Judge Lee P. Rudofsky’s Biased Opinion: Free Doc of the Day, Transcript of Hearing on MSJ
The transcript of the hearing on my motion for partial summary judgment and the dueling MSJ filed by Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC is posted below.
[On Friday night, July 7 at 5:59 p.m., attorneys for Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC sent an email to me. I was sitting out back under the porch, watching a light rain and a grand rainbow, destressing from reading PRA’s latest pack of lies. When I went back to writing for the night (because my hubby was fishing), I opened the email. The version of the transcript I had posted was an unredacted version. There is a redacted version which I am posting tonight in its stead. I got the unredacted version off PACER minutes before I posted it on June 28, 2023. Please let me know if you were one of the readers who downloaded the unredacted version. You should delete it. Thank you and I am sorry for any inconvenience this causes you.]
(The usual $3 per document maximum charge on PACER does not apply to transcripts, so the value of the free document is $13.50. In my spare time I will address the inequity of charging pro se litigants to download copies of their file stamped documents from PACER. Also, how charging the average person to browse through federal district court files discourages the transparency that is supposed to be a cornerstone in our justice system.)
Read the transcript as if you are on a jury. Would you be reasonable to believe that I was telling the truth?
Did PRA call me hundreds of times, more times than they admitted to? Or did I decide to take a full minute to set up a video recording of our call on November 18, 2020, without having received any calls from the same people in the months leading up?
At the time PRA “investigated” my alleged debt, before I filed my lawsuit, did they have any documentation supporting the debt. Or did they base their investigation on one line item in a portfolio of untold thousands or millions of line items that are known to be inaccurate?
Judge Rudofsky decided that no reasonable juror could believe I had a case, and no reasonable juror could agree with me that I had no debt to Portfolio Recovery, nor that the numbers they claimed did not add up.
If you happen to read this transcript of a hearing held in front of Judge Lee P. Rudofsky and you are opposing confirmation of a promotion of Judge Rudofsky, feel free to contact me at bohemian_books@yahoo.com. I’d love to talk. [My attorney and I presume potential attorneys may have access to the unredacted version of all the case documents. Maybe we can form a symbiotic relationship.]
Free Doc of the Day: Motion in Limine to Exclude Report of Dr. Sanjay Adhia Hired Gun of Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC
Busy Busy Busy.
I am preparing for my post judgment activity in the case against PRA Group, Inc’s wholly owned subsidiary. PRA Group, Inc. has $2.6 billion dollars of credit extended to it, which it can use to try to destroy me in court. So, fighting them is a daunting task.
Here is a motion to file a motion in limine that was mooted when Judge Lee P. Rudofsky granted the debt buyer’s motion for summary judgment.
Awfully convenient that PRA will not need to defend Dr. Adhia’s indefensible conduct in this case. Look for PRA II, which will address the “moot” conduct.
If you are a plaintiff’s attorney in Texas, Virginia or Arkansas and want to get involved in the suit, contact me at bohemian_books@yahoo.com or TheNext55Years@gmail.com.
P.S. Judge Rudofsky denied my motion to file my documents electronically. This increased my costs in time and money. I was required to drive to the courthouse 30 miles from home and deliver the documents in triplicate, plus make a copy for myself if I wanted a stamped copy before leaving.
I say this because two random pages from Dr. Adhia’s CV were attached at the end of this document by accident, and I was not the one who entered them.
[UPDATE] The Brief in Support is also posted. It is similar to the motion, adding a bit of authority and importantly, exhibits. If you have time to kill, look up each case on Dr. Adhia’s resume. He represented the losing party predominately.
Institutional Betrayal: How the commoners are abused by King Lee P. Rudofsky and other judges
“The term institutional betrayal refers to wrongdoings perpetrated by an institution upon individuals dependent on that institution, including failure to prevent or respond supportively to wrongdoings by individuals committed within the context of the institution.” – Jennifer J. Freyd, PhD.
“Institutional betrayal harms in at least two distinct ways: pragmatic and psychological.” id.
