Looking for Plaintiffs Against Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC to Inform the CFPB
My most recent settlement proposal to Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC is posted below.
I would like to discuss any unethical litigation practices PRA’s team of attorneys used against you in response to your complaint of violations of the Federal Debt Collection Practices Act, AKA FDCPA, and Regulation F.
The Debt Buyers excuse for lying in court seems to be that litigation where the debt collector is defendant is not subject to the same rules of honest conduct and fair dealing as in litigation where Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC is suing you.
Leave a comment or email your opinion to me. Thank you.
February 15, 2023
Dear Counsel,
I am bringing my settlement offer back to $1,000,000.
First, there was a recent award of damages based on abusive litigation practices similar to yours and your client’s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfboMCsDcno
Second, I have researched Hashimoto’s Disease. I have a wonderful team of health care professionals, and as with law, I am allowed to take an active roll in my healthcare.
I have not retested a thyroid panel for several months, but I am confident my numbers are returning toward an acceptable range.
My digestion is improving. My energy level is improving. My ability to concentrate is improving. My mood is improving. My new mantra is “work, don’t worry.” It is easier to do my legal work now that I can sit up for extended periods and my immune and autoimmune systems are not so out of whack.
After the stay is lifted and any appeal that may be required, I will move the court to allow me to introduce expert testimony about Hashimoto’s and the impact of stressful litigation on it. PRA already agreed that it changed my alleged balance to zero only after I filed a lawsuit. It is clear that the gaslighting was not going to stop otherwise. PRA even realleged a debt and invented completely unsubstantiated gambling losses for me during litigation.
I have not gone to the CFPB yet because they say a person can only file one complaint. I believe that when the CFPB investigates, they will agree with my contention and uncover evidence that PRA lied about not calling me in the months leading up to November 14, 2020. They will see that, as they suspected, PRA did not follow the 2015 consent order. And they will agree that PRA’s conduct within litigation as a defendant is also in violation of the FDCPA and regulation F.
Sincerely,
Laura Hammett
18 U.S. Code § 241 – Conspiracy against rights
Often violated; seldom enforced.
“If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same [] they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.”
I am not an attorney. This is not legal advice. I am just letting you know what this law means to me and how it was not enforced against my oppressors…yet.
This law says two or more persons. It does not specify that the persons be acting under color of law, as in 42 USC 1983. But it does not exclude judges and other government actors.
This law should apply to a judge like Federal District Court Judge Janis L. Sammartino. Judge Sammartino threatened and intimidated me for filing a grievance concerning a deputy court clerk named Jude who made a purposefully inaccurate record of a civil suit I filed. Judge Sammartino said she would not “countenance” claims like mine, but wrongly intimated that I had no evidence. (I had documentation that I presented, there was better documentation available to those with access to the docket entry history, and my testimony is evidence.)
This law should apply to Searcy County Circuit Court Judge Susan Weaver, attorney William White and Walter and Mike Pietrczak. The group conspired to oppress, threaten and intimidate me in the free exercise of my right to plead my case in kangaroo court on March 17, 2022. I was threatened with incarceration if I tried to protect my right to use of real estate and protect against improper seizure of my personal property.
There is common law invented by judges, not the legislature, that says a victim of a corrupt judge cannot sue that judge for civil damages. It is called absolute judicial immunity. The common law does not shield judges from criminal prosecution. Yet.
Good luck getting anyone to enforce the criminal law against a judge though.
The Just Us System: The Best Legal System Money Can Buy
Lawyer up!
We’ve all heard that term.
But how many of us can actually afford the cost of representation in court? Probably only the moneyed elite.
If lawyers are as worthless or worse as the litany of jokes about them suggests, why do we pay them so much?
Money was originally, and should still be, a way to store wealth. You raise chickens and sell their eggs. Your neighbor paints pictures. You have no desire to buy art, but your neighbor wants eggs. Well, let her get chits from an art lover who wants one of her paintings. Then she can give you the appropriate amount of chits for your eggs.
I call myself a “populist”.
From dictionary.com:
Populism:
- any of various, often antiestablishment or anti-intellectual political movements or philosophies that offer unorthodox solutions or policies and appeal to the common person rather than according with traditional party or partisan ideologies.
2. grass-roots democracy; working-class activism; egalitarianism.
3. representation or extolling of the common person, the working class, the underdog, etc.: populism in the arts.
One person’s time is not worth more than another’s, just because he could afford to go to law school and chooses to do so.
