Longtime and careful readers of the blog know that the two things we like the least in the law is civil law and those who sit several feet above the rest of humanity wearing black and perpetually scowling.
Thus an alert and longtime reader sent us the order below from a judge whom we will say is not just good, but great. R. David Proctor, US District Court Judge for the Northern District of Alabama, southern division (y'all).
The issue: the filing of a responsive pleading at 5:15 pm when the party was ordered to file by 5pm. Which, this being civil law, of which there is nothing civil about it, caused opposing counsel to file a motion to strike because the pleading was 15 minutes late. Now we know some judges, whom we shall not name, who would have promptly issued an order striking the pleading. And if per chance, the party who filed late was representing some individual plaintiff who had been squashed like a bug on a windshield by a large corporation, why we would hazard a guess that the 11th circuit would have ruled in favor of the big corporation, because as you know, rules are rules, and if litigants can get away with missing a deadline by fifteen minutes, then we are half way to applying Sharia law.
Read the order and let us know if you recognize, as our reader did, "our schtick".
Steven Mezrano and Mezrano Law Firm PC by Anonymous PbHV4H on Scribd
4 comments:
That is spectacular.
Judge Proctor does not spell his name Procter. Judge Proctor is a friend of mine from UT. You sir are no David Proctor. But we still enjoy reading your Blog.
Every word in the post is spelled wrong except "the" and "a" ...you even spelled "of" wrong.
Now, THIS order is funny. And it makes its point, even with the clerks' dialogue, in only 3 pages.
The author of the 11-page order ought to pay attention, though we can be certain that that will not happen.
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