“Institutional denial plays a crucial role in institutional betrayal. One particularly pernicious form of denial is DARVO — Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender” id.
Let SouthPark explain DARVO to you here.
I filed a complaint against Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC for making a triple digit number of phone calls to me in regard to an alleged 10-year-old debt. PRA refused to tell me anything about what was allegedly purchased on a credit card account opened by someone in my name in 2001 that PRA agrees was never in default before the 2010 purchase. When I filed suit, PRA said their investigation was complete, the balance was zero and the account closed.
PRA expected me to drop my suit or settle for $1,000. When I didn’t, PRA claimed the debt was cancelled or waived by them. But they did not issue an I.R.S. cancellation of Debt form 1099-C.
They also altered phone records generated by their company and their internal company contact records. The discrepancies between the records and the audio tapes of some of the phone calls was glaring.
Judge Lee P. Rudofsky, a Trump appointee, allowed PRA to file the pertinent documents under seal.
Then the federal judge, who is nearly impossible to fire, misquoted me to support his contention that I owed the debt.
Many months later, Judge Rudofsky said the misquotation was an error, but that the actual quotation supports his contention even more. I ran the quote by ChatGBT’s OpenAI. AI is not perfect, but it is a language-based application and is particularly good at reading comprehension. (Lee went to Harvard and is probably almost as good at analyzing language as AI, which makes his miscomprehension rather suspect.)
The legislature doesn’t distinguish between making annoying calls to people who don’t owe a debt and people who do owe a debt. Judge Rudofsky doesn’t seem to care what the legislature codified. He calls an FDCPA claimant a dead beat and denies them a jury trial. He says there cannot be statutory damages because there is no actual harm in the plaintiff being told she owes a debt, even if there was no debt owed.
I will report to the CFPB about the ordeal PRA and Judge Rudofsky put me through. I would like to appeal the decision granting summary judgment to the debt buyer. If you are willing to reimburse me for some of the actual costs I have already paid, which is in excess of $10,000, please contact me at bohemian_books@yahoo.com. Your generosity will make it possible for me to ask the Eighth Circuit to unseal the business records and help me expose both the PRA Group, Inc subsidiary and the betrayer of the public faith, Judge Rudofsky.
bohemian_books@yahoo.com
Judge Lee P. Rudofsky Cover-up of Litigation Misconduct
Judge Rudofsky in the Federal District Court of Eastern Arkansas gave summary judgment to the defendant in my FDCPA and Invasion of Privacy case against Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC yesterday.
I tried to apologize about my blog posts to Judge Rudofsky during my closing arguments at a telephonic hearing. The judge, who is usually polite, cut me short. He said not to apologize and explained that he values the First Amendment.
Some advice I got from my sister Roberta Kramer who was an attorney, is to always accept a compliment. If someone says you look nice today, don’t retort, “Oh no! I have this big zit on my nose!”
My corollary is, always accept an apology.
It is not easy for a person to apologize. It helps the person who is apologizing. You may find your common ground with the apologetic person. And it may help you to understand your contribution to the conflict.
For example, if a husband says, “I am sorry I was so grumpy today when we were driving in that horrible traffic”, the respectful wife will accept his apology. “Thank you, my love. It was frustrating, and it was kind of you to keep me company. I know how much you hate driving in a busy city.”
So, here is my apology in full.
I am sorry for any embarrassment or disrespect Judge Rudofsky feels from my posts.
That does not mean that I wrote or intend to write anything false or malicious. As he recognized, I have not written anything threatening.
It is like this. Once when my son was about four years old, we were walking in the supermarket parking lot. There were two morbidly obese people walking in front of us. My son shrieked in his loudest voice, “Look how fat they are Mom!”
OMG. I was mortified. Even remembering the story, my face gets red from embarrassment. I am sorry my son said that.
But they were fat.
There was just no advantage to my son speaking his observations out loud. Not that loud.
