Attorneys Misuse “Interlocutory” and “Unrelentless” in Unrelenting Bid to Convince the Court Their $450 per Hour Fees Are Reasonable
Attorneys with Klinedinst and Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard & Smith misused “Interlocutory” and “Unrelentless” in response to a motion to stay a district court proceeding while the Ninth Circuit decides the fate of an earlier order granting the attorneys up to $450 per hour for proceeding on a void complaint.
The complaint had a claim that is indisputably derivative. It was written by someone who is not authorized to practice law. Courts uniformly forbid derivative actions to be advocated by someone who is not an attorney. All pleadings and everything arising from the pleading is void. It is null. It is of no effect.
After the complaint was withdrawn, which was ceremonial, since the complaint was void, the sneaky attorneys claimed that withdrawing the complaint supported the presumption that their clients were the prevailing party, and a fee shifting statute applied.
Judge Janis L. Sammartino agreed. Judge Todd W. Robinson agree. Judge Linda Lopez agreed.
The order to pay tens of thousands in attorney fees to the represented party, who are themselves attorneys who were being sued for malpractice, is on appeal.
There was a second order issued about further attorney fees on the same exact issue. That order denied attorney fees for one of the reasons the first batch of fees should have been denied. Then the judge, Linda Lopez, sua sponte gave the $450 per hour attorneys representing attorneys against a pro se litigant leave to file an amended motion that fixed their mistake.
That order is under appeal now, also.
The attorneys, who charge 10 times as much as a good carpenter, but only half as much as a decent prostitute, opposed the motion for stay and to consolidate the appeals. They called the woman who was defending herself from a judgment that will be in excess of $100,000 “unrelentless”. They referred to the post-judgment motion for attorney fees as “interlocutory”.
You’ve probably guessed the pro se lady is me. Here is the reply I filed yesterday. I’ve been falling behind on the FREE Doc of the Day, so I’m doubling up to catch up.
75-Year-Old Files Pro Se Petition in SCOTUS
FREE Doc of the Day
Mr. Windsor gets an “A” for effort. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, his petition was denied.
William Windsor is a friend of the People. He fights for equal protection and due process for the other 98% who can’t afford to pay an attorney.
(Mr. Windsor filmed a movie about corruption in family law in 2012. I drove to Los Angeles from San Diego and paid $25 for parking to participate in the event. My experience with Mr. Windsor was negative. He did not keep his word and he allowed a participant to make slanderous comments about a man we were both related to by marriage. I knew the comments were false. Mr. Windsor did not give me an opportunity to interview the slanderous woman, as he promised. Despite his shortcomings, William Windsor is giving court corruption attention.)
One excellent point that the self-represented litigant makes is that the courts use a spouse’s separate assets and income factored into its decision whether or not to grant In Forma Pauperis status, even if the sole spouse filing lives in a common law state. This is an issue that I may challenge during my lifetime also.
BTW, if you do not know that “common law” is used to describe states that treat a spouses separate income differently than in “community property” states – and does not only refer to people who live together for a long time without getting married by the state being deemed married- you are not alone. I explained to Judge Susan Weaver of Arkansas that my former partner and I agreed to treat our property as if we were married in a community property state, instead of getting married and following the Arkansas rule. Judge Weaver insisted that Arkansas does not have “common law marriage”. The incompetent judge appeared to be less aware of the state codes on domestic relations than William Windsor.
“On September 26, 2023, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sat around a table in DC and decided if they will grant Windsor’s Pro-Se Petition.
“The Opinion will issue by October 2, Windsor’s 75th birthday.” -as self-reported by an email from William Windsor
Prayers out.
The Best Advice on How to Stay Out of Custody Courts in the First Place.
My friends, I am consumed by motion practice and have missed sharing with you this week. Hopefully when you read the results of my labor, you will cheer and forgive my short silence.
Anyhow, I just had to take a break to re-share this TikTok with you.
If you landed on my blog about horrifying conduct by “officers of the court”, then you might have already awoken into the nightmare of court custody battles. If you have, I am too late. But forward the TikTok link to your still unscathed friends.
