Playing With Sharks Part 5 - Gotta Love Pro Per Parties

Remember Pro Pers are not proper.

The fun case where the plaintiff is representing himself and his girlfriend - now wife - is being sued by my client the Defendant , that I've blogged about before may be coming to a trial, maybe.

Catching up, her latest motion for Summary dispoisiton of my claims were dismissed completely as being without basis.

My motion against her was granted in part and it's now  established that she did in fact breach the lease by having her boyfriend the Plaintiff stay with her at the Condo, but the Court days damages my client has and will suffer as a result of this case being brought by said boyfriend are an issue of fact and need to go to trial.

We were scheduled for Trial on November 15, but just found out that the case may get pushed due to a criminal case taking precedence.  

 This is annoying as the lack of certainty really messes things up time-wise - especially so when just two weeks ago they told me it was going forward for sure.

So today, in a hilarious, if undecipherable fashion,  the Third-Party Defendant former girlfriend emails me to see if I will concur, which I will not and then the girlfriend files a Motion in Limine that my client's damages are "subjective".

Blink.

That she wishes to establish that my client's damages are subjective doesn't have any legal meaning, nor much in the way of plain English either.

Not what a motion in limine is for, nor is it in a proper format and it lacks a brief or notice of hearing and I'm really not sure what she's getting at. Reasonably sure the Court will not understand what she is trying to do either.

A motion in limine is to handle likely evidentiary objections at trial, not to do some weird attempt to dismiss a claim long after the time for dispositive motions is over.

So I get to waste time doing a reply and asking for sanctions for yet another frivolous motion that the court may not even hear.

If You Want To Play With The Sharks Part 3

In which our self-representing pro per dynamic duo catch yet another break from the Court.

Our pro-per Third Party Defendant, per the Court's Order after she filed her ridiculous motion for Summary Disposition  was required to file both a Notice of Hearing for the motion and a E-Praecipe.

Of Course she did neither.   Penalty for not filing those is the motion is an automatic dismissal of the motion, says so right in the motion.

But since they're pro-per the court is yet again bending over backwards.

Court Clerk just emailed, them copying me, asking if they were proceeding with the motion as scheduled on February 2 as they hadn't filed the notice as they should have done a long time ago and they're now technically past the due date to even file it.

They replied yes and the Court instead of telling them they screwed up and the motion is dismissed, replied "Well, ok then on we go".

No attorney would get such a break, not a chance.

On the upside, I now get to argue against this hilarious and frivolous motion.

If You Want To Play With The Sharks Part 2

So our pro-per third party defendant manages to file a reply brief. She still hasn't figured out she has to file a notice of hearing and praecipe.

Of course she titles it: "BRIEF DISPUTING THIRD‐PARTY PLANTIFF/DEFENDANT’S RESPONSE TO THIRD‐PARTY DEFENDANT’S MOTION FOR SUMMARY DISPOSITION"

Which isn't exactly correct it should be a reply brief, and she spelled Plaintiff wrong, but anyways.

The words she then uses and stuff she cites to really does not mean what she thinks it means.

She states that since the rule says fall actual allegations in our complaint against her are taken as true", shes argues since our allegations in t he complaint against her are in her opinion false they cant be factual. Not what that means nor how that works at all.


She claims because the judge denied our motion over the email that it means all her proffered her evidence now has precedential value. Yes, she underlined it. No, those words do not mean what she thinks they mean.

She also tries to get around the MCR 2.116(c)(8) standard she filed the motion under that she can't add exhibits and it just doesn't work she claims she has to file the exhibits as required by law (underlined and in bold, natch). The law cleanly states instead you can't attach exhibits to this kind of pleading,

She even starts citing to other filings shes made that have been rejected. Then of course she accuses us of being "perjurious" (underlined and in bold, natch) which apparently means we're alleging and raising facts she doesn't like, and then goes off on some really cool unrelated tangents into never-never land. She never gets around to claiming our complaint counts aren't legally cognizable, because they are in fact effective.

In short, no lawyer would file such a document because its garbage and pretty much malpractice to even do so, but pro pers keep getting away with it.

Might be the meds talking, but her brief is just hilarious and I almost hope the court lets us argue it even without her filing the notice of hearing and praecipe. Given I'm on meds I'm not going to do any actual legal work today, but reading that nonsense gave me some well enjoyed laughs.