There is, hopefully, a good purpose for me to write about corrupt, unethical, or plain stupid acts by judicial officers. Even though most citizens have lost faith in our legal system, there is still a chance we can bring it back to what it was meant to be. A way to provide justice for all.
So, here is today’s exposé.
In the litigation, the lawyers for Portfolio Recovery lied. For example, James Trefil of Troutman Pepper (AKA Troutman Sanders) said PRA changed the balance on my account from $2,297.63 to zero “in light of the litigation”. He expanded by saying the debt was “waived”. But there was no 1099-C cancellation of debt issued within the time required by the IRS.
It is PRA’s known practice to issue 1099-Cs when it cancels a debt. Even if the debtor disputes the debt. Do a Dogpile search of “Portfolio Recovery Associates issued me a 1099-C” and you will find plenty of reading to fill your spare time.
Judge Rudofsky was not persuaded by what he called the “inference” that can be made from that. The judge said no reasonable juror can think that PRA set the balance to zero and did not issue a 1099-C because their investigation showed there was no credible evidence the debt was mine. In fact, he said the debt was mine. (That is a subtle error that I will address at the Court of Appeals. It is telling that Judge Rudofsky is well aware of the subtle difference when establishing PRA’s innocence on my case. He knew it was my burden to prove the debt did not exist on an FDCPA claim but ignored that the debtor’s lack of proof is not enough to establish there was a debt in a case against the debtor.)
Worse, PRA submitted business records that were falsified. I pointed out some of the falsifications. Judge Rudofsky ignored those obvious fraudulent exhibits.
Worse, I cannot give you specifics. I cannot post two documents created by PRA with conflicting data side by side. Because Judge Rudofsky allowed the fraudulent documents to be filed under seal.
Before yesterday’s hearing, the jury was out on Lee P. The jury is now in.
It sorrows me to say, guilty.
Email: bohemian_books@yahoo.com
Is Judge Lee P. Rudofsky Out of His Mind?
I am spending another beautiful day that I should be hiking – reading through the documents in my case against debt buyer Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Publicly traded PRA Group, Inc.
What I am reading is making me want to spit. The title I really want to use for this post: “Is Judge Lee P. Rudofsky Out of His Fucking Mind?”
I am trying to tone things down, as the team of attorneys defending PRA has taken to giving copies of selected posts to the Judge. Here is the response Judge Rudofsky wrote as a text entry on the docket last time.
“ORDER: In Defendant’s Reply Brief 204 , Defendant included what appeared to be blog posts [204-3] that Ms. Hammett has written about this case. My review of the brief required a review of the blog posts. And that raises a question for the parties. In my mind, my knowledge of the existence and content of these blog posts does not require recusal under either 28 U.S.C. 455 or the applicable judicial canons. While Ms. Hammett expresses strong disagreement with some of my rulings, and sometimes does so with strong or colorful language, nothing in the posts strikes me as so insulting or personally antagonistic that it requires or counsels my recusal. It is true that one of her posts could be read as saying she “hates” me, but that would be taking her words out of context. What she actually said was that I was “a Judge [she] hate[s] to hate.” In that context, the impact of the word “hate” is mitigated almost entirely. It is also
true that, in her posts, she called me “sneaky,” “dangerous,” and “dishonorable, “as well as implying I am not an honest Judge. But, again, in context she was really just disagreeing with my rulings and the way I recited the record in my summary judgment decision. That kind of criticism (from non-lawyers) of public
officials, including judges, is expected, entirely fair game, and part of what makes this country great. Of course, I disagree with her characterizations of my motives. But her statements and words are not the type of personal invective that would make it difficult to remain impartial. Having said all of that, if either party believes that recusal is required or appropriate here, that party should file a recusal motion no later than 14 days from the date of this order. If that occurs, the other party will have 7 days to respond. Signed by Judge Lee P. Rudofsky on 3/16/2023. (hml) (Entered: 03/16/2023)”
I read an article about how generally the protagonist of a story must be likable, but some of the great protagonists were not. Think Dorian Gray and Anna Karenina.