People with Brain Fog Forget Things. They Don’t Remember Things that Didn’t Happen.
Have you ever had something you said in a court hearing left out of the transcript? Share you experience in the comments, or email bohemian_books@yahoo.com.
Here is my experience of having a long dialogue with the Court getting cut out, discussed in a notice of supplemental authority. Hopefully this will help lift the fog from Judge Lee P. Rudofsky’s brain.
Will Judge Lee P. Rudofsky Uphold the Constitution? Doubtful, But One Must Hope
FREE Doc of the Day, available for download at the end, is the file stamped copy of this motion.
Plaintiff Laura Lynn Hammett’s Motion to Revive the Subpoena to Court Reporter Jana Perry due to PRA Reviving the Relevancy; Brief in Support
In support of the above titled motion, I, Laura Lynn Hammett, Plaintiff in pro se, state:
- PRA added a prejudicial and false statement (“Footnote 1”) in its opposition to my motion to settle the record [Doc. 267 and 276] that can be contradicted by playing the recordings sought in the subpoena to Court Reporter Jana Perry discussed in Doc. 133 to 139.
- Footnote 1 in full: “This effort appears to be part of Ms. Hammett’s litigation playbook, as it is not the first time she has claimed that a transcript did not accurately reflect proceedings in a trial court and made significant efforts to change the content of that transcript in anticipation of appellate proceedings. See Dkt. Nos. 133-134, 136 ¶¶ 4, 11, 18-19, 22.”
- First, my motivation for making an accurate record is that I want an accurate record. Our Courts can only function if the People perceive the Courts have integrity. When transcripts are edited to comport with what a judge and one party wish had been said or know should have or have not been said, our system will no longer work and we will have anarchy or fascism.
- Second, there is a reasonable inference in Footnote 1 that there is something unethical about preserving one’s right to appeal based on an accurate record. To the contrary, it is the fictionalization of the record that is unethical, as well as illegal.
- PRA implied that my claim that Ms. Perry fictionalized the record in Pietrczak was not completely true. The Pietrczak Court was adamant that the recording should not be played. That gives an appearance that the Pietrczak Court is hiding something.
- What would Solomon say? One party wants transparency; the other party demands secrecy. The party that wants transparency loves the truth. The other party is fine with letting the truth die.
- The Court mooted the motion to quash the subpoena, Doc. 133, on June 14, 2023, Doc. 232. That was probably a mistake. There is scant caselaw out of the Eighth Circuit. (See Brief below)
- This motion and brief are written in haste, as the outcome of the dispute on this issue will affect the pending appeal and the Eighth Circuit limited the extension to file the opening brief to November 5, 2023. Ideally the Court will make an expedited schedule to avoid motions for reconsideration at the Eighth Circuit after the recordings are made available to the public.
- I cannot afford a Westlaw subscription and it was too difficult to make it to the law library, my health appointments and perform my duties as caregiver to my granddaughter when both her parents are unavailable, and still file this motion by September 21, 2023, the day I had scheduled other activities in Little Rock.[1] Therefore, I hope the Court will forgive me for not having as robust a selection of authorities as I might have if I could afford Westlaw.
- I request an order granting leave to revive or reissue the subpoena and allow Ms. Perry a short time to renew her motion to quash, amended to reflect the effect of Footnote 1. Or, I ask the Court to order another just mechanism to make the subpoena live and mandate production of the recording. Perhaps the most expeditious is to issue an order to Ms. Perry’s counsel at the Attorney General’s Office. Because the subpoena was not quashed or mooted, this Court maintained jurisdiction. The recordings will prove that my motion in Pietrczak to settle the record was with good cause and that I did not invent dialogue that was left out of those transcripts, which would tend to give credibility to my claim that dialogue was left out of the December 1, 2021 transcript in this case also.
Brief
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure “should be construed, administered, and employed by the court and the parties to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding.” Fed. R. Civ. Pro. Rule 1
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (“RCFP”) discusses third party subpoenas issued to reporters, rather than to court reporters. Journalists are private citizens who have work product privilege and a need to protect their sources. Court reporters are public servants tasked with protecting transparency of court proceedings. A subpoena to a court reporter should carry more weight than one to a journalist.
