cindy's world

I couldn’t help it — I called the attorney and asked for an update, and then poured a bunch of questions at him. He was very nice, still very grateful, and said he’d stop by and give me the end result in the next few weeks.

It turns out his client is still alive, in his own home, and a nurse comes by every so often to check on him and dope him up on morphine. He was so doped up on morphine yesterday that he wasn’t conscious enough to get the information from the attorney that his divorce is final. So the attorney’s going to try again today. He found out the schedule for the morphine injections so he will try to get over there before his client’s next dose at 6pm tonite.

The ex-wife has moved back into the house, “under the pretense of taking care of him.” Every day, she brings a little more of her stuff in. The attorney called her “a professional leech,” and said anyone who knows her calls her a leech. She’s about 15 years younger than her now ex-husband, and doesn’t work. When the attorney went in on the 18th to have his client sign the final papers, he was stunned to find the wife there, and stuttered a bit. They did kick the wife out of the guy’s bedroom so the attorney can talk to his client alone. The attorney asked, “Do you still want to get that divorce?” The client insisted that he did. “Are you sure?” “Yes.” So the papers were signed while she was outside the room.

It looks like she may try to claim or steal various things. The attorney suspects she’s already gone through the house and taken the stock papers and things like that. There’s an executor to the estate who wants the ex-wife out of the house, but they can’t do anything without the client’s consent, since he’s still alive. They’ll have to seek legal means (“unlawful detainer”) to kick her out of the house after the client passes away. The executor said that he’s okay with her stealing little things like the husband’s watch or loose bits of money or jewelry, there’s not much they can do about it at this point, and it’s only going to be a thousand bucks’ worth of random stuff, but at least they have the big items secured. The attorney said they have people in their office that also does probate, so they’re gonna follow this all the way through and make sure the ex wife gets nothing.

He’ll let me know in a few weeks if he was able to relay the good news to his client.

**Addendum: I can’t believe I forgot this tidbit. The man’s will gives everything to his high school sweetheart, whom he never ended up marrying but became his best friend. The lawyer was going to do everything in his power to make sure the best friend/sweetheart got everything instead of the ex-wife, the client’s will be done.

…continued from the last post, “Wow!”.
When we last left our heroine, she was looking over some divorce papers that an attorney was trying to push through, claiming his client’s health was fading fast.

So the first thing I did was call around the courthouse to ascertain that there was a judge available to sign the paperwork if everything checked out correctly. The presiding judge, who happens to also be my family law reference judge (I think very highly of him, and have blogged about him before), was around, and his clerk relayed a message to him that I may be needing him shortly for an emergency divorce. Then I reviewed the paperwork. The guy’s a schoolteacher…he was married to this woman for 6 years and they separated over 6 months ago so the statutory waiting period is over, that means he’s divorced as soon as the papers are signed…there are two cars at stake, he’s keeping his and letting her have hers…no kids which makes everything easier…there’s a house as part of the marital assets. Uh-oh. The attorney did not have the mandatory legal description of the real property in his Judgment. I called back down to the default clerk and explained this to her. She put the attorney on the phone. The attorney said, “I have a copy of his deed with me right now, can we attach it?” I said, “Unfortunately, you can’t attach exhibits to the judgment because later on anyone can remove the attachment and attach something else and change the things being disputed.” “My client’s really sick, he’s in the hospital right now and he’s stopped drinking water, and the doctors have him maxed out on morphine, so I’m thinking it’s not going to be much longer,” the attorney said pleadingly. I told him, “I’m going to check with the presiding judge and see if he’ll let you fill all the information into the Judgment by hand. Meet me outside his courtroom.” And then it was a massive running around and shuffling of paperwork and fixing all the deficiencies by hand, the judge approved some creative editing of the paperwork and initialed some changes, I made the copies and did all physical processing right there in that judge’s courtroom. “Thank you so much, I really appreciate you doing this. It’s a sad story,” the attorney said.

“So does he want this done so that the wife can’t inherit all his stuff as his widow?” I asked, file stamping and conforming and filling out blanks, stuffing envelopes on this case.

