A Puzzle For Those Who Could Lose Their Homes In This Crisis

[anthropositor]

Fortunately, as a chess coach, I am aware of the dangers of over-confidence.  And since this involves our home and land, and over nine years of equity, it behooves me not to get too cocky.  Just being right is no consolation if we do not defend correctly, and lose the case.

Does anyone know the difference between depositions and interrogatories?  That is to say, the practical differences?  To call for depositions by your opponent and significant parties and witnesses requires some substantial charges up front.  The more depositions, the more money.  In some cases, it is tempting to have several parties deposed.  But we are financially precluded from taking this path.  These deposed individuals would be making sworn statements.  A court recorder is taking both the questions and answers down.  Opposing attorney's are present and engaging in their lawyerly duties.  All of this is very useful, but it is also expensive.  It is not possible for us.

Somewhat more economical is the