The Courts Fail to Treat the Non-Elite Fairly, Equally; Bar Poor and Middleclass from Success
A therapist sent this Doc of the Day, an exercise in satisfying unmet needs. I am sorry, there was no attribution.
Let’s focus on No. 16: “To be treated fairly, equally, and given an opportunity to succeed.”
The vast majority of people who represent themselves in court feel that they are treated unfairly, unequally and are doomed to failure.
The number one rule of court is that the rules “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.”
Ha! That never happens!
Let’s look at one way the plebians are mistreated.
In the Federal District Court of Eastern Arkansas, attorneys are allowed to file electronically. The self-represented must print four copies of their documents, and either drive to Little Rock to file or mail the documents and hope they are received timely.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5(d)(2) states:
Nonelectronic Filing. A paper not filed electronically is filed by delivering it:
(A) to the clerk; or
(B) to a judge who agrees to accept it for filing, and who must then note the filing date on the paper and promptly send it to the clerk.
There is no definition of “delivering” in this section. Some jurisdictions specify that delivery for filing is the postmark date. It seems like a big risk to assume the postmark will be the date of filing where there is no specific rule. What if the mail never arrives? There will be no proof of the postmark. You might take a picture of the postmarked envelope at the post office. Why deal with the extra stress? It is prudent to hand deliver.
When I hand delivered last time, the clerk accidentally handed three copies of a document back to me. I called the clerk and sent an email to the judge’s clerk. Both said no need to bring the copies back to them.
One copy is used for the public box. These copies can be read by the press and other public by visiting the clerk’s office. That is a good idea, but why don’t the electronic filing attorneys need to bring in an extra paper copy?
Filing conventionally increased the costs on my case against Portfolio Recovery Associates by about $8,000, so far. PRA claims they spent about $8,000 on costs of deposing me, having transcripts printed, and copying the thousands of documents they demanded that I produce in discovery.
$8,000 is more than my total yearly pension.
As a low-income litigant, I had to choose between filing my documents or holding depositions and doing other discovery. Well, that is not really a “choice”. I am required to file the documents, or I lose.
King Antoinette Rudofsky (AKA Judge Lee P. Rudofsky) has a solution for the high costs of litigation for the commoners. He said that filing a lawsuit is the plaintiff’s “choice”. If you don’t want the high cost of litigation, just let the people who control the money walk all over you.
If you do choose to fight for your rights in court, beware! A judge like Rudofsky or Linda Lopez will do mental gymnastics to twist the facts to feign some reasonableness in forcing the poor or middle-class pro se litigant to pay the represented litigant’s costs and attorney fees.
Basically, if you choose to try to correct a wrong in court, expect to face bankruptcy.
(I have won several lawsuits against represented adversaries, but it is not easy, and most people don’t have my tenacity and aptitude for reading rules.)
Back to the purpose of this post. What can a person do to help himself move closer to getting his needs met when wronged by the moneyed elite?
Bombings and going postal are not viable options.
File a lawsuit? Not in Lee Rudofsky’s court. Not in Linda Lopez’ court. Not in Susy Weaver’s court.
(Yes, I know the courts are supposed to belong to the People, but let’s live in reality.)
Do you want to know the answer?
…to be continued
Does Black’s Law Dictionary Define “Bitch”?
Don’t expect too much from this post.
I slept a whopping 5 hours last night. This federal judge in California, Linda Lopez, gave me more needless work and I know if I didn’t spend the entire morning writing, she would order me to pay another $60,000 or so in attorney fees to my adversaries who hired $450 per hour attorneys to take on a self-represented litigant.
Really, with the idiotic rulings issued by the likes of Judge Linda Lopez and her blond twin Judge Susan Kaye Weaver in Arkansas, a sleazy litigant could get away with hiring a bozo like William Zac White and still win.
Lopez and Weaver are flip sides of the same coin… A Democrat and a Republican hypocrite.
Both are evil, unethical, conniving. Both will steal from the poor to give to their friends. I haven’t looked it up, but figure that to be the definition in Black’s Law of —-
Oh, do you want to read the documents I wrote while in a zombie like state? Here they are, your FREE Docs of the Day.
PRA Group, Inc. Spends Nearly $100,000,000 this Year on Legal Collections and Calls Me “Litigious”
“Why Is PRA Group (PRAA) Down 10.9% Since Last Earnings Report?”
