Re: Lucy- Follow up on Ohio case -- orangedog

Posted by lucy (199.182.123.10) on September 03, 2002 at 00:21:04:

In Reply to: Lucy- Follow up on Ohio case posted by orange dog on September 02, 2002 at 15:33:56:

Do keep in mind that this was a CAMCO action, and so far only one like it has emerged. The presumption is that the debt was SOL because I have yet to hear that CAMCO handles any OTHER kind of debt.

The case I am referring to is
2001 CVF 041594 CAPITAL ACQUISITIONS & MANAGEMENT CO vs. CHEN, ERNEST SCHN

The broad overview of what happened is in the docket lists.

Either defendant on his own or lawyer requested the complaint be made "more definite and certain", certainly a most reasonable request if statutes of limitations had run. That wording suggests to me that Chen may have been in proper person when the motion was filed and granted, and either sought or was sought after by legal counsel afterwards.

Plaintiff requested more time to make their complaint "more definite and certain", definitely defendant's lawyer moved for dismissal, judgment was in favor of defendant, the complaint was dismissed -- AND the judgment itself is interesting, in that the motion to strike complaint dismiss is TAKEN AS MOTION FOR MORE DEFINITE STATEMENT and plaintiff is given 30 days to file an amended complaint.

I could be very VERY wrong, which is why I prefer working with transcripts and copies of evidence submitted. But what I believe happened is either

1 -- Chen's lawyer, having secured the dismissal of the original complaint, attempted to force CAMCO to cough up the debt's provenance in a way that eliminated any reasonable doubt that SOL had run, to protect his client from future abuse associated with this particular debt

OR

2 -- Melissa A Morris and her cohort decided to sweat Chen a little harder just for fun. Because CAMCO can not let those DATES creep in on THIS case, thanks to precedents regarding artificial reaging and other ammo lawyers can usually snap their fingers and get fetched. There are too-too many OPEN CASES not to mention closed cases where an easy score was made that might attract the attention of some activist.

So Chen won the first skirmish, but has no big gun to fire back at whoever CAMCO bequeathes the debt to. Melissa does not list any bar association membership in her Albequerque NM listing at FindLaw.com or any representative cases to attract clients with that listing, so she's something of a wild talent and has been racking up a great track record with the default judgments. If the decision to take the dismissal as a motion similar to the original motion the defendant parried with, she is maybe just a sore loser, or it may be something else going on here, motion may have been worded in a way that left that parting shot possible, etc. -- just not enough data to compute without a transcript.

I did not see that the complaint WAS amended and refiled looking at OPEN cases, and came up zip on REOPENED cases, too. But I may have missed something in the open cases, my work on this part is frequently interrupted by coworkers paging me to see if I want to come to work early.

This kind of research (using case summary data) is new to me, because the court file that has everything from soup to nuts in it for a case like this is out of reach and all that's available is the summary of what's in the that file and what happened that moved the case from opening to close. You really need to click on EVERY link and EVERY sublink on these cases to see what's there, even if you get bored because it tends to be so same-old same-old. AND I need a new dictation device for my own notes because cut and paste is fine for much of it but not ALL, and I can't read the stuff aloud for my case notes using my dragon because the windows overlap and it's just too awkward so far.

But Chen had a lawyer by the time, most probably local, have not yet had a chance to run ALL the legal eagles thru FindLaw.com to see where they roost.

You, orangedog, have a yellow pages you can use as your first resource to locate Jack E McCormick, the defendant's attorney of record and ask him for advice on discovery. Also, what happened at the tail end of Chen's case and how come. If the judge you pulled is creditor-friendly or debtor friendly. A few things that would be handy to know.

And if ya love me, babe, also ask what a transcript of this trial might run. I'd really like to study it in depth.

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