“Yeah,” the attorney said. The soon-to-be-divorced guy found out about a year ago that his wife was stealing money from him by syphoning money out of his accounts and depositing it into her own secret account. In the 6 years they were married, she’d stolen about a quarter million dollars. When he realized this, he thought about employing legal means of getting the money back from her, but then opted to just let it go and be divorced. They had a prenuptial agreement, so once they’re divorced she can’t take anything else from him. Two months after he had confronted the wife about this, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Two weeks after the diagnosis, she up and left him. (This made me think that she was going to leave him anyway, but knowing that she’d signed the prenup and would get nothing if they divorce, she ensured herself a tidy sum by stashing away a nest egg at his expense.) So this poor man, in his 50s, went through all the doctor visits and chemo treatments on his own. He was off on disability from his teaching. The lung cancer actually went into remission and he was the great success story, when 2 Fridays ago, while he was gambling and hanging out in Las Vegas, he developed a headache. Upon his return, he went to the doctor to have the headache checked out. The cause of the headache was a brain tumor; the lung cancer had, unbeknownst to anyone, metastasized into his brain. Now, less than 2 weeks later, he was on his deathbed in the hospital. The attorney paused in his story at some point, getting more emotional than he’d wanted to reveal. I looked down at the documents, checking them over one last time, pretending not to see.

I handed the attorney the finalized papers. “Thank you so much for doing this, I’m going to the hospital to see him right now,” he said. I asked, “Is he going to be lucid enough to understand when you tell him the news?” His attorney said, “I don’t know, I hope so. Just to give him that peace of mind before he goes. He understood everything when I was there yesterday.” I looked at the file. Some of the final documents were signed by the petitioner on December 18, which was the “yesterday” the attorney referred to. The signature was weak and shaky, the name slightly off the signature line.

After the attorney left, I went back into the presiding judge’s chambers to thank him for doing this. “You’re a good person, Cindy,” the judge said. “In most other counties, he would not have gotten the kind of personalized attention he got today.” “You mean the attorney, or the client?” I asked. The judge said, “Both. That attorney went out of his way for his client.” He sure did. I found out today from the default clerk that the attorney had been in every day to check the paperwork, after reassuring his client he will do his best to push the divorce through.

Because of the prenuptial agreement, the woman should only get her car through the divorce. The house and the rest of his assets should be part of the man’s estate, to go to his family or wherever he has willed it. She should inherit nothing, unless they want to argue the death certificate date vs. the divorce date in probate court. But I don’t think she’ll do anything; she knows she stole from him and got more than she should ever deserve. If she had been a good person, honored her pledge and vows as his wife, she would’ve been by his side through everything and when he passes, she’d have everything, all his savings, his house, his retirement. But now, she’s got her stupid $250K and hopefully, a conscience that keeps her up at nights.

I was in the middle of a blog post about something sort of negative, when I was interrupted by a phone call that changed my entire afternoon. I’m going to go home to blog about it when laundry’s going, but I’ll set up the preface right now.

Yesterday afternoon, I received a phone call from a clerk downstairs who sets up divorce cases and assigns them to different courtrooms. The divorces that don’t require court hearings (for example, if both sides have signed a marital settlement agreement and there’s nothing in dispute) can be processed by clerks who don’t work in family law, like me. I review the files and paperwork for procedural requirements, and if they’re okay, I send them on to my judge, who will look them over a final time and then sign off on them. Then I do the processing to get these people divorced. So anyway, yesterday the clerk who assigns these cases to us calls me and says that there’s an attorney here who wants his case rushed, and she’s been calling different courtrooms to see if she could get a hold of someone who’s willing to rush a divorce case for him. The petitioner (male) has a brain tumor and wants his divorce finalized as soon as possible, and his wife is not fighting the divorce. I said that’s fine, go ahead and assign the case to me and put it in my mail bin. I made a wry joke about how I’d feel if my husband’s dying wish is to be divorced from me. I wouldn’t contest it, either. (Except that as a widower, I’d legally get all his stuff as opposed to only the stuff we agree on for the divorce.) I got the file today, but because of various other things going on in this courtroom, I didn’t get around to looking at it. I did the more pertinent things first, such as the orders the judge (who is not my own judge; my judge is on vacation) wants processed and mailed out, and tending to the hearings we had in open court today.

Around 3:30pm, I get a call from that divorce clerk again. She asked, “Cindy, did you get a chance to look at that file we talked about yesterday?” I said not yet, I was about to get to it. It was literally on my desk in front of me as the next thing I was about to do. The judge had left for the day already, but I was going to review it and if it’s good, have the judge sign it tomorrow morning. The clerk said that the attorney is there in front of her right then. His client may not hold on much longer; he’s in the hospital and fading fast. I didn’t know it was that much of an emergency situation!

To be continued when I get home… and I’ll tell the story behind this sad case.