If You Want To Play With The Sharks, At Least Learn To Swim First

Having a fun case at the moment.

A quick summary: My client is a landlord that moved out of state 9 years ago.  She rented it to Tenant with a Lease that is overall ok, but could be better because of course she didn't have a lawyer draw it up so it has some important gaps. But, the Lease does specifically say that only Tenant, her mom, and son may live at the condo.

Tenant signs Lease in 2013.  In 2014, without asking the client or getting permission, her boyfriend moves in.

Fast forward to December 2020.   Lease is ending.  In December, Tenant tells Client there is a leak at the sink in the basement and water keeps dripping from the faucet.

Tenant and boyfriend move out in December 2020. Boyfriend was never on the Lease and my client didn't know he lived there. Boyfriend has never communicated to Landlord ever. Cleverly in 2017, they listed him as a resident in a single email, but had him as an emergency contact only in 2016 and again as an emergency contact only in 2018, and nothing sent later than that.

Boyfriend then sues after they move out, claiming mold from the leak in the sink makes him now unable to work.

Plaintiff is representing himself, and he doth have a fool for a client as a result. 

Likely because no lawyer wouldn't take his case as it stinks to high heaven.  The sink seems to have never been cleaned ever as there's no way that much grime and mold accumulated so quickly.  Plus, when repaired it looked like it had been leaking long before December 2020. 

So I bring the Tenant into the case as a Third-Party Defendant, for breach of contract, indemnification, and contribution, saying any damage Plaintiff gets from my client, the Tenant has to pay as it's her fault for him being there in the first place.

Tenant really does not like that and she represents herself as well, likely with her boyfriends "help".

Tenant filed a motion to dismiss and it gets dismissed almost out of hand due to it being a hot mess and without any basis and non-conforming.

Sadly, we then get a very new judge assigned to the case.  He's new and a nice guy, but unfortunately the court  (and sadly all courts tend to do this) tends to bend over backwards for people representing themselves.

Court denied my motion to dismiss Plaintiff's complaint on the grounds that he was a trespasser there without permission, stating the single 2017 email may have put my client on notice that Plaintiff was living there. Annoying.

Tenant then files a ridiculous motion to compel discovery when she hasn't even asked for discovery yet.    Doesn't work that way.  She also didn't know how to file it properly so it also is denied without even a hearing.

Tenant then files a bunch of subpoenas that are filled out completely wrong, including one she probably meant to be sent to my client but the "To:" area is completely blank so we ignore it, especially as she was asking for stuff we already gave her. 

She then files another ridiculous motion to compel, again misfiles it, and it is denied again.

She now files a Motion for Summary Disposition to try and dismiss our claims against her and attaches 185 pages of exhibits. The motion is a complete word salad, everything is a partial sentence, not properly formatted, and complete with underlining, bold, and italics thrown in everywhere, etc.

The court should have rejected it, and would have if an attorney had filed this garbage, but this judge lets it go and accepts it and then gives an order setting dates for me to respond and that she should file a notice of hearing with the date in February.

The 185 pages of exhibits are nuts and in most cases have nothing to do with the case against her but are her trying to fight the Plaintiff's case and lots of things that have nothing to do with the case at all.

Her problem, she filed under her motion the MCR 2.116(C)(8) standard, that our complaint failed to state a claim that could be granted as a matter of law.

But, under the MCR 2.116(C)(8) standard, the court looks only at the complaint itself to see if the claims in it are legally cognizable. The Court doesn't and cannot look at any other evidence and doesn't care.

I then file a response on time yesterday, asking for all her exhibits to be struck as a result and provide a response showing our claims against her are indeed legally justifiable, and for fun I ask for sanctions as this is her 4th frivolous motion to date. Likely, I won't get sanctions, because again, the court lets people representing themselves keep doing this stuff, but it never hurts to ask.

We will see if she files a reply, and if she actually files a notice of hearing to get the motion heard per the court's order about the motion.  She still hasn't done that. So we will see if the Court hears this on the date set, even if she doesn't file the notice as she is supposed to do.

Should be fun.

Gee New York Times, I Wonder Why There Was All That Negativity

The New York Times has a daily email service, The Morning Newsletter  chock-full of all sorts of right-thinking (or is that left-thinking) progressive analysis about the news.