Well, Judge Rudofsky will be a likable antagonist in any book that comes of this ordeal.
What can his motivations be for misquoting me, saying that I agreed that I owed a debt to PRA? He is not mentally challenged, like Judge Susan Kaye Weaver. It is pretty clear that I disagree about the alleged debt. Here, read this and you be the judge.
Email: bohemian_books@yahoo.com
Update to Hiding in Plain Sight. The Sinking Ship of PRA, one of the Nation’s Most Litigious and Vexatious Companies
On April 28th I posted a story about a book I am writing. Click here to read it.
I may be too late.
The book titled, “Hiding in Plain Sight: How PRA Group, Incorporated Created a Phantom Fortune from Worthless Debt” discusses PRA Group, Inc., a publicly traded company with symbol PRAA. Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of PRA Group, Inc.
It looks like my forecast was prophetic and my book might need to be retrospective, rather than forward looking.
On May 8, 2023, PRAA was selling for $34.34 per share, according to the month-long graph on Google Finance. On May 10th, the price had fallen to $19.38 per share. That is 56% of the price it sold for just two days prior.
I am a self-taught analyst and my portfolio fell less than that during the COVID-Crash of March 2020. (I am self-taught law, also, so nothing in my blog should be taken as legal or financial advice.)
Another indicator of a sinking stock ship can be found on the SEC site called EDGAR. Here, PRA Group filed a form 8-K on May 15, 2023.
PRA Group reported, in part, “outstanding senior notes of PRA Group, Inc. (the ‘Company,’ ‘we,’ ‘our’) are currently trading at significant discounts to their respective principal amounts.”
What does that mean? I asked my new best friend, Open AI at ChatGBT.
“When the outstanding senior notes of a publicly traded company are trading at significant discounts to their respective principal amounts, it means that the market perceives a higher level of risk associated with those notes. Let’s break down the concept to understand it better:
- Senior Notes: Senior notes are a type of debt issued by a company to raise capital. They are typically considered a relatively secure form of investment because they have a higher priority claim on the company’s assets in the event of bankruptcy or liquidation. This means that if the company faces financial difficulties, the holders of senior notes have a better chance of recovering their investment compared to other types of debt holders.
- Principal Amount: The principal amount refers to the original face value or nominal value of the senior notes. It represents the amount borrowed by the company and is the amount the company is obligated to repay to the noteholders at maturity.
- Trading at Discounts: When senior notes trade at a discount, it means that the market price of the notes is lower than their principal amount. In other words, investors are willing to buy these notes for less than their face value.
[LMAO. Maybe the junk debt buyer should buy a portfolio containing its own notes. The irony of it all.]
Significant discounts to the principal amount can indicate several factors:
a. Higher Perceived Risk: The market discounts the price of the senior notes because investors believe there is an increased risk that the company may default on its debt obligations. Factors contributing to this perception could include deteriorating financial performance, increased leverage, negative industry trends, or other macroeconomic factors affecting the company’s prospects.
b. Liquidity Concerns: If there is a limited market for the senior notes or the market is illiquid, it can contribute to the notes trading at a discount. The lack of buyers or sellers can lead to lower demand and reduced pricing.
c. Market Sentiment: Overall market sentiment can influence the trading price of senior notes. If there is a general pessimism or uncertainty in the market, investors may demand higher yields or sell their existing holdings, leading to lower prices and discounts.
It’s important to note that the price of debt securities, including senior notes, can fluctuate based on various factors, including changes in interest rates, creditworthiness of the issuer, market conditions, and investor sentiment. The trading price at any given time reflects the market’s assessment of the risk and return associated with those notes.”
I’m assuming companies are not happy to share the devaluation of their senior notes, and make these filings out of an obligation.
PRA insiders purchased millions in stock this week, according to a story on Google Finance. Often that indicates optimism by company executives.