While driving on the freeway this morning, I saw a large wooden spool with wires or cables wound around it. It was rolling across the freeway. I was in the left-most lane, and the spool rolled from the dividing wall across my lane without being hit by the car in front of me, and I thought, “Whew, I’m safe.” It rolled into the lane to my right, and the moron drove right into it. I watched it break and ricochet in a diagonal beeline directly at my car! There was no avoiding it. I cringed as I heard the “BADA-CLUNK!” I don’t know how many pieces of it hit the right front of my car, or what happened to it after it hit. But I was pissed. I wasn’t going to get out to check my car, so I finished the 35 minute drive home and dreadingly came out to look after I’d parked in the garage.

The damage is small chips into the paint in the right corner bumper, as if someone jabbed a metal pen into it repeatedly, and a scrape around the corner of the bumper. Most of the scrape wiped off, but some light scratches remain. ARGH! I guess I’ll be Zaino-ing my car this weekend with Z5 scratch remover! I hope it comes out!! At least it was in the corner where it could do the least damage. If I had sped up, it would’ve hit the side of my car and probably dented it and left a longer scratch. If I’d slowed down, it would’ve hit across the front of my car and scraped up the length of the front bumper, or worse, bounced up and hit my hood and windshield. So thank heavens for mitigating blessings.

I think the most interesting thing in all this is what happened in my mind as soon as I got over the shock of the impact. I immediately thought to call Mr. W, but I realized my purse was in the back seat so I dropped that idea. Then I thought, “I’m gonna blog this.” Some years ago, when I was having a very rough breakup, I had no energy to go to the gym or to go out and socialize at lunchtime, so I just sat in my car in the parking structure to be alone. Next thing I knew, a public defender getting into his SUV parked to my right opened his door into my car so hard that it shook my car for several seconds. Incredulous, I stepped out of my car and walked around it to him. He looked up at me. “You know you just hit my car, right?” I said, forcing a calmness that was very apparently…well…forced. He played dumb. I almost lost it. I didn’t speak to that public defender for almost a year afterwards. But my point is that after this happened and he pulled out and left to lunch, I sat back in my car and the same thoughts ran through my mind. I wanted to call my significant other and tell him about this. But we were breaking up. So I couldn’t. And the helplessness of not having someone to help shoulder my emotional burden just cracked me and I sat there and cried. That was, of course, before I had a blog.

My gym trainee forgot her gym clothes, so I jumped on the opportunity to suggest a margarita lunch outing. I deserve it cuz I’m having a crappy day, right? While at lunch, I confessed that I don’t understand the concept of, “Oh, I’m having a bad day so I’m gonna have a drink,” because drinking really doesn’t help me feel better. She said she doesn’t understand it either as all alcohol does is make her sleepy, but that she uses the “bad day” thing as an excuse to drink. I confessed that’s what I did today, too, as I sucked on my margarita.

The funny thing about having really strong margaritas is that when you’re back at work, it feels like you’re sitting and walking at a 45-degree angle from the ground, but as diagonal as you are, you don’t fall over. Funky.

Trouble walked up to me before I even got in the elevator to get to my floor at work this morning. I’m still standing there waiting for the elevator to come down and this coworker — this oversensitive, tactless woman as her reputation is not only known to be but personally experienced by everyone — decided to make some inappropriate comment at me about something that’s none of her business and in fact, even made her sort of a hypocrite. Of course I defended myself and she wanted to have a bickersesh with me, so I just clammed up and refused to make any further eye contact with her. Finally inside the elevator, there was a 3rd person so I just stared at the buttons, feeling my face grow hot with my anger. The coworker spoke again. “*scoff* You are just getting skinnier and skinnier.” I didn’t turn around. She said, “You. Cindy. Aren’t you getting skinnier and skinnier?” This would be a compliment coming from anyone else, but even last Friday other coworkers were commiserating to me about how this very same coworker has been on their nerves accusing them of starving themselves and looking too sickly with weight loss, when my coworkers have felt just fine about themselves and didn’t need her critique. I told her in the elevator, “I don’t know. I don’t think I am.” She kept going on insisting that I’m dissolving and what am I trying to do? I said that I haven’t done anything, whatever I do isn’t working. Then my floor was up and I stepped out.

What a way to ruin the day. First thing at work. She couldn’t even wait until she was standing with me waiting for the elevator before she started; she had to talk crap as she was still walking toward me! I totally covered her butt last week, too, because for 3 days, she was supposed to work this specialized very busy courtroom, she had a fit, so I covered both that courtroom and my own courtroom so that she could go sit in her cushy relaxed courtroom. See if I ever do HER any more favors. Hmmph.

Whoa. I just typed the following sentence:

The seventh cause of action for breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing is dependent on the first cause of action for breach of contract, which is defective.