Still, regarding subpoenas to journalists and mootness of contempt charges after the case in controversy is closed, but before appeal, the RCFP had this to say. In the Eighth Circuit, “[n]o Eighth circuit case law addresses this issue in the context of the reporter’s privilege.” But, the Fourth Circuit said, “’[t]he Fourth Circuit permits appeal of a contempt order even if the trial or grand jury for which the reporter was subpoenaed has concluded, on the grounds that such a controversy is “capable of repetition but evading review.’ Nebraska Press Ass’n v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539 (1976); see United States v. Steelhammer, 539 F.2d 373, 378 (4th Cir. 1976) (Winters, J., dissenting), adopted in 539 F.2d 539 (4th Cir. 1977) (review en banc) (‘While the case is thus moot in the sense that the reporters have lost the ability to purge themselves, their contentions raise an important point difficult to advance at the appellate level before mootness ensues and likely to arise again in continuing litigation’).” They continued: “Contempt orders can also be appealed even if the underlying controversy has been resolved if there is a chance of further proceedings. See Shain, 978 F.2d at 853 n.2 (appeal remains live controversy because defendant has been granted a new trial and government has indicated if case is retried it intends to subpoena reporters again).” Addressing mootness questions Archives – The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (https://www.rcfp.org/privilege-sections/5-addressing-mootness-questions/)
This case law is not exactly on point because they are discussing contempt charges for failing to comply with the subpoena, and in this case, we are discussing failure to comply with a subpoena while a motion to quash the subpoena was pending. The case law does inform us that as long as there was a chance that the need for a subpoena would be revived and complying with the subpoena would still be a mandate, the subpoena should not be moot.
Seventh Circuit case law discussed, id.: “Generally, courts have found that appeals concerning motions to quash subpoenas are not moot. Socialist Workers Party v. Grubisic, 604 F.2d 1005, 1008 (7th Cir. 1979) (holding that appeal of trial court’s denial motion to quash subpoena is not moot when trial court can release documents to parties at any time). Matter of Special April 1977 Grand Jury, 581 F.2d 589, 591 (7th Cir. 1978) (appeal not moot if the issue could not be fully litigated and is such that the party seeking to quash the motion would be subject to the same action again).”
Ninth Circuit case law discussed, id.: “In cases that present ‘federal constitutional questions affecting fundamental personal liberties,’ ‘[a]djudication of those issues should not be thwarted by resort to narrow interpretations of the doctrines of mootness and justiciability.’ Bursey v. United States, 466 F.2d 1059, 1088-89 (9th Cir. 1972) (reversing a contempt order against members of the Black Panther Party who refused to answer questions during a grand jury proceeding, holding that the reporter’s privilege issues were not moot even though the term of the grand jury had expired during the pendency of the appeal). ‘Postponement of the decisions of the[se] important constitutional issues . . . is not in the interests of the public, the Government, or the witnesses.’ Id. at 1089.”
In Arkansas, id.: “The Arkansas Supreme Court has stated numerous times that it will not address moot issues except under limited circumstances. The Court has stated that its duty is to decide actual controversies and that an issue is moot when it has no legal effect on an existing controversy. Killam v. Texas Oil & Gas Corp., 303 Ark. 547, 798 S.W.2d 419 (1990). The Court will accept an appeal of a moot issue if the issues raised are likely to recur. See Camden Community Dev. Corp. v. Sutton, 339 Ark. 368, 5 S.W.3d 439 (1999). The instances in which the Court has accepted such cases, however, are rare. There are no reported cases specifically addressing a reporter’s privilege once the matter in which the privilege was asserted is concluded.” Bold added.