If I was pronounced Ruler of the Universe, I would pay trash collectors more than I paid someone with a cushy job like looking up statutes and caselaw.
Before the invention of computerized information, finding applicable law was difficult. One would be buried in books. Writing court documents took a high level of skill. There was good reason to ask for an appendix and a detailed table of contents. Now we can word search any length document and find what we are looking for rather easily. Finding information is easier than going on Google. Try http://www.dogpile.com.
For several years, I paid about $800 per month for a subscription to Westlaw, a legal research database. I cannot afford that any longer. Thankfully, the service is available at two law libraries that are not too far off from my home. And I notice that I can get by with a bi-weekly visit or so. Regardless, most professions require similar subscriptions or other expenses.
I am not opposed to paying ethical lawyers about as much as we pay school teachers.
Judges claim differently. Judges, who are after all lawyers, find a reasonable rate of pay for other lawyers to be as much as $485 per hour. Judge Janis L. Sammartino in the Federal District Court of Southern California decreed so. She was appointed by George W. Bush. Judge Linda Lopez, same district, agreed. She was appointed by Joe Biden.
If a person represents herself, established caselaw disallows her to be paid anything for her time and effort, even where fee shifting would be allowed if the litigant was represented by a licensed attorney.
To close the door to the courthouse for the common person, some courts, such as the Federal District Court of Southern California forbid a self-represented litigant from receiving limited scope representation from an attorney. If a person cannot afford an attorney to do all the work involved, then the person must do all the work herself. Even if she is ill.
Judges have also decided that a non-attorney cannot represent her own interests in property that is held in trust. In Arkansas, a judge such as Susan Weaver will unjustly take property held in trust from the beneficiary, even if the beneficiary is trustee and is sitting in the courtroom. Even if the judge has seen a handwritten note by the person she is giving the property to that says he is committing fraud. Often times, the attorney fees to protect property from Judge Susan Kaye Weaver will be more than the property is worth. $300 per hour, the going rate for an attorney in Arkansas, adds up quickly.
Not only do judges close the door to court on the common person, but they have also made the use of trusts to avoid probate available only to the rich.
It would be great to continue on my rant, but I must go spend my time (which will not be reimbursed) to write an appellate brief that addresses some of these issues.
Unfortunately, no matter how well a pro se litigant pleads her case, far too many judges will throw the case in the direction of their attorney colleagues.
Got to get those attorneys paid.
Why is it Taking the Arkansas Court of Appeals Justices and JDDC So Long to Rein in Judge Susan Weaver?
Time for me to vent.
Every day that goes by is another day that attorney William Zac White and his client have to spend or hide the assets they obtained from me by honest services fraud.
They lied in court and Judge Susan Weaver, knowing they were lying, granted them everything they asked for, literally. They used the excuse that the property they were transferring was held in a trust and the trust was not represented by a licensed attorney. But Judge Weaver gave my personal property that was not held in trust to her co-conspirators. I was forbidden from protesting in court under the pretext that I was going to be dismissed from the case with prejudice.
All this went down while COVID was still an issue.
Courts around the country are backing off the COVID protocols now. But during the kangaroo court hearing set up to transfer my property, most courts were making every effort to contain the disease, as reported by Eversheds Sutherland LLP on Lexocology. (Discussing Texas courts in their article.) “As of December 31, 2022, the Court had issued fifty-nine Emergency Orders allowing court participants to, among other things, appear for any hearing, deposition, or other proceeding remotely; consider as evidence sworn statements or testimony given remotely; and conduct court proceedings away from the court’s usual location with reasonable notice and access to the participants and the public.”
I had requested a stay of proceedings 12 days before the March 17, 2022 hearing. Judge Weaver denied the stay. She did not make an alternative ruling that would allow me to appear by Zoom. Because Judge Weaver and her close colleague Court Reporter Jana Perry fictionalized the prior hearing held by Zoom, it is likely they had a concern that I would have law enforcement in the room with me or impermissibly make my own recording. They intended to fictionalize the March hearing, as well. And they did.
My medical records submitted as an exhibit were supposed to be filed under seal. They were not. They were then included in the Clerk’s record for my appeal. Now the document was removed from the public docket of the circuit court case. If you are with a news reporting agency, a public service law firm or law enforcement, please email me and I will hook you up with a copy for verification purposes. I am attaching my motion below, in which I describe the results. I was not tried for perjury yet, despite Judge Weaver and Willy White’s apparent desire to incarcerate me, so my rendition is probably accurate.
