Introducing “A Rudofsky”: The Art of Judicial Gymnastics
He is a textualist—when it suits the narrative he wants to create. But when the text stands in his way? He is a Rudofsky.
He truncated a subordinate clause to distort the meaning of a sentence. He was a Rudofsky.
He ordered documents to be sealed, then misrepresented what they contained. He was a Rudofsky.
The term “Rudofskyist” might soon find its place in the legal lexicon, expanding beyond the conduct of Judge Lee P. Rudofsky himself. If we take a descriptivist approach, it can encompass any stupid attorney trick—any legal sleight of hand designed to mislead, conceal, or manipulate under the guise of procedural neutrality.
It’s not just about one judge. It’s about an entire mindset—one that bends the law to fit an agenda, rather than letting the law dictate the outcome. And when the law doesn’t cooperate? A Rudofsky will make sure the record says something else.
USCourts.gov Journalist’s Guide to the Federal Courts Section on Sealing the Record
A Journalist’s Guide to the Federal Courts Annotated
Federal judges and the journalists who cover them share an important goal: They want the public to receive accurate and understandable information about the federal courts and their work. Hahahahah ha.
The media perform an important and constitutionally protected role by informing and educating the public. The media also serve a time-honored role as the public’s watchdog over government institutions, including the courts. Likewise, courts uphold many of the legal protections that enable journalists to perform their jobs. Handing out sealing orders like candy? A Journalist’s Guide to the Federal Courts is intended to assist reporters who cover appellate, district, and bankruptcy courts – the cases, the people, and the process. It also offers basic information for journalists writing about the federal court system as a whole. The guide does not discuss the Supreme Court of the United States. Go to the Supreme Court website for helpful resources. SCOTUS doesn’t even describe documents properly. For example, 24M44 is described as a motion to file documents under seal, but it was really a motion to unseal those documents that were sealed at the District Court.
The Guide is intended to help working reporters perform their professional duties; it is not a comprehensive overview of the federal courts. Find additional online resources about the federal Judiciary.
The Guide does not constitute a statement of Judicial Conference policy and is not binding on any federal court or its judges or employees. Individual courts have varied approaches to media relations. Journalists should familiarize themselves with the customs, practices, and rules of the courts they cover.
Sealed Documents and Closed Hearings
Some documents are not ordinarily available to the public. As noted in Privacy Policy for Electronic Case Files these include unexecuted summonses or warrants; pretrial bail and presentence reports; juvenile records; documents containing information about jurors; and various filings, such as expenditure records, that might reveal the defense strategies of court-appointed lawyers.
In certain circumstances, judges have the authority to seal additional documents or to close hearings that ordinarily would be public. Reasons can include protecting victims and cooperating informants, and avoiding the release of information that might compromise an ongoing criminal investigation or a defendant’s due process rights.
Some examples:
- Courts sometimes seal documents that contain sensitive material, such as classified information affecting national security or information involving trade secrets. Or basic business data which would show that the court and the big business defendant lied in unsealed documents.
- Criminal case documents and hearing transcripts are sometimes sealed to protect cooperating witnesses from retaliation.
- The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide for protective orders during discovery to protect a party or person from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense. The are often used by Big Business Billionaires to increase the cost of litigation for ordinary plaintiffs.
- Bankruptcy court records are public, but under the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure, the court may withhold certain commercial information, any “scandalous or defamatory matter,” or information that may create an undue risk of identity theft or other injury.
Generally, when a party to a case moves to seal a document or to close a hearing, a record of the motion can be found in PACER. Look at a few that were granted. For example, in 4:21-cv-00189 (E.D. AR) Judge Lee P. Rudofsky rubber stamped numerous motions to seal made by Debt Guyer Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC. As noted in Media Access in Brief, media organizations sometimes file motions opposing such requests.
Civil litigants may ask judges to issue a protective order forbidding parties from disclosing any information or materials gathered during discovery. Deposition records often remain in the custody of the lawyers, and the media do not have a right of access to discovery materials not filed with the court.