– – Quote from Zacks Research on Yahoo Finance today.
Portfolio Recovery Associates, a wholly owned subsidiary of PRA Group, Inc. (symbol PRAA), spent at least $8,000 in costs and hired two premiere law firms to defend against my allegations of wrongdoing that PRA said would be worth no more than $5,000 if it went to a jury. The CFPB made similar allegations against PRA in March 2023, that PRA did to millions of people what it did to me, and PRA settled for about $24 million.
These defense costs are a drop in the bucket compared to the money the debt buyer and collector spends on legal collections. According to SEC filings, the amount spent on lawsuits against alleged debtors approaches $100 million per year. According to the deposition of a PRA representative, the company wins 90% of its cases by default.
The litigious nature of PRA Group companies is one issue that may affect investors’ perception of PRAA stock value.
Another issue, that is not immediately related to this blog is PRA Group’s propensity to borrow.
SEC filings as reported by Zacks show PRA Group has $4.3 Billion in assets and $2.7 Billion in borrowings. Do the total assets reflect the face value of the junk debt PRA purchases for pennies on the dollar?
Court documents in another case involving a different debt buyer show that an industry standard is about an 11% rate of collection on the face value of portfolios.
If you know whether PRA or debt buyers in general report assets as face value or expected revenues, please leave a comment or send a private email to bohemian_books@yahoo.com. Designate the email “background only”, “anonymous” or “for attribution”.
The reason PRA’s borrowing may become pertinent to this blog soon is that a low actual value of assets to borrowing rate is likely to lead to bankruptcy court. In bankruptcy, PRA’s portfolios would be sold to other debt buyers. And the new buyer would continue the cycle of churning junk debt by collecting from individuals who don’t have law degrees or teams of attorneys to protect them from abusive debt collection practices.
Bill Introduced That Could Increase the Number of Debt Collector Employees Willing to Rat Out Their Boss
From Congress.gov
S.1124 – Financial Compensation for CFPB Whistleblowers Act 118th Congress (2023-2024)
BILL
| Sponsor: | Sen. Cortez Masto, Catherine [D-NV] (Introduced 03/30/2023) |
|---|---|
| Committees: | Senate – Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs |
| Latest Action: | Senate – 03/30/2023 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. (All Actions) |
| Tracker: Tip | This bill has the status Introduced Here are the steps for Status of Legislation: Introduced Passed Senate Passed House To President Became Law |
Summary: S.1124 — 118th Congress (2023-2024)
Shown Here:
Introduced in Senate (03/30/2023)
Financial Compensation for CFPB Whistleblowers Act
This bill requires the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to provide awards to whistleblowers who report information resulting in monetary sanctions.
Whistleblowers claiming an award are permitted to have legal representation. Anonymous whistleblowers claiming an award are required to have legal representation and must disclose their identity to the bureau. The bureau may not disclose an anonymous whistleblower’s identity except in limited circumstances, including to other government agencies in the course of an investigation.
The protections in this bill may not be waived by any employment agreement, including by a predispute arbitration agreement.
Vote for Justice Courtney Rae Hudson
“A pair of balls beats everything.” – Heard at the poker tables.
According to an article in the Arkansas Times, “Arkansas Supreme Court Associate Justice Courtney Rae Hudson announced today she is running to fill the seat vacated by Associate Justice Robin Wynne, who died while still in office earlier this year.”
Justice Hudson retains the seat she fills presently if she loses the election, and she is unopposed thus far. Still, give her your vote.
Justice Courtney Rae Hudson looks pretty and feminine. But she has a big pair.
It is a pleasure to read Justice Hudson’s opinions. We the People should reward her with whatever position works out the best for her personally.
Here is a repost of a recent opinion written by Justice Courtney Rae Hudson for you to download and enjoy.
Therapist Said Karma Would Get PRA Group, Inc.
She was right!
Data and graph by Yahoo Finance.
It keeps falling, but I need to take a break from the blog for a long weekend.
Can’t wait to see what happens when the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals tells Judge Lee P. Rudofsky that he needs to let a jury decide what the damages are when a debt collector forces a person to sue to make the phone calls stop.