Call me a cynic, but the amount the stocks cost the insiders is a small percentage of the amount some company executives receive in pay and bonuses in recent years. I’m just wondering here, but wouldn’t it benefit the insiders to purchase stock to form a sort of floor for the falling price?
I am torn. There is poetic justice if PRA hits bottom. But personally, the punitive damages I anticipate a jury will award to me on my lawsuit against Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC fall drastically if the company continues to lose money… even if the brass still collects a pirate’s trove of compensation as the ship is swarmed by bottom feeding sharks.
Email: bohemian_books@yahoo.com
Non-confidential Settlement Offer to PRA (a Wholly Owned Subsidiary of PRA Group, Inc.)
I am quite upset right now because I am thinking about that awful week leading up to March 16, 2020. The stock market crashed and I was heavily invested.
The reason I am thinking about this horrible time is because of my research into PRA. I see that on May 9, 2023 the value of PRA Group, Inc. stock fell over 30%.
Apparently it is getting harder for PRA to bluff and bully people into forking over money that PRA has no credible evidence is owed.
I am thrilled that the CFPB prevailed in the lawsuit filed March 23, 2023 against PRA.
I am angry that PRA Group, Inc. executives got paid several million dollars each while the publicly traded company was poised to lose money.
I am concerned that PRA will use the entire $2.6 billion dollars of credit extended to it, a good portion by Bank of America, and then file for bankruptcy. Not only has an attorney representing PRA, Mr. James Trefil, filed for bankruptcy, but the parent company has subsidiaries that service consumer bankruptcy accounts in the USA. PRA is certainly not adverse to using that tool to avoid paying its debts.
Besides that I would need to learn to navigate the bankruptcy court as a creditor, by the time we go through appeals to SCOTUS, I don’t know that I can still collect even a part of the jury verdict that I anticipate.
I am therefore willing to settle for $1,000,000.
This offer is good until June 15, 2023.
Sincerely,
Laura Hammett
Email: bohemian_books@yahoo.com
If Portfolio Recovery Associates’ Lawyers Lie and Bully You, It is No Anomaly
I asked Judge Rudofsky in the Federal District Court of Eastern Arkansas to allow me my Constitutional Right to have a jury hear my genuine dispute against Portfolio Recovery Associates and their parent PRA Group, Inc. (Stock symbol PRAA)
The Trump appointed judge said that no reasonable juror can believe any of my claims is more probably than not true, except maybe the one distinct claim about the character or amount of the debt PRA alleged. Nothing about annoyance nor invasion of privacy. According to Judge R., it is perfectly acceptable for a stranger to call hundreds of times without leaving a message when you let it go to voicemail and refuse to identify what company they work for if you refuse to tell them your birthday or last four of social security number first.
There is a hearing on a defense motion to kick that one claim out by summary judgment and my motion for reconsideration of the other claims. It is by phone on May 23, 2023. I am unclear if I may give out the code for the public to listen in.
After my briefing was complete, a judge in Virginia approved a stipulated order and judgment between the CFPB and Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC. The complaint and order recount how the CFPB believes PRA did many of the same things I claimed they did to me to hundreds of thousands of other people.
Apparently Judge Rudofsky does not think the people at the CFPB are reasonable. If the CFPB staff were reasonable to believe the claims of hundreds of thousands of other alleged debtors, than a reasonable juror might believe me. And Judge Rudofsky decided that no reasonable juror might think my rendition of the collection activity claiming I owed $2,297.63 and litigation that caused PRA to set my balance to zero is more probably than not a fact.
Here is a downloadable copy of my notice and the CFPB Complaint and consent agreement with the debt collector.
What is it Worth When You Catch a Lawyer Lying: Briefs from Appeal of $83M Verdict Against Debt Buyer PRA
Portfolio Recovery Associates appealed a jury verdict of $83 million. The argument was that the Goliath debt buyer continued to sue a woman for debt that did not belong to her until after she filed a counterclaim based on the FDCPA, and the judge sanctioned the company for its abusive litigation tactics by deciding liability in favor of the alleged debtor and letting the jury decide only the damages.