When a civil case is settled, that fact is usually apparent from the public record. However, the terms of settlement and any discovery records may remain confidential. I have seen lawyers write settlement agreements that say that the fact that a settlement was reached is confidential. Now, how is the docket to appear in that case?
The Federal Judicial Center provides comprehensive explanations of these issues in two downloadable booklets: Sealing Court Records and Proceedings: A Pocket Guide and Confidential Discovery: A Pocket Guide on Protective Orders.
Portfolio Recovery’s Legal Attack Fails—Fresh Judge Allows Blog’s Comeback
The Honorable Brian S. Miller delegated the job of collecting analytics about who has a copy of documents I filed on this site on December 9, 2024 to me. So, my time is short.
Before I have a chance to fill in the details of the behind-the-scenes proceedings over the last week, since Judge Miller issued a temporary order to take down the blog, please enjoy reading the petition for writ of certiorari at the bottom of the post that is distributed for the conference of February 21, 2025.
Portfolio Recovery Associates let it slip during the hearing on sanctions this morning that the petition was distributed. The Supreme Court quit sending me notifications on December 9, 2024. I did not get a notification of PRA’s waiver to respond, nor the distribution for conference. Here is a screenshot of a search for all my Supreme Court notifications.
Here is a screenshot of the docket for case no. 24-6113.
Petition for Writ of Certiorari
Portfolio Recovery Associates Waives Right to Respond at SCOTUS
Portfolio Recovery Associates filed this waiver on December 30, 2024. I was not notified electronically and did not receive service.
Portfolio Recovery Associates Continues With Judge Lee P. Rudofsky’s Blessings: Will SCOTUS Step In?
My petition for writ of certiorari to reverse summary judgment in favor of Portfolio Recovery Associates is at the Supreme Court after the Eighth Circuit rubber stamped Judge Rudofsky’s orders. No. 24-6113
Judge Lee P. Rudofsky Recused from Portfolio Recovery Associates Case
For once, I won’t bury the lead. Judge Rudofsky filed an order recusing himself from my case against Portfolio Recovery Associates!!!
My regular readers know there are not many exclamation points used on this blog. This is a three exclamation point day.
The order was filed two days ago and sent to me by email yesterday, but I’ve been busy and didn’t check my emails. So, with no further ado…
Thank you, Your Honor.
More On Justices of the Arkansas Supreme Court
Why aren’t they showing the love? The story begins in September 2024 (or earlier), when Justice Courtney Hudson filed a complaint seeking an injunction to block the release of emails exchanged between herself and Lisa Ballard, then the Director of the Committee on Professional Conduct, in response to a FOIA request.
Here is a per curiam in which five justices take jurisdiction over the circuit court case, dismissing it with prejudice, and Justice Baker dissents.
Justice Baker appears to be right, to me. Arkansas Code Annotated section 25-19-105(b)(7) gives an exemption to FOIA for correspondence of a Supreme Court Justice.
On a personal note, there does not seem to be an exemption for the audio recordings made of hearings by court reporters. Judge Rudofsky of Federal Court and Judge Susan Weaver of State Court have blocked me from obtaining copies of recordings that, by my memory and notes, don’t match up to the written transcriptions. My request for the federal public records was made through motion in court documents, not labeled “FOIA”. Still, a judge should treat any request for public documents that don’t fit into another exemption as a FOIA request.
One FOIA I made for a hearing presided over by Judge Susan Weaver was denied by the vile judge herself. It is too late for me to appeal that decision, but anyone else (ie Betty Figueroa) is allowed to make the same request and appeal a negative response. I will make requests for the two other state court hearings and one federal. Stay tuned.
Chaos, Controversy and Court Corruption
Common people receive no relief from our courts.
The system is perfect. The people involved pervert and destroy.
Here are some of the names of court employees that have turned our court system into a piggy bank for attorneys and Big Business Billionaires.