What Would Make Portfolio Recovery Associates Stop Making Annoying Phone Calls? An Open Email to the World’s Most Litigious Debt Buyer
Dear Counsel,
Troutman Pepper is well aware that the bill of sale offered as evidence of the alleged debt was not adequate proof, as I argued, because there was no reference to the -6049 account nor to me.
Assuming my appeal is successful, I intend to inform the jury that I incurred further damages during the pendency of the appeal. These include but are not limited to an increase in anxiety.
My sleep pattern is disrupted again, and I have had only about four hours of sleep per night for about three weeks. The sleep I have is filled with lucid dreams about traumatic experiences that I had buried by 2017.
While awake, I am ruminating on PRA’s implied threat that it will attack my husband, who keeps his finances completely separate from mine, which might cause discord in an amazing marriage.
The Court was wrong when he said suing PRA was my choice. Filing suit caused PRA to set the balance to zero, regardless if it was a waiver with an IRC violation or an admission that the debt arose from a data error or fraud. Filing suit presumably would stop PRA from making further annoying phone calls to me after the 30 day verification period. PRA said it stopped calling the -6000 number in 2013, then started calling it again seven years later.
If you know any other way to get PRA to stop calling a person forever, other than suing Portfolio Recovery or giving them an extorted payment, let me know.
Thank you,
Laura Lynn Hammett
***********************
Please leave your comments below, or email bohemian_books@yahoo.com
A Conversation with Federal District Judge Lee P. Rudofsky
*WARNING! WARNING! This is parody.
The judge’s actual words are in black. I moved whole sentences around a bit. Maybe I should practice law; I already truncate sentences and splice phrases from different paragraphs together. I did change third person to second person “you” statements without using [brackets]. Where I am surmising what Judge Rudofsky is thinking, the text is blue. The way I wish I could write in my appellate brief is in red.
Judge Rudofsky:
Pending before the Court is Defendant PRA’s Motion for Taxable Costs. Pursuant to Rule 54(d)(1) and 28 U.S.C. § 1920, PRA requests $8356.18 in costs. You make numerous arguments as to why the Court should not impose the requested costs. Your arguments are not persuasive. No arguments or reasoning can influence me, because I have a solemn pact to protect the interests of Walmart, and PRA buys billions of dollars of worthless debts from GE Capital Walmart. We gotta get PRA paid. Accordingly, the Court GRANTS PRA’s Motion.
Laura Lynn:
But you are not following the law and you are falsifying the record.
Judge Rudofsky:
I do want to tell you that I am not one of those judges who gets concerned or worried or upset about appeals. I get paid the same whether I get it right or get it wrong. In fact, the cabal gives me extra points if I keep the masses in their place. I’m on the fast track to a position as Grand Poobah.
Laura Lynn:
But, your honor, I am a 61-year-old with severe Hashimoto’s Disease and stress related insomnia. It is difficult for me to take a job, because I never know if I will have the energy to leave the house. I am trying to make money writing, but that is difficult. That is why I didn’t use my bachelor’s degree in journalism right after graduation and worked in real estate instead. I lost all my relatively liquid assets in the COVID-Crash and live on a $639 per month pension.
Judge Rudofsky:
Liar! Elsewhere you state that your monthly income is $630.
Laura Lynn:
I’m sorry. It’s not that I was too tired to look up my deposit receipts or my pinky finger slipped when I reached for the 9. I was trying to keep one extra vegetarian salad at Chipotle each month without reporting it.
Judge Rudofsky:
Plebeian. You also cite to 15 U.S.C. § 1692(k). § 1692 does not have a subsection (k). You mean § 1692k.
Laura Lynn:
I beg your forgiveness. My sister Mary Sherman is right. I am a “moron”.
It seems a little Draconian though, to make me pay more than a year’s pension for the debt buyer’s costs, when I could not afford to pay for the depositions that you said would help my case.
Judge Rudofsky:
You have not shown that you are currently so destitute that awarding taxable costs would be inequitable. You do not note what your expenses are.
I do not believe that you can’t get by on $639 per hour and still pay PRA’s costs. Attorneys like James Trefil get paid half that and pay their bills. Well, maybe not James Trefil, but you understand my point.
Laura Lynn:
But Your Honor, I said $639 per month.
Judge Rudofsky:
That does not create — a more favorable situation for you were this to go to a jury than you had before. In fact, if it does anything, it hurts you, but I just don’t think it makes any difference one way or the — or the other. Notwithstanding your status of a poverty level income, you appear to concede that you have assets of at least $70,000 in a capital account.