And then I paused. Isn’t it d-e-p-e-n-d-A-n-t? Or maybe it’s one of those affect/effect things where one version is a verb and the other is a noun. Maybe “dependent” is a verb, like when you’re dependent on someone. And dependant is a person, like a child. So I looked it up.

DependAnt does not exist!! Did you guys know that?! I’ve been misspelling this word my entire life?! I’m sure I’ve typed things like “I’m independant,” “she’s co-dependant,” all over this blog.

I am humbled.

**Addendum: What’s even weirder is that I looked up both “dependant” and “dependent” on my search fields on this blog, and apparently I’ve been using it correctly way more times than I’ve used it incorrectly, which is like once. So I KNEW about this spelling, but had somehow FORGOTTEN? What’s going on with my brain today?!

I’m still bustling at work typing out the trial minute order, but I thought I’d stop by and post a little something to say hello. Since I didn’t post all day. (You guys should be flattered I feel a stronger obligation to you than to legal or occupational responsibility.)

We’ve been busy in a civil trial last week. The plaintiff is an 18 year old who’s suing for damages acquired as a passenger in an auto accident. The driver, whom he’s suing, was a friend of his. It was a late-hour accident when the two had been out partying all night.

The photo of the car was pretty scary. The plaintiff really did sustain quite a bunch of injuries, which are verifiable on the medical bills and doctors’ testimony in evidence. The plaintiff wanted $80,000; the defendant’s last offer was $50,000. Today, we got the jury verdict. The jury awarded some monies for past and future economic damages, past and future physical pain and suffering. Their total? $65,000. They did not know about past offers and settlement negotiations, but their figure hit it right in the middle of the difference. I think that’s evidence that our justice system (sometimes) works so well, it hits the nail right on the head. My judge believes that the judge who’d tried to settle the case before we got it for trial must have tried to get the parties to meet in the middle with $65,000, but apparently one or both parties had refused. Now, the jury verdict is forcing an exact middle-of-the-line compromise.

Both sides are of course disappointed, but one judge in our building always says to parties who have just reached settlement in his courtroom, “I know that both of you are a little bit unhappy, but that is the sign of a good compromise, when both sides walk away just a bit disappointed.”

…my nose is cold from having to breathe in the cold air.
…I keep sitting on my hands to warm my fingers, but all I end up doing is freezing my butt.
…when I touch my tongue to the roof of my mouth, I can feel that it’s cold, and when I put a little puddle of saliva to the roof for a couple seconds then push the pool to the tip of my tongue, I can tell that the saliva is now cold which means my nasal cavity can be used to make ice cream.
…James suggested I drink something warm, and I drank a cup of hot coffee, but that just made me pee which meant I had to get half-naked in a restroom and sit on an ice-cold toilet seat, which just made everything worse.
…I went to Jordan’s blog several times today just to cuss at her weather pixie who’s announcing that Florida was 85 degrees Fahrenheit today.
…I still don’t think it’s fair we can pronounce judgment that will take away a man’s freedom for the rest of his life, but they won’t let us change the temperature in our own courtroom. (The thermostat is sealed behind a metal cover that only the maintenance crew has the specialized tool to open.)
…try as I may, I can’t bring myself to believe I’m in Sunny Southern California. My city dropped to 39F last nite, kicking the butt of the 1994 record low of 41F. But the irony is, it actually is sunny outside.
…I’m actually considering doing some divorce cases, which always warms my heart =P
…I’m trying to talk myself into overcoming the Asian thrift gene so that I’d turn on my heater tonight. So far, the frugal side is still louder, claiming once I change the sheets, I’ll be better, and it doesn’t make sense to heat an entire two-story house when I’m only in 3 square feet of it (curled up shivering in fetal position).

I was just in the midst of an email exchange with a coworker. She wanted to know if I still had a copy of an email forward entitled “The Slightly Gay Male” which described the modern day “metrosexual.” She said she wanted to send it to a friend who’s in denial about his metrosexuality. There was no way I could dig that old email out, and we went back and forth on how she could bring up her archived mail and look in there, and when that didn’t work, I had the brilliant idea of telling her to google “slightly gay male” because it’s the internet, and any forwarded email can probably be found online. I know I certainly post some of my favorite forwards as “humor”, as pages linked from my sidebar.

A minute later, my phone rings. It’s the coworker. “Uh, Cindy,” she starts. “I would recommend that you do not look up slightly gay male on Google.”
“Why not?”
“Because… *hesitantly*…all this porn popped up about slightly gay male sex!”
Oops.