1. Crazy scheduling (again). It was an absolute ZOO because apparently everyone decided they wanted to come to court today. Actually, there was a particularly bad case (something about a young guy and girl in their early 20s killing a 19 year old girl. real shame) that was being scheduled and so the victim's entire family came in. There must have been 30 of them and they were all really emotional. The grandfather even had a picture of the girl that he held up the entire time that the case was up. The girl accused kept hiding behind her hair the whole time. Someone in the family kept making like little sighs and humphs every few seconds. When the case was finally scheduled, they all left en masse. It was really noisy. I think they expected something else to happen. I don't think they realised that it was only scheduling for when the real trial would occur (in March 2010. wow, really far away). There were also a number of other cases where there was a whole family in the audience.
2. The last case was brilliant though! The judge had to sign a search warrant for a sherriff to search a well-known financial company. Apparently it was a scheme by some employees that scammed about 20-30 people out of $34 million dollars. The justice initially read the number wrong and was like $34,000 and then said, "oh wait. I'm off by a few zeroes. that's 34 million. That's a big difference, isn't it?" I'LL SAY! There was mention that one woman already plead guilty and got 10 years in prison. What makes it even MORE interesting of a case was that it's an American investigation and the US investigators were trying to get this search warrant under the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act. How cool is that? Also, this financial company didn't contest the search warrant, so that's nice. Sounds like the company wants these people caught and are not trying to sweep it under the rug.
3. Sat in on a hearing where the guy was trying to change the terms of his recognizance. Could have been boring except for a few things: this time I got to sit at the FRONT of the room under the judge and got to wear a snazzy robe, which was awesome since the court room temperature was set on cryogenic and it kept me warm. The Judicial Assistant, Wayne was awesome and pointed out what he did up there and showed me the recording software. It was also a hearing with a witness who was the applicant's common law wife/girlfriend, so the witness was literally right behind me. I tried so hard not to turn around and stare at her. She was so indignant about the whole process and was not happy with the judicial system. The Crown prosecutor was excellent, and I think she was getting really annoyed with the witness and the applicant. Anyways, the applicant filed a document with the court and didn't file it with the Crown, so the Crown was trying really hard to be patient with the witness, but everyone was confused since the Crown didn't have the updated evidence. It was the applicant's fault really, who is self-representing. The Crown prosecutor I don't think trusts this applicant at all because she wanted a certified copy of the evidence since all the Court had was an old order with handwritten changes that were initialed by the witness and the applicant, but not the Court or anyone else. I'm not sure what's going on with this case, but the justice told me later that this guy is not the most trustworthy of folks, and the prosecutor is wary of this guy. The terms of his recognizance have been changed 4 or 5 times already, and the justice says that this is suspect. Plus, usually the Crown doesn't oppose changes to recognizance too much unless they believe that the change will lead to criminal activity. He thinks that the Crown is pretty opposed to the change right now. So, the matter is being held (a continuance) until next week. I'm definitely going to that one!
OH! And they brought their newborn into court and the applicant bottle fed the baby during the hearing! NO LIE!
3. I am now reading files for ex parte actions that are on tap for tomorrow. Here's a quick list:
- A guy bought a car (a sexy 2000 Pontiac Sunfire, flame decals not included. No, that's not the actual car) and then defaulted on payments. The company then repossessed the car and sold it and sued for the deficiency. The guy didn't even appear in court and so a default judgment was enterred against him. After garnishing his wages for 1 month, the guy either quit or did something because he was no longer employed there. They can't find him or somewhere he's working in order to garnish wages, so they're trying to just get an order so they can find him and start selling stuff.
- A guy defaulted on a mortgage. He also didn't show up in court. This one's only good since Bank of Montreal is the plaintiff. I want to see what bank attorneys look like. Plus it's a really big default judgment.
- Ok so this one's kind of interesting. A man killed him and his wife in a murder-suicide. She had an insurance policy of $300,000. The beneficiaries were her husband and her 4 children. On the policy, there's a handwritten change striking out her husband, but there are no initials or anything. So now the husband's estate and the 4 children are here to figure out how to split the $300,000. So, I think I need to do some hunting around. I think in the US a person cannot benefit from their own bad actions. A person can't kill their wife in order to get insurance benefits. They're called Slayer Statutes. But, he killed himself, so technically he is not benefitting, but his estate is. I don't think this makes a difference though; I'm trying to remember that random constructive estate case from Property in the fall. I'm also guessing that the children are not beneficiaries of his estate, otherwise they would get the money anyways. Either that or his estate has a lot of debt and the children wouldn't see any of the money since it will be used to pay off creditors. I'm not really sure. I'll have to see where this one goes. Any Canadian lawyers want to shed light on the slayer statute issue? That's you, Uncle Ben, since you're the only Canadian lawyer reading this blog.
- So this one I barely understand. A man is seeking to be appointed guardian of his grandmother who's 97. She's considered legally incompetent. He has to file a bond of $25,000. I know from talking with the Justice that there's a deficiency in this file since you can't just ask for $25,000 and the money must be related to something. Not sure what. Hoping this will come out tomorrow.
- I have no idea what the last one's about, except that one of the parties has the name "Maizie Belle." That sounds like a Georgia name. I hope she shows up in court! There are a bunch of receipts with things circled and question marks and one receipt from the dollar store of some person paying with a credit card. Their name is circled with a big WHO IS THIS? There's also a note in the margins that says "concept caskets." I think this will be a good one.
So, there's also something called "appearance day," which is lawyers getting in trouble for being bad lawyers. I'm kind of excited. The justice who's presiding is pretty harsh, so I can't wait!
There's also this case where the defendant is seeking dismissal of claims since the action started in 1998 and it still hasn't ended up in court yet. The plaintiff is saying that there were a whole bunch of reasons why it's taken this long and it's partly the defendant's fault. This is likely to be particularly contentious. It sounds really cool. The only problem is that it's going on at the same time as some of the other things. Can't decide! ACK!
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