Most importantly, my absolute lymphocyte count was low. Normal is 1,000 to 5,000 cells per microliter of blood. Mine was 700.
According to Dr. Richard Foxx, M.D. on Doctor’s Health Press: “These cells help prevent infections by bacteria and viruses and also fight off infections already present, and a low count of these cells also increases the chance of certain types of cancer developing, mostly types of leukemia, lymphoma, and Hodgkin’s lymphoma.” This was written in 2018, pre-COVID-19. I will hazard a guess that absolute lymphocytes in a healthy person fight off the COVID virus also.
Regardless, I described symptoms of having COVID and had not been tested yet. (I tested the day or two before the hearing and tested negative, but Judge Weaver did not know that.) Judge Susan Kaye Weaver was willing to expose me, my two elderly court watching friends, court personnel, the Sheriff and three of his deputies, Mr. White and his chain-smoking client with bad lungs all to the virus. She knew she was not going to let me argue, object or present evidence during the hearing. The only reasons I can think of that she would require the hearing to be in person and have me show up were 1) so the team of sheriff deputies could throw me in jail for an invented contempt of court; and 2) to make it more difficult to have third parties hear the actual proceedings, making it easier to get away with the planned fictionalization.
The Justices at the Court of Appeals have all this information before them since I filed my appellate brief on November 23, 2022. There was no opposition filed. How long can it take to decide that Judge Weaver was not upholding her judicial oath to protect the Constitution and reverse her orders?
Three Cheers for Lisa Ballard and the Arkansas Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct
A brave police officer named Hunter Volner arrested and charged William Asa Hutchinson III, son of former Governor Asa Hutchinson, with DWI, speeding, refusing a chemical test, possession of cocaine and simultaneous possession of an illegal substance and a firearm.
The alleged conduct occurred on January 13, 2023. The information was dated January 15, 2023. It was filed on January 18, 2023. A copy is posted below.
On January 20, 2023, the Arkansas Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct filed an Order of Interim Suspension against Hutchinson III’s law license. (Also posted below.)
This is not the connected attorney’s first rodeo. He was arrested for driving while intoxicated three times in the past seven years according to the information.
The interim suspension comes exactly two years from when Mr. Hutchinson III’s previous probation and deferred suspension was terminated.
I cannot help but editorialize. Judge Susan Weaver transferred title to real estate I held in trust and possession of my personal property to a sleazy attorney’s alcoholic and fraudulent client, purportedly because I held the real estate in trust and did not hire an attorney to represent the trust for the hearing. I told Judge Weaver that I contacted many attorneys and none would get involved because it would bring his career to a screeching halt. I was sole trustee, settlor and beneficiary, so I wasn’t trying to represent another person.
Thus far the justices on the Court of Appeals have refused to let me make an appearance on behalf of my trust.
But, had I paid William Asa Hutchinson III $300 per hour or more to represent the trust, then assumably the trust would get to keep the property. I was named as a common defense defendant, and I was dismissed with prejudice (because I defended myself zealously). Judge Weaver was required to dismiss the common defense doctrine defendant at that time. Even a drunk and stoned attorney could probably have convinced the court of such.
I am grateful to Ms. Ballard and Sheriff Deputy Volner for doing their jobs. I pray there are enough people within the system who have the integrity to protect our nation from the tyrannical judicial officers and their attorney cronies who seem hell-bent on destroying our nation.
This is one small step in the right direction.
Can Our Government Restrict Who Talks About Law?
The Institute for Justice is doing important work protecting the freedoms enumerated in the United States Constitution and paralleled by the states. The following article is reposted by permission. It covers both the right to give advice about the law and touches on some bad practices of debt buyers like Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC.
You can read about other cases fought by the Institute for Justice here. If you love our freedoms and have expendable income, I hope you will consider donating to these good attorneys. We should reward the few who still have integrity.
Right to Provide Legal Advice
When wealthy Americans face legal troubles, they have a lot of sources of advice. Legions of lawyers, business consultants, accountants and others stand ready to provide their expertise for a price. But for many Americans who may lack the means to employ those experts, their only option is to turn their friends, family, or other community members, like their pastors.
That has certainly been the experience of Reverend John Udo-Okon, a Bronx-based pastor whose congregants turn to him for advice when they have trouble. Sometimes their troubles are spiritual. Sometimes marital. And sometimes legal—like many New Yorkers, Rev. John’s parishioners sometimes get sued, and they don’t know what to do.