Judge Susan Weaver, Arkansas State Court
Court Reporter Jana Perry, Arkansas State Court
Judge Lee P. Rudofsky, Federal District Court Eastern Arkansas
Judge Raymond W. Gruender, Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals
Judge Ralph R. Erikson, Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals
Judge David R. Stras, Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals
Judge Todd W. Robinson, Federal District Court, Southern California
Judge Linda Lopez, Federal District Court, Southern California
Judge Janis L. Sammartino, Federal District Court, Southern California
Clerk “Jude” or “JPP” Federal District Court, Southern California
Big Business Billionaires in health insurance, hospitals and debt collection cannot be held accountable for their unethical, often illegal practices if common people cannot access our courts.
This post is conclusionary. But read through the years of documentation I discuss in the hundreds of other posts. Download FREE Docs of the Day. Consult with me; there is a synergy to sharing experience and information.
Solutions? Demand transparency in court proceedings. Shift the focus of law enforcement from victimless crimes to white collar crime, especially honest services fraud. File legitimate complaints with regulatory agencies. Then allow individuals to use the agency findings as evidence in private claims.
My petition for writ of certiorari to SCOTUS focuses attention on these solutions. Read Sup. Ct. 24-6113. Move the court for permission to file an amicus brief or offer to take over the pro se case on contingency.
Portfolio Recovery Associates Continues to Torment Consumer Years After Closing the Account
I filed a lawsuit, pro se, against Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC. The Big Business Billionaire debt collection company set the balance on the account to zero and closed the account, they say, “in light of the ongoing litigation.” Then they threw me a bone, an inadequate settlement offer, and expected me to run off with it.
That was almost four years ago. The case is at the United States Supreme Court on petition for writ of certiorari. (Sup. Ct. No. 24-6113)
It was not enough for PRA to win at the lower courts due to a Pro Big Business Billionaire – Anti-individual judge named Lee P. Rudofsky. The lawyers from Rose Law Firm and Troutman Pepper who represent the PRA Group, Inc. subsidiary came up with a ruse.
There may be a clerk at the Supreme Court of the United States involved. (I informed the clerk of this mistake weeks ago and it has not been corrected.) I filed a motion to file some documents that were sealed by Rudofsky and the Eighth Circuit initially sealed and then immediately unsealed at the Supreme Court. the motion was “Granted”. But it was docketed as filed two weeks before it was filed, when the petition was filed. And the documents were filed under seal the day after the motion was granted and not unsealed.
When I saw “Motion Granted” I posted the documents on this blog. The next day, after talking to a staff member at SCOTUS, I deleted the link from the blog page. But people who received the email copy of the post still had the link and the link still worked.
I’ve heard that just deleting something doesn’t ever really remove it from the internet. It was a mystery and I let PRA know that I didn’t know the magic trick that would make those emailed links quit working.
PRA filed an “emergency” motion on December 20th, 11 days after my post was emailed to them, and asked the court to take down this entire blog “until such time as PRA can be assured its confidential documents are no longer publicly accessible” along with about a year’s worth of my total income.
I worked through Christmas week researching and writing a response to try to save my blog from disappearing. Judge Rudofsky told me in a written docket entry order that he would not give me past December 27th.
Judge Rudofsky gave PRA’s team of attorneys 10 days to reply to my response.
The email you can download below was entered in the reply as an exhibit. It is from WordPress’ parent company and was sent on December 21st. It says, in part, “If the documents are still available, the fastest way to remove them would be for Ms. Hammett to contact wordpress support and they can assist her.”
Wow! PRA must have been really concerned about the confidentiality of the documents. NOT! They probably knew the four clicks I would need to make to break the links to the documents. They definitely knew who I could speak with to find out how it can be done. They knew that taking down my blog was like dropping a nuclear bomb to kill a gnat.
I’m going to file another complaint against PRA and its attorneys for intentional infliction of emotional distress. If the court orders my blog to be “taken down” then I will ask for $1,000,000 per year for all the years I was actively writing. That is about the same as PRA’s risk manager’s base salary.
I would have preferred to spend Christmas as planned, cherishing peaceful moments with my granddaughter and my husband, who is battling stage IV cancer. However, a 6- or 7-million-dollar jury verdict should make PRA think twice before retaliating against a victim of its abusive practices—someone brave enough to challenge a company that files 3,000 lawsuits a week against everyday people.
A Higher Law 