Hello again,

Just thought of another question.

During an actual trial, it is common practice for a judge to hand ALL of the ORIGINAL documents submitted during the Plaintiff's case, to the opposing counsel to "review" before presenting his case? :confused:

I gave the opposing counsel a true and correct copy of every submission, labeled and indexed when I filed the original complaint. In addition, as each piece of evidence was presented it was shown to him so that he could see that it matched what he had been given.

I ask this because at least 2 crucial pieces of evidence were removed from the file during the trial. One of them was found to be in the opposing counsel's possession during a follow up "Clarification" hearing he scheduled. He claimed that he did not know how it ended up in his personal file. :eek:

I have the transcript and it clearly shows that the evidence was submitted and that he stated that he had no objections. And later the transcript shows where he was handed all of the submissions. And during his case he references the submissions that are missing.

So is that standard practice to pass the ORIGINALS around?

Thanks again.

J

What sort of court proceeding went on in that the originals were necessary?

I filed a suit in Small Claims. I attached copies of my evidence to the Original Complaint and served a copy of all of the attachments along with the Complaint to the opposing party. During the trial, as I was presenting my case during the trial, I handed the Originals to the Judge as evidence submissions to be made a permanent part of the Court file. As I said, each submission was presented to the opposing party to make certain that it was the same as what he had received. I thought that is how it was supposed to be done. Was that the wrong way to handle it? I tried to retain several attorneys to handle this case, but none of them felt that small claims was worth the time and effort. J

Small claims court is basically anything goes. Had this been a different venue, then the originals would not have been passed around. I hope you got your originals back in any event.

FYI You should have used the colored stickers marked Plaintiff's Exhibit A, etc on the originals and they would have been able to be distinguished from any copies. The stickers are available at any Office Depot type stores.

The other attorney should not have absconded with your originals, but he may have gotten away with taking them since they were not clearly marked as I said above to distinguish them as originals.

Actually I have him on record at a later "Clarification" hearing that he scheduled in which when I asked the Court why 2 of the submissions were missing, opposing counsel "found 1 of them in his file". He returned it to me. All of this is on the transcript. I have filed a Motion to Amend / Supplement the file with the 1 original and a true and correct copy of the other missing submission. The judge has not ruled on that motion yet.

We had yet another hearing Monday and I saw the other original in his notebook during the hearing. Since the judge has refused to address any of my concerns on this matter I felt it best to wait for the moment otherwise he would simply throw it away. Either way if it becomes an issue during the appeal, the missing letter is from a law firm so I know I can address it in that manner.

The judge definitely dislikes me and is unpleasant to say the least. I have filed to disqualify her from any additional actions on the case. She of course denied it. However, her denial is currently under review via Certiorari.

As I have said I have filed an appeal and am preparing the record. Not what I want to do but no lawyer wanted to deal with this in small claims and none want to deal with it in appeal so I will do the best I can.

Thank you for the info about the stickers. All of my other originals are in the Court file. He only removed 2 of them, both of which were letters sent by a law firm on my behalf before I ever filed suit.

Thank you for responding to my inquiry. If you have any further helpful suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated.:)

J

Since this is small claims court, just how much money are we talking about and what sort of civil matter is this?

In your other post you are preparing some sort of an appeal.

Are you aware that the Court Reporter's fees for sitting are around $60+ per hour and to order an original and one copy of the transcript is something like $3.00 a page?

I am rather taken aback by your insistence that an attorney would not take the case as it was small claims court. No Florida attorney that I knew/know of would decline a nice bag of money to take any case, let alone a small claims court matter.

You need an attorney to properly handle this case for you as now it's basically annoyed the Judge wanting her to disqualify herself.

Obviously court reporters come cheap where you live as here the page cost is almost double. I sued for just shy of the $5000 limit although according to statute I could have asked for triple damages. I was not being sue happy. I just wanted him to return my belongings.

As for your insinuating that I am being dishonest about the attorney's not wanting to handle a case like this. I personally took time off work to go for consultations with 5 separate attorneys. Each one said it was not worth it as they would want much more than I was suing for.

This is Florida. You can find lots of attorneys willing to represent you for "free unless they recover damages" for all sorts of things like car accidents, worker compensation, sexual harassment, failure to receive overtime compensation, the list goes on. However for a simple matter that does not guarantee that there will be a realistic settlement before trial or a guarantee of success before a questionable judge, only one attorney was willing to handle the case and his fees were not far from the limit you can sue for under small claims cap.

And for the record, every one of the attorneys I consulted felt I had a very good case, well organized and lots of admissible evidence. One even told me that most attorneys do not want to deal with small claims due to the "anything goes" way of business.

As for annoying the Judge, I did what was right according to statute. She had made comments and had documented ex-parte communications with the opposing party. I do not feel that she has been impartial. Therefore I filed the appropriate motion to have her disqualify herself. She refused. So I asked that a higher tribunal review it.

This is not an isolated incident either. In fact, while our case was recessed for her to hear another matter, she actually told another attorney in the courtroom to approach the bench so they could discuss another case he was representing before her (not on the docket for that day). The attorney appeared very uncomfortable with that and understandably so, as the judge was asking him to have ex-parte communication right there in the courtroom. She insisted. They then proceeded to discuss this other case for about 10 minutes, without the other party there or even aware, with the judge covering the microphone the whole time.

She should not be on the bench. She makes a mockery of the oaths she took when she accepted the robe.

And before you make a response and point out that attorney's fees are award over and above the amount sued for, I am aware of that. The attorneys I consulted did not feel it would be appropriate for their fees to exceed the value of the items sued for.