A lot of those lawsuits are about consumer debt. Indeed, a lot of lawsuits in New York are about consumer debt: Roughly a quarter of all lawsuits filed in New York are suits to collect on a debt. In a given year, some 300,000 residents of New York City alone will be hit with a debt lawsuit. And many of these suits are, to say the least, questionable—brought by third parties that buy up old debts on the secondary market and file suits to collect, even if the defendant doesn’t owe the amount claimed or, sometimes, anything at all.
But despite the fact that many of these lawsuits lack merit, they are overwhelmingly successful, usually because the defendant doesn’t show up in court. As much as 90% of the time, the defendant in a consumer-debt lawsuit in New York fails to respond. And when a defendant does show up in one of these cases, the collectors often give up rather than try to prove the debt exists.
It seems like an area where a little bit of helpful advice could go a long way.
That is what led Reverend John to team up with Upsolve—a nonprofit co-founded and currently chaired by Rohan Pavuluri, that is dedicated to helping Americans access their civil legal rights for free. Upsolve began by offering a free app to walk people through Chapter 7 bankruptcy—an award-winning innovation that has now helped relieve hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.
But bankruptcy was only a start. Upsolve’s next project, the American Justice Movement, was designed to train volunteers like Reverend John to give the basic legal advice people need to defend themselves against the sorts of debt-collection suits that plague so many New Yorkers.
The truth is that responding to these lawsuits is not that complicated. New York has even created a form that allows people respond to a debt lawsuit by checking a handful of boxes. But even that form is complicated for people who have never navigated the legal system (one of the boxes asks whether someone wants to invoke the doctrine of “laches”), and the American Justice Movement is designed to bridge that gap by walking people through the form and answering their simple questions (like “what the heck is ‘laches’?”).
The problem? The sort of advice contemplated by Upsolve’s new project, where trained community advocates provide one-on-one advice, is a crime. If Reverend John (or anyone like him) gives someone advice about how to respond to a lawsuit, it could land him in jail for up to four years for engaging in the “unauthorized practice of law.”
That is why Reverend John and Upsolve have teamed up with the Institute for Justice to challenge New York’s prohibition on legal advice from people who are not lawyers under the First Amendment. After all, it cannot be a crime simply to give someone advice—if it were, the nation’s jails would be filled with bartenders, barbers, and meddling aunts. The reason the nation’s aunts walk free is that the First Amendment protects everyone’s right to provide each other with useful advice—including on important topics like their legal rights.
And, indeed, for much of American history, advice like Reverend John’s would have been perfectly legal. At the time of the American Founding, courts restricted who could appear before a judge in court, but no one pretended to have the right to regulate who talked about the law outside of court.
Those restrictions are not just anticompetitive. They are unconstitutional. Restrictions on who is allowed to talk about the law run afoul of the First Amendment, which protects all Americans right to speak—about history, about medicine, and about the law. Vindicating that important principle will give all Americans—not just those who are lucky enough to have licensed attorneys on-call—the ability to access useful information about their legal rights.
How Quickly We Forget: How Hitler Transferred Property and What Came Next
Americans love watching movies about the Nazis. The vast majority of us are rooting against the murderous thugs.
I am watching a series on Prime called “Hunters”. It stars Al Pacino as a Nazi Hunter. There is an FBI agent who suspects a rash of deaths are murders by a vigilante group determined to eradicate war criminals. I think she will eventually see the beauty in truth espoused by the self-appointed judge, jury and executioners.
Stylistically, Hunters has comic strip undertones.
Sadly, people, including some Jews, view the Holocaust through this animated lens.
The Jewish people have a mantra. “Forgive, but do not forget.”
Yet history is repeating itself right here in the land of the free.
I am the victim of a Hitleresque judicial officer named Susan Kaye Weaver.
She took my property, both real and personal, in a hearing in which I was forbidden to defend against the improper seizure.
The Arkansas judge used the excuse that the real property was held in trust. She said that if I spoke on behalf of the trust, I would be committing the unauthorized practice of law. She had the County Sheriff and three deputies on hand who could arrest me at her whim. She knew I am ill and ruled with a hardened heart. (I have an acute auto-immune disease and gave the Court copies of a recent blood test that would indicate that I should be resting at home; not driving 3.5 hours roundtrip to attend kangaroo court.)