Laura Lynn:
Your Honor, (exasperated), that money is being held by my sisters who refuse to dissolve a family-owned limited liability company that has no purpose to exist, other than to hold my capital. That is what one of my 12 lawsuits over a lifetime is about. That Court, Judge Linda Lopez, said that my sisters are using reasonable business judgment to decide that my capital is assets of the company and dissolution is not required as long as the company holds assets.
It is on appeal.
Judge Rudofsky:
Oh, that is wonderful. I’m sure Linda appreciates you appealing. I think it’s a great part of our system and, quite frankly, it makes me feel better that there are other judges looking over my shoulder who can tell me if they think I got it right.
Laura Lynn:
What if they think you got it wrong?
***************************
Please consider helping me defray the costs of appealing this order. I am considering framing a question to SCOTUS: When a federal district judge, who cannot be fired according to the will of the people, dismantles the FDCPA, is he making an unconstitutional power grab?
You can CashApp a donation to $CoolOldStuff. Or contact me at bohemian_books@yahoo.com. Especially if you can contribute free legal representation or know an organization that pays filing fees for people who can’t qualify as in forma pauperis. Thank you. (This is a gift to an individual, not a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.)
Satan and Federal Court Judge Lee P. Rudofsky
No, I am not saying Judge Lee P. Rudofsky is Satan or the Anti-Christ.
I am just saying that we can learn a lesson by comparing the two.
Judge Rudofsky has now granted Portfolio Recovery Associates motion for me to pay their costs of defending against a lawsuit arising from incessant phone calls PRA made in an attempt to collect money I did not owe to them.
Along the way, Judge Rudofsky twisted words, lied, deceived and may have orchestrated the falsification of a transcript. I will detail my claims in my appeal and in other posts on this blog. Here is the big picture.
Judge Rudofsky is incredibly intelligent.
He studied at Cornell. He studied at Harvard. He lived in Israel for a year, and I presume he speaks Hebrew well. He writes in English with a silver “tongue”.
But intellect is not an indication of integrity. And Judge Rudofsky lacks integrity.
He lies. He deceives. He has no compassion nor empathy for the ordinary person.
He is a dangerous man.
(Being dangerous can be taken as a compliment of sorts. Sometimes I call my husband “cute”. Then I playfully correct myself. “I mean you look sexy and dangerous.” Judge Rudofsky should not take my comment about him as a compliment.)
Here are a few verses about Satan taken from the King James Version that remind me of Judge Lee Rudofsky.
Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.
2 Corinthians 11:14-15
And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
1 Peter 5:8
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
2 Corinthians 11:3
But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty… [which refers to Genesis 3:4-5) And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And Eve fell for it. Be on your guard. When you read orders written by Judge Rudofsky, know that he is tweeking the truth, whether through subtle deception or outright lies. If your case is disambiguated from the plaintiff who failed in front of Judge Rudofsky, the Judge may fictionalize the evidence to fall under the precedent that fulfils his agenda.
His agenda is to please those who control the most money, in exchange for prestige, power and possessions.
2 Timothy 3:13
But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
Matthew 7:15-17
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
Judge Rudofsky’s fruit is evil. He presided on a case filed by a self-represented, low-income, sickly woman against a billion-dollar debt buyer. He admittedly misquoted the plaintiff to say she agreed she owed a debt, ignoring the score of clear and concise statements that the woman did not owe the debt. He refused to let a jury decide.
The woman told the judge that all her assets other than those that are protected in bankruptcy were lost or taken from her since COVID-19. She showed that her efforts to re-enter the workforce by reviving her writing career resulted in a loss, at least in 2022. She said that she went to other courts to try to recover some of those assets but lost at the trial court and is on appeal. (Only 20% of appeals are successful and the number by self-represented litigants approaches zero.)
Judge Rudofsky ordered the woman, me, to pay over a year’s pension in costs anyhow. This is not a direct quote, but to paraphrase, he said “let her eat cake.”
Friday Funday: PRA Group, Inc., symbol PRAA Takes a Dump
Graph clipped from Yahoo Finance.
Have a nice weekend, y’all.
UPDATE from Hump-day.
How Low Can PRAA Go?
A Higher Law 