I raised this argument, though with the hesitancy of a non-attorney who had not researched the issue, at the hearing of June 14, 2023. “I have a question, just because I’m not an attorney and this is all new to me. So if you moot something but then the appellate court says, come back, and, you know, we’re going to redo this, then do I have to — do I have to do those motions all over again?” (Doc. 261, p. 111, line 6-11)
The Court gave an explanation. He was much less thorough than when he quelled my hesitancy about the confidentiality designations, two years earlier. But my inquisitiveness and jealous protection of my rights were still apparent.
“THE COURT: You do. You do.
MS. HAMMETT: Or do we take the moot out?
THE COURT: No. You’ll need to do them all over again. I mean —
MS. HAMMETT: Oh.
THE COURT: That’s — that’s just the way those things go.
MS. HAMMETT: Oh. Then I’d have to consider for a moment whether that is actually good for either the Perry — Perry quashing that, because I don’t want to
quash it and I don’t know what the next statute of limitations are and —
THE COURT: Well, really right — really right now I just want you — I just want to give you the ability to give me your thoughts on whether these are mooted or not and then I’m going to decide.
MS. HAMMETT: Oh, okay. Then I’ll let you do that research because I don’t know the answer to that, but that — I would hate to —
THE COURT: I understand you don’t — I got it. You don’t want to concede that they’re mooted. That’s fine. I under — I understand that. I — I believe they are both mooted in this situation so I am going to moot both of — both of those motions.”
In actuality, it was the motion to quash that was mooted, not the subpoena itself, so technically, the subpoena is still live. I hope the Court will issue an order that produces a just outcome, that the Court Reporter Jana Perry be given an opportunity to renew her motion to quash the subpoena amended to address Footnote 1, I be able to renew my opposition with an appropriate amendment and the Court deny the motion to quash, compelling the production of the recordings of all hearings in the Pietrczak case.
Respectfully submitted,
Dated September 21, 2023 _______________________
Laura Lynn Hammett
16 Gold Lake Club Road
Conway, Arkansas 72032
760-966-6000
thenext55years@gmail.com
Plaintiff Pro Se
[1] The denial of electronic filing to non-attorneys creates an unconstitutional barrier to a level playing field for persons who cannot afford transportation to the court clerk’s office.
Defense Attorneys Troutman Pepper and Rose Law Firm Step Right in It.
“This effort appears to be part of Ms. Hammett’s litigation playbook, as it is not the first time she has claimed that a transcript did not accurately reflect proceedings in a trial court and made significant efforts to change the content of that transcript in anticipation of appellate proceedings. See Dkt. Nos. 133-134, 136 ¶¶ 4, 11, 18-19, 22.” – Attorneys with Rose Law Firm and Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders, LLP.
The attorneys for Mega Debt Buyer Portfolio Recovery Associates were opposing a motion to settle the record. My claim is that I asked Judge Lee P. Rudofsky to explain the limits of what PRA was allowed to designate as confidential if I stipulated to what I contended was an overbroad protective order. He gave a thorough answer that gained my confidence, so much so that I wrote about what an honorable man he was soon after the hearing.
Chuckle.
Fast forward to when I receive the transcript of the hearing in order to quote the judge directly and the dialogue is non-existent. There is no oral argument against approving the protective order from me at all, in contrast to my adamant written objection to turning this case into a “star chamber”.
It took little imagination to expect PRA to try to make me sound like a whack job, instead of a person who excels on comprehension exams, but suffers from traumatic and chronic stress. That is right out of the Defense Attorney Playbook. The best defense is a good offense. And, if you have nothing bad to say, say anything at all.
I made a pre-emptive strike and subpoenaed the recording of hearings in the case PRA referred to that were also fictionalized. The judge on that case, the dishonorable Susan Weaver, refused to settle the record and denied my FOIA request for one recording. (I will FOIA the other two recordings if the Arkansas Court of Appeals does not reverse Weaver’s decision and ensure the return of my property rights to me.)
I subpoenaed the recordings in the PRA case to use as evidence of the stressful position I was in when PRA made hundreds of calls to me. There are few things more stressful than having a corrupt judge and corrupt court reporter changing up the record against your interests.
Judge Lee P. Rudofsky said Court Reporter Jana Perry would not be ordered to produce the recordings because he dismissed my case on summary judgment.