This same judge, in the same case, made a sua sponte ruling to dismiss my countersuit against the fraudster who was suing me. But, in the hearing of March 17, 2022, I, the trustee and settlor of the trust that held the title to the real estate, was in the courtroom and Judge Weaver failed to question me as a witness. Judges are allowed to question witnesses. Judge Weaver questioned the fraudster. She did not ask any questions that would elicit the truth, but I know she knows she could have asked me as trustee what my side of the story was. She had already read my counterclaim and exhibits throughout the prior year of litigation. She did not want to see the truth.
She just wanted to give property that was mine or meant to be mine to attorney William Zac White’s client and to pay Mr. White.
She had the Gestapo standing by in case I protested.
You can read the court documents on Court Connect, case 65CV-21-20 and appeal CV-22-435. The transcript is posted below, but I warn you, Court Reporter Jana Perry made substantial falsifications to the transcript in order to support Judge Weaver and Attorney White’s agenda.
Judge Susan Weaver’s Web of Deceit
Judge Susan Weaver transferred ownership of real estate I placed in trust to a man who defrauded me of hundreds of thousands of dollars and put part of his plan in writing. His attorney William Zac White gave me the original writing and I gave a copy to Judge Weaver.
Judge Weaver used the excuse that I am not a licensed attorney and therefore can’t say a word in defense of my trust. Apparently she contends that she must leave her brain at the door when she enters the courthouse.
The Arachnid Judge went a step further and transferred my personal property that was in the house to Mr. White’s client. I had no trial and was not allowed to speak in my own defense at the hearing. The transcript of that hearing was falsified by court reporter Jana Perry, but it is still apparent that I was not given an opportunity to protect my individual property.
Judge Susan Weaver also allowed Mr. White to obtain license for another client, Richard Gawenis, to take property his mother put in trust. Mr. Gawenis did not serve summons on the trustee in that case, either.
An attorney for the trustee got involved and convinced Judge Weaver to overturn the bad ruling. Mr. White appealed and lost.
On November 22, 2022, a different attorney, Danny R. Crabtree filed another suit for Richard Gawenis. This time it is an unlawful detainer against the rightful beneficiaries of his mother’s trust. 71CV-22-195. Mr. Crabtree told an outright lie, claiming the property is owned by Zelda Walls.
It seems no coincidence that Mr. Danny Crabtree also represented William White in the civil rights action I filed against him.
The defendants’ attorney filed a response and motion to dismiss. The main point is that the trust and not Zelda Walls owns the property in question.
Mr. Crabtree had the audacity to oppose the MTD on the basis that the Court must stay within the four corners of the complaint and the complaint states that the property is owned by Zelda Walls. This is a violation of Rule 11. Mr. Crabtree is fully aware that the property is held in a trust. Further, Zelda Walls was the settlor of the trust, but not the sole beneficiary.
It will be interesting to see if Judge Weaver recognizes the line between a trust and the settlor of the trust in the Gawenis case. She was acutely aware of the difference in my case, even though she was a bit off. My case is a rare exception because I am sole beneficiary, trustee, and settlor. Zelda Walls was not.
It is also notable that Mr. Crabtree captioned the unlawful detainer plaintiff “RICHARD GLENN GAWENIS, AS GUARDIAN OF THE PERSON AND ESTATE OF ZELDA WALLS” but Mr. White captioned the plaintiff in my case “MICHEAL PIETRCZAK” without naming Walter Pietrczak in his capacity as attorney in fact to Micheal Pietrczak.
Hopefully Judge Weaver will be caught in her own web and prosecuted for rendering dishonest services.
Is Arkansas a Good Place to Invest or Retire? NO!
Yes, Arkansas has natural beauty and cheap real estate prices compared to many states.
But judges like Susan Kaye Weaver in Faulkner County and Searcy County give permission to attorney William Zac White to take real estate and personal property from anyone who does not have enough money to hire a lawyer at $300 per hour.
My property and property rights were taken from me without just cause and without a trial.
Property held in a trust was also given to Mr. White’s client and presumably Mr. White.
I am not making this up. It is 100% true.
You can read the docket for Pietrczak v. Laura Lynn and Rural Revival Living Trust on Court Connect. (65CV-21-20)
I appealed the orders. My briefs were filed timely on November 23, 2022. Pietrczak and Attorney William Zac White failed to file an opposing brief. Why bother when the Court consistently finds in their favor without filing any meaningful brief? (CV-22-435)
This is not the first time Judge Susan Weaver transferred property rights without requiring the recipient to follow procedure. See matters involving Richard Gawenis and the Zelda Walls Living Trust, 71CV-20-119, 71PR-19-91 and CV-21-349.
