentally challenged, like Judge Susan Kaye Weaver. It is pretty clear that I disagree about the alleged debt. Here, read this and you be the judge.
Email: bohemian_books@yahoo.com
Thousands of Free Downloadable Pages of a Federal Case in the Southern District of California
For those of you who cannot afford to purchase Federal Court documents from PACER, but are not poor enough to qualify for a fee waiver:
This is a mundane case about LLC members who allegedly ripped off one of the members. There are two important issues raised within.
One. What is the effect of wrongdoing by the clerk of the court and the judges condoning that misconduct?
Two. Is it a denial of due process for the court to deny pro se (self-represented) litigants assistance of counsel on a limited scope or for special appearances, while extending the right to people who can afford counsel to hire several firms, most with several attorneys and fully staffed with paralegals?
Here are the appellate brief, responses and excerpts of record produced by the defendants’ lawyers. I have not read through all of it yet. I did write all the plaintiff’s documents and read all the respondents’ trial court documents as they were filed.
I think the excerpts were not whittled down as required by court rules, but this puking up way too many words makes it easy to make the proceedings accessible to the public. I hope you find something helpful.
Email: bohemian_books@yahoo.com
A Higher Law 