PRA did not need to use the argument to convince Judge Rudofsky to rule against me. They could probably cry “she’s a witch, burn her” and he would agree.
All they accomplished was to give me another chance to ask for the recordings to be played and let Judge Rudofsky show his true colors. Again.
What does it say to you when someone refuses to hand over the tapes? Too bad we can’t throw the red instant replay flag like on the commercials on Sunday Night Football.
Where this is headed is to a Constitutional Challenge of the court rule disallowing litigants to record their own hearings. The methods used by the courts to capture a verbatim record are antiquated. The courts consistently strike down rules and statutes that prohibit videotaping arrests and other police interactions. Why not let us video interactions in the courthouse? What are they trying to hide?
It is a sad day, but the courts have brought ill repute upon themselves, and the common person has had enough!
FREE Doc of the Day
Guide to Filing a Pro Se Appeal in the Ninth Circuit Court – FREE Doc of the Day
This is a guide that gets sent to self-represented appellants after they file an appeal.
If you are in a District Court case, you should download and read this booklet now.
It is helpful to know what comes next, so you can prepare for it.
The Ninth Circuit is pro se friendly, procedurally. I don’t know yet if they treat the self-represented fairly on substantive law – in other words, do the right thing, and correct the District Court’s errors.
A pro se appellant in the Ninth Circuit gets to write an informal brief, does not need to create an appendix and is not required to include caselaw. It doesn’t hurt to include authorities, just in case the justices don’t feel so friendly toward you and overlook cases that support your position.
Call me cynical, but it seems like if a court wants to rule against you, it will, regardless of the facts and brilliant argument you present. Still, you must keep hope and do what you can to cause change for the better. Make your documents look like a million bucks, even if you expect half that when the jury returns.
If you need a professional writer, editor or researcher, please contact me at bohemian_books@yahoo.com or (760) 966-6000 (text and voice). Let me add impact to your documents. My rates are negotiable.
I am not an attorney. I cannot give legal advice.
Courts that Tax the Poor and Middleclass
You have a dispute with a corporation like ZIPS Car Wash, First American Home Warranty or Portfolio Recovery Group.
The company took money from you that you did not owe, did not provide the service you paid for or tried to extort money from you.
You tried writing “letters”, poor reviews on the internet, and begged by telephone for the company to correct itself. All to no avail.
So, you decide to take them to court.
In my experience, the courts often discourage non-attorneys from filing a suit.
In the small claims division in Faulkner County Arkansas, I filed a suit against Goodman Manufacturing for selling a faulty HVAC to me. The court charged me $12.55 on top of the filing fee, supposedly to serve the suit on Goodman by certified mail.
Eventually, Goodman wrote a motion to dismiss based on improper service and showed a copy of the service envelope with a regular stamp on it. The court is collecting over $10 extra per plaintiff, and if the plaintiff has a good case that concerns a company that has lawyered up, the case can be thrown out on a technicality. (One of the other defendants settled with me, so I know it was a good case.) See the FREE Doc of the Day at the end of the post.
In a case in the Federal District Court of Southern California, five of the defendants were attorneys who were accused of committing malpractice on a company that I was a shareholder in. There were other harms against me claimed in the same lawsuit. The malpractice claim is what is called “derivative”. A derivative suit cannot be filed by a non-attorney. Who knew?
The court allowed me to proceed on the derivative suit and denied me leave to hire an attorney to explain what a derivative suit was unless I hired the attorney to represent me in the entire case. That might have cost more than I would recover. There was no fee shifting provision that would allow me to recover the costs of the lawsuit.
When I discovered on my own that by proceeding on the derivative suit I might be charged with practicing law without a license, I brought it to the Court’s attention as a voluntary dismissal. Judge Sammartino decided that I dismissed because the attorneys were going to prevail and ordered me to pay their attorney fees on an anti-SLAPP motion. Never mind that malpractice and conversion claims are not subject to the fee shifting anti-SLAPP statute.