There, the errant judge corrected herself on one lower court case, but not the other, only after the trust paid an attorney for representation. The correction was upheld on appeal.
I left my home state to buy a house and retire in Arkansas. Now I am forced to go back to work, at 60, with a disease that causes fatigue and is triggered by stress.
How do I know Judge Weaver was wrong? I was present in the three hearings and read the official transcripts created by Court Reporter Jana Perry. Ms. Perry’s renditions were fictionalized. But Judge Weaver and Ms. Perry refuse to play the recordings of the hearings, the best evidence, for the public. Thus far the Court of Appeals justices have also refused to settle the record.
If you are considering moving your company or retiring to Arkansas, feel free to call me first. You will probably decide I am an intelligent and reasonable woman, and that I am not exaggerating about the corruption of the Arkansas judiciary. Your assets will not be safe in this state.
Laura Hammett (760) 966-6000
More Musings on the ILLegal System: Reposted by Permission of the Post Modern Justice Media Project
What is Post Modern Justice?
My name is Alexander C. Baker, J.D. My friends call me Alex. I hold a Juris Doctorate, and I also have a significant amount of real-world experience litigating matters in Civil, Family, Child Welfare and Probate Court. This qualifies me as a legal expert. In my expert opinion, the American court system was never intended to achieve justice, as that term was once commonly understood. Rather, the “justice” system was designed to accomplish three goals, in order of importance: (1) to expand the state; (2) to transfer wealth to state actors; and (3) to destroy families (thus facilitating 1 and 2).
Our organization is called “Post Modern Justice Media Project” (“PMJMP”). Our goal is to educate the public about the realities of an American court system that is so thoroughly corrupt that it can best be described as organized crime. While the entire “justice” system – civil and criminal – is highly problematic, we are especially concerned about the financial and emotional devastation routinely imposed upon innocent people unfortunate enough to find themselves trapped in the Family Law, Juvenile or Probate Courts.
But why the term “Postmodernism” ?
“Postmodernism” is the name given to a branch of philosophy (actually, anti-philosophy) characterized by identitarianism and its endless questioning of truth and reality as such. Now widely accepted across academia, the postmodern view holds that there is no objective truth – about anything. There is no objective reality. Instead, there are only competing historical narratives that have been socially constructed for strategic purposes in a never-ending power struggle between various dominant oppressor groups and their helpless victims.
Rich oppress poor. Whites oppress blacks. Men oppress women. Straights oppress gays who oppress queer who oppress trans who oppress non-binary. In this sense, postmodernism is identical to Marxism.
Unlike postmodernists however, old-school Marxists believed that a purely scientific approach could be undertaken to manage a national economy for the benefit of all. Ludwig von Mises destroyed this notion by presenting the Calculation Problem, which demonstrates that because the factors of production are not traded on the market, there are no meaningful prices, and so even the most rudimentary economic calculations regarding profit and loss become impossible. Mises’ theory was subsequently confirmed empirically in the Soviet Union, North Korea, and elsewhere.
So, by the 1960s, socialists needed a new “philosophy” to support their totalitarian ambitions. Enter Jacque Derrida and the other French intellectuals who pioneered postmodernism. If we can’t rely on truth and reason to get what we want, they thought, we’ll just do away with those outmoded concepts altogether. And so they did.
To a postmodern there is no such thing as “the” truth. You have “your” truth, but I have “my” truth, and they have “their” truth. Nobody has any greater claim on truth than anybody else. Any effort to make such a claim is a form of oppression.
The astute libertarian might take an approach similar to Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethic, by asking this of postmoderns: Isn’t postmodernism itself just another truth claim, subject to dismissal as a subjective historical narrative? In that light, postmodernism would seem to be self-refuting, but I digress.
“Post Modern Justice” is a stylized and branded icon for our organization, and which name is meant to contain a reference to and implied critique of the evident manifestation of postmodernism into the so-called “justice” system. “Law” once embodied a set of moral and ethical principles to guide us on the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behavior in society. What we now call the Common Law was a grass roots phenomenon in medieval England that arrived at a moral and ethical code not too different from the Ten Commandments, or the “golden rule”, or from libertarianism’s Non-Agression Axiom: It is wrong to initiate force or fraud.