An attorney for PRA said in a hearing that the debt collector thought the counterclaim would be dropped after it acknowledged the woman may not have owed a debt. (They waffled, and made their dismissal without prejudice, just in case they could find any evidence supporting their claim against the woman.) When she refused to drop her suit, the PRA Group, Inc. subsidiary fought her full force and dirty.
It sounds a lot like my personal experience with Portfolio Recovery. Unfortunately, the judge on my case, Lee P. Rudofsky says no reasonable juror can find it is particularly annoying to have the debt collector ring my phone hundreds of times and not tell me who is calling or what they are calling about until I agreed to answer interrogatories on a recorded line. Judge Rudofsky dismissed the majority of my claims.
I am busy this next three weeks preparing for a hearing on May 23, 2023 in which I hope the Court reconsiders his opinion. So, with no more ado, here are the briefs filed by both parties in the jury verdict case and an amicus brief favoring the alleged debtor. Hopefully they will help you help your clients or yourself (pro se) so you don’t have to settle for the pittance Portfolio tosses your way.
Hiding in Plain Sight: How PRA Group, Incorporated Created a Phantom Fortune from Worthless Debt
Thank you to my anonymous muse who taught me that finishing a book is not that hard. And thank you to FeFe Ford, whose encouraging comments revived my faith that my blog posts can change policy and even lives.
I don’t like to toot my own horn. But I’m going to. (Do you notice that when someone says, “I don’t want to say this”, they usually say it?)
A subsidiary of publicly traded PRA Group, Inc. told a whole bunch of lies about me and I had to go back to 2010 searching for the truth. Here is an email I found that was sent to me on the day subsidiary Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC’s attorneys certified under FRCP Rule 11 that I was getting myself into debt that I could not get myself out of. (Ironically, I was never sued for an unpaid credit card debt nor filed bankruptcy, but Attorney James Trefil, lead liar for PRA, filed for bankruptcy.)
Dear Ms. Lynn,
I sat for a few moments yesterday reading an article I just happened upon that you had written about a man that entered mine and my two daughter lives about five long years ago and we were changed in such a negative way that our world would never be the same. I couldn’t believe my eyes as I was reading about the wrecker who has done so much damage to our family and tears seemed to leak out of my eyes and began to roll down my cheeks and I felt a kind of sorrow because I hadn’t found this site earlier, but at the same time a weight seemed to lift from within me. This must sound strange to you and very emotional but I feel this way because it kind of sounds like the monsters in the closets are about to be exposed? You must already have heard so many unbelievable accounts of what Mr. Bill [Attorney William Spillar, Jr.] and his entourage has done and are capable of I’m sure. I hope with all my heart and soul that what is right and fair happens to the wicked players in that family law court (Torrance Superior Family Law Dept J) as they are exposed for whom and what they really are and all the damage did to so many children and parents. If you ever want our account of what happened to us please don’t hesitate to ask via email. Keep up the good work and let me know if I can be of any help. Thank You!
Bird
The fight against unethical and arguably illegal activity of debt collectors is not as heart wrenching as trying to reunite children with their loving parents. But many of the ills that befall those parents are economic. The destruction of their careers, mental health and credit make it difficult to afford already prohibitive legal fees and the distraught parents are forced to challenge pedigreed and unethical lawyers through self-representation.
The next book I am writing is titled “Hiding in Plain Sight: How PRA Group, Incorporated Created a Phantom Fortune from Worthless Debt”.
Please contribute to my effort by emailing file stamped copies of litigation documents involving Portfolio Recovery Associates or any other PRA Group subsidiary to TheNext55Years@gmail.com. The email I used for the California family court communications was bohemian_books@yahoo.com. My intention when I created the gmail account was to leave my stressful past behind. Tell God your plans…lol.
Snail mail can be sent to Laura Hammett, 16 Gold Lake Club Road, Conway, Arkansas, 72032.
A Higher Law 