In Hammett v. Sherman, et al, the court went to unprecedented lengths, sanctioning the unauthorized practice of law, to transfer assets from the pro se litigant to attorneys and their wealthy clients, also attorneys.

The case is on appeal in Federal Court. It is likely that the California State Courts would not allow this case to have proceeded. Allowing a derivative action advocated by a non-lawyer to proceed is tantamount to authorizing the advocate to practice law.

Here is a list of district court judges who insisted that the derivative case on behalf of Silver Strand Plaza, LLC proceed on the merits, even though it was filed by someone who is not an attorney.

Janis L. Sammartino, nominated by former President George W. Bush.

Todd W. Robinson, nominated by former President Donald Trump.

Linda Lopez, nominated by President Joseph Biden.

While researching for this blog post, I came across an interesting story about Judge Sammartino’s son, a convicted sex offender who had sex with his 17-year-old student while teaching at San Diego’s most prestigious private schools in 2020. It will be interesting to find more about how the 36-year-old judge’s son was treated by the court. Click here to read the story on the NYPost.

One “reason” the judge’s son gave for violating his young student was that he had a bike accident that caused a head injury. My son fell two stories onto his head, and though it caused brain damage to his speech center and hearing loss, his reasoning was not diminished at all, and was in fact improved. Of course, every injury is different, and each individual might respond differently, but I can just imagine Janis Sammartino and her lawyer friends sitting around coming up with this bullshit excuse. Why not attribute his bad conduct to seeing his unethical mother get away with her corruption and his resultant feeling of entitlement?

Also, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal brought a case to the attention of all litigants and asked for supplemental briefing.

Carden v. Arkoma Assocs., 494 U.S. 185 (1990), a decades old SCOTUS case, decided that any entity other than a corporation, such as a limited partnership, is a citizen in each state where any member is a citizen. This includes even limited partners’ citizenship. That makes it impossible for the federal courts to take diversity jurisdiction. (I have not done all the research yet. My supplemental brief will be expounded upon.)

While digging into Carden, I realized that, without the derivative malpractice case against the attorney defendants, the remining damages against the attorney defendants fell far below the $75,000 minimum threshold for federal diversity jurisdiction. Those defendants should have been bifurcated out of the case six years ago, and the remaining conversion case sent to state court.

Jurisdictional problems should be brought up by the Court. Kudos to the Ninth Circuit for doing its job, even if they ignored the jurisdictional error for two previous bids at interlocutory appeal of the order for attorney fees on the anti-SLAPP motion brought by the attorney defendants and their $450 per hour attorneys.

Judge Sammartino, Judge Robinson, and Judge Lopez just wasted an insane amount of public and private resources by keeping the case active in the federal court system for over 300 documents. The Court of Appeals and a sickly old lady who is not an attorney had to school the team of highly paid attorneys and the team of corrupt judges.

Your tax dollars and your justice system at work.