I like to read it to see what the progressive explanation of events, lack of same,  or wish list du jour might be.

So, imagine my surprise with today's top article: Bad News Bias.

Sadly, when you click the link you'll likely hit a paywall, so I'll only except the portion I'm discussing from the email received.

The article title: Good morning. The U.S. media is offering a different picture of Covid-19 from science journals or the international media, a study finds.

The coverage by U.S. publications with a national audience has been much more negative than coverage by any other source that the researchers analyzed, including scientific journals, major international publications and regional U.S. media. “The most well-read U.S. media are outliers in terms of their negativity,” Molly Cook, a co-author of the study, told me.

About 87 percent of Covid coverage in national U.S. media last year was negative. The share was 51 percent in international media, 53 percent in U.S. regional media and 64 percent in scientific journals.

 Of course, there's no reflection in the article as to why the mainstream media might, perchance, have wanted to convey a message that things were far more negative and worse than they actually were during a presidential election year when Trump was in office.  Nope, none at all.

The author of the newsletter does however note : 

If we’re constantly telling a negative story, we are not giving our audience the most accurate portrait of reality. We are shading it.

Nice that he gets to that point a little late in the game. 

So, of course, now that the damage is done,  he states he's glad the study gives the media a chance to do better and they'll likely endeavor to shade things more positively, just in time for the Biden-Harris administration.

Funny how that consistently just happens that way.  See for example look to the media's coverage of "Kids in cages" under Trump vs "Kids in surge facilities" or even better "Kids? What kids? There is no problem to cover" under Obama and now Biden. See also how there's now a severe dearth of coverage of the current crisis at the border.

Not surprised that its happening but rather surprised that they're admitting to this kind of biased coverage, even as they explain it away as blaming the audience for wanting to see negative things. Still its a surprise to see they are admitting it was occurring, even a little bit - bit of course they'll use it to apologize for their negative bias and promise to be all positive for Biden-Harris.

Right on Schedule, Media Returns To Lapdog Mode

For today's in-depth political story over at the Detroit News, we have a lovely puff-piece about the mischievous and fun-loving Jill Biden:

The Detroit News: Joe Biden’s chief protector, Jill Biden to step up as first lady

Other hard-hitting stories so far about the likely new-comers to the White House include the probing investigation over . . . what socks Joe Biden wears.

Yahoo.com: Joe Biden Makes an Unexpected Style Choice With Fun Dog-Print Socks for Meeting

Meanwhile the name Bobulinksi and mention of the Hunter Biden emails and saving 10% for the Big Guy are nowhere to be found.

As I had noted and indeed Borepatch noted back in 2012 (yeesh, it's been awhile) the press tends to go all attack-dog on Republicans and then, by way of apology over their unfairness, decide to give the Democrats a pass.  Then they apologize for giving the Dems a pass by working over the next Republican twice as hard.  Rinse and repeat.

In media terms, that's called "fairness".

Merkel Calls For A War-Time Level Of Unity Amongst The German Volk

From Reuters: Merkel tells Germans: Fighting virus demands war-time solidarity

In response to the proclamation, the Poles replied: "Nie tym razem, Suka!", and put their military on alert.

France surrendered preemptively.

Overkill? There's No Such Thing As Overkill.

The National Post: An American ally used a $3M Patriot missile to destroy a drone ‘that cost 200 bucks,’ U.S. general reveals

That's one drone that won't fly again, as well as a very expensive use of a Patriot missile. It may have been a dubious usage, but it may also have been a worthwhile exhibition of the Patriot's ability to take down even small maneuverable targets.

It'll be interesting to see which ally it was and what the exact circumstances were that led to the firing of the missile, as "Taiwan, Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Spain and the United Arab Emirates" all have the Patriot Missile System.

Well, He Would Know......

Kerry says governmental corruption fuels extremism

From the Detroit News.

That he said it with a straight face shows a rather decided lack of self-awareness, not to mention awareness of the administration of which he is a member. Reading his entire statement at the article is even more guffaw-inducing.

Seriously? They Needed A Study For This?

The Detroit Free Press: Study: Frequent sex may raise chances for conception

Who knew?

I Don't Know That....

Siri says the darndest things sometimes......