In the Federal Court in the Eastern District of Arkansas, there are conflicting rules about non-attorneys using electronic filing. One says non-attorneys cannot use electronic filing. Period. That is the rule Judge Lee P. Rudofsky enforced against me. There is another rule that says a person can gain permission to use electronic filing by filing a motion. I tried that, to no avail.
“Conventional” paper filing taxes the pro se litigant. Instead of filing whenever convenient, the non-attorney must drive to the courthouse during business hours or mail the documents and cross her fingers.
I went into an important hearing on the case once and learned that my adversary’s attorneys received an order by electronic service the day before that I did not get in the mail yet. They had an opportunity to research the law before we discussed it, and I did not.
Each of the approximately 100 documents I filed in the case cost me about $100 extra to copy four times and using the GSA mileage expense to drive to the courthouse and home. That is $10,000 I could not spend on discovery, like depositions and subpoenas. I have an autoimmune disease and was forced to go into public to file. (Once I went to the courthouse on the last day to file. I was feeling a little more lousy than usual, so I went to an urgent care after and found out I had COVID. If I had electronic filing, I would not have exposed others to the disease.)
What can be done about this taxation of the poor and middleclass that can’t afford to pay an attorney hundreds of dollars an hour for representation?
It will probably take a Constitutional challenge to the laws that discriminate against the majority class. Where judges like Janis L. Sammartino, Lee P. Rudofsky or the Clerk of the Court are misapplying the law or ignoring the law, it means filing an appeal and prevailing.
Good luck.
If you have a story about systemic bias in the courts, please shoot an email to bohemian_books@yahoo.com.
Doc of the Day
Testaliars. What should be the penalty for spoliation and perjury in a civil suit?
“Testaliars” is what Consumer Attorney Jerry Jarzombek calls agents and attorneys representing creditors who frequently falsify affidavits or present erroneous legal documents to the court, according to an article by Deborah L. Cohen published in the ABA Journal called “Pennies on the Dollar”.
“They are scavengers, buzzards picking at the decaying carcass of a debt,” Mr. Jarzombek was quoted as saying.
My appellate brief in a case against Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC, is due on November 6th. You can read about some of PRA’s dishonesty when it is complete. Unfortunately, the presiding judge, Trump appointee Lee P. Rudofsky, was less than honest in his opinions, as well.
Some of the dishonest statements require discussion of documents that are filed under seal. So, I am working on a motion to unseal those records.
Any brave attorney who wants to help on the case, please contact me at bohemian_books@yahoo.com. You can probably get this case turned around on appeal, and there is a fee shifting provision in the FDCPA. PRA settled with the CFPB with $12M in a fine for doing some of the things I claimed PRA did to me. PRA settled a case similar to mine where the jury awarded $82M in punitive damages.
The sanctions for spoliation of evidence and perjury should be enough to make taking this case worthwhile for an attorney who is ready to retire.
Get 100 FREE Law Articles Per Month from the American Bar Association
Students, lawyers and researchers are allowed to sign up for 100 free articles per month from the American Bar Association. It is easy. Go to http://www.jstor.org.
My first free read was an article about debt buyers’ bad practices, including specific problems with Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC.
The Debt Buyers: Lax Court Review and a Ravenous Industry are Burying Defendants in Defaults. Terry Carter, ABA Journal, Vol. 101, No. 11 (November 2015), pp. 54 – 61.
One of my key takeaways pertained to a default judgment against a trust that was sued as a common defense doctrine defendant with me. I prevailed on that case, being dismissed with prejudice by the plaintiff, after the plaintiff’s attorney produced a handwritten and signed letter that described how the plaintiff and his attorney intended to file a fraudulent lawsuit against me and the trust.
Judge Susan Weaver in Searcy County Arkansas saw the letter and granted default judgment against the unrepresented trust anyhow.
In the ABA article, Judge Lisa Mayne is quoted. “The law is clear that a judge can’t grant a default when there’s no valid claim.”
The Arkansas Court of Appeals has had an appeal of the default judgment against the trust sitting on their collective desk for almost a year.
Hopefully you will also find informative and useful information from the free treasure trove of articles at http://www.jstor.org.
A Higher Law 