“Law” was once understood as being a set of rules which, if obeyed consistently, would produce a peaceful and prosperous society. And, when disputes between people arise (as they inevitably do), then the law could be applied to achieve a morally and ethically sound resolution to the dispute. The resolution was given the name “justice”.
Under this original view, one could speak of the law, just as one could speak of the truth. The truth and the law were closely related. Indeed, witnesses in a legal proceeding are sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I wonder how much longer it will be before witness are sworn to tell their “own personal truth”. Perhaps witnesses should solemnly swear to “share their feelings”?
While the Anglo-American legal system can never have been said to comport with a truly libertarian ethic, today, no moral or ethical principles of any kind remain in the legal system. Principles have been replaced by rules. Endless rules. Hundreds of thousands of pages of statutes, case law, rules of civil procedure, rules of criminal procedure, rules of court, rules of evidence, local rules, administrative rules, restatements of the rules, and so on, before you ever get to Orders, which are issued under the rules, but also function as rules.
There are exceptions to every rule, and in many instances, exceptions to the exceptions. Far from a resource to resolve conflict, the “law” on the books is designed to be arguable. The longer and more protracted the litigation, the more wealth that is extracted and the more psychological trauma that is inflicted.
In fact, future attorneys are trained in law school to “argue both sides”, i.e. to become highly-skilled at fashioning competing and mutually exclusive legal arguments from one set of facts. This is the opposite of what I once conceived the law to be. In addition to such vagueness and argue-ability of the “law”, on many issues the “law” explicitly grants judges wide “discretion”. “Discretion” is code for “the judge can just make up a law on the spot”.
In any type of legal proceeding, both the law and the facts can be disputed. In some cases, where the facts are not in dispute, the matter may be adjudicated purely as a matter of law. Under a proper concept of “law”, such purely legal cases are relatively rare, because a law based in moral principles is easy for the layperson to understand. It is unlikely that people who agree on the facts would often disagree about an interpretation of the law.
Under the common law legal system we inherited from England, juries – not judges – were supposed to decide cases. But the trying of the law comes first, and under postmodern “law”, a judge can decide any procedural issue for either side, regardless of the facts (assuming for the moment that there are such things as “facts”). Thus, it is an easy matter for any judge to decide and dispense with any case before it ever reaches a jury. Despite the U.S. Constitution promising the right to a jury trial in civil matters, less than 1% of cases ever make it to a jury.
Worse, in some of the most important areas of the law, like Family, Child Welfare and Probate Law, jury trials have been completely done away with, replaced by a “bench trial”. In true postmodern fashion, the judge in a “bench trial” becomes both judge and jury, not only ruling on (i.e. making up) the “law”, but just in case the judge can’t think of a way to pervert the “law” to achieve a desired result, also making all the necessary “findings of fact”. Since objective truth does not exist, the postmodern judge feels perfectly justified in declaring his or her (or zher or their) preferred narrative on the situation, regardless of the evidence or testimony or the consequences or any other such mundane distractions.
I can faithfully report to you that in today’s postmodern courtroom, judges routinely accept obvious and provable lies as “facts”, apply those “facts” to the subjective discretionary ambiguities now passing for the “law”, then make whatever “order” or “ruling” they want, for whatever reason or for no reason. This is standard procedure in every courthouse in America. I challenge any attorney or judge or anyone who has every been party to any case to dispute this.
Today’s postmodern “law” and “facts” mean whatever any judge says they mean. Two judges can apply the same “law” to similar “facts” and arrive at opposite conclusions. The same one judge can apply the “law” differently from one case to the next. Judges advance utterly fictitious narratives favoring one side, while disallowing any testimony at all from the other side, all with no responsibility.
Postmodern lawyers and judges have now deconstructed law and facts and rendered the terms meaningless, in the same way the postmodern philosophers and professors have deconstructed truth and reality and rendered it meaningless.
I’m not exaggerating, not even a little, when I say:
A judge in any case can decide any issue for anybody regardless of anything.
In other words, there is no law. There is no justice. You have no rights. Long ago redefined, “Law”, “justice” and “rights” are simply the names given to what the State does to people in court buildings.
Post Modern Justice is what happens in Court. Enter at your own risk. Leave if you can figure out how.
July 11, 2020
Alexander C. Baker, J.D.
President, Post Modern Justice Media Project
A Higher Law 