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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   31278 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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There have been reports that the court system didn’t follow normal standards on a lot of discovery with him which then justifies him ignoring the court system. If the court is going to cheat you anyway then you lose nothing by ignoring them.

What reports? Even so, ignoring the court and getting a default judgment puts him in a pretty precarious position. If he had lost the case on the merits he could make any discovery regularities part of his appeal. Now that's going to be much more difficult because the only avenue of appeal he has is whether judgment in default is inappropriate. While courts have vacated default judgments, the arguments usually revolve around whether the action in question is appropriate for the relief granted or when the default happened because the plaintiff didn't take appropiate due diligence to ensure notice. For example, in Ohio there are a good number of properties where the oil and gas rights have been severed from the surface. Some landowners whose property was subject to such severances attempted to get these rights back by filing quiet title actions against the owners of the orphaned OG interests and getting default judgments in their favor. The appeals court ruled that (if I remember correctly) the quiet title actions were inappropriate because the plaintiffs had no colorable claim to the oil and gas and that furthermore, they didn't make a diligent attempt to locate the current owners and provided notice by advertisement. The whole thing was obviously a "gotcha" to get rights they weren't entitled to, and the appeals court saw it for what it was. The Jones case is a fairly straightforward case of defamation and there's no real argument that Jones only didn't comply because his attorneys were unaware of what they were supposed to do.

No, actually, it really, really does not. You note the court's ruling and move on, then appeal any adverse result. If the trial court was actually ignoring well-worn discovery standards, the appeal should have a swift and fairly comprehensive conclusion.

which then justifies him ignoring the court system

In this circumstance, I'd recommend an appeal rather than a boycott.

The appeals courts just dismissed his case. The fix was in at all levels. I'm sure the judges thought this was for the good reason of sparing the Sandy Hook families the trauma of a trial involving Jones.

What do you mean the appeals court dismissed his case? Even if the court were going for some kind of speed record there's no way they could have rendered judgment already. And lower appeals courts can't "dismiss" appeals; you're entitled to one appeal as of right that must be heard on the merits. That being said, since the trial court ruling was a default judgment his avenues of appeal are limited.

Theoretically you're entitled to have your case heard on the merits in trial court; that was denied Jones. I believe the Connecticut Supreme Court turned down his motion to vacate the default before the final judgement was rendered. He's really got no avenue of appeal; the appeals courts can't consider the merits of the case because he wasn't allowed to make it so there's nothing to examine on appeal.

It wasn't denied Jones; he forfeited that right by refusing to participate in the case against him. That's what happens—you can't get out of a lawsuit by simply ignoring it. He had 2 years to comply with discovery requests and refused to do so despite repeated orders from the court. What was the judge supposed to do here? How many bites at the apple does the guy deserve? You can make the argument that the discovery requests were inappropriate, and though I haven't heard any specifics about that, it's beside the point. Even assuming the requests were inappropriate, it's not up to the parties to decide which orders they are going to comply with. If that were the case, you'd just be giving parties carte blanch to ignore any adverse rulings without consequence.

As for the exact procedural issues you bring up: Asking the court to vacate a judgment is not the same as appeal. For the court to vacate the default judgment, Jones would have to convince them that the entering of such judgment was inappropriate. The court obviously disagreed, and proceeded to a trial on damages. If Jones were to appeal the case, he'd be making the same arguments to the appeals court that he was to the trial court—that default judgment was inappropriate. Asking the trial court to vacate the judgment was a step for preserving the issue for appeal since appellate courts are loathe to consider matters that weren't before the trial court. As a practical matter, though, it's pretty meaningless, since the losing party will ask the trial judge to vacate the judgment in every case, and the trial judge will almost always say no.

Where are these reports and what, specifically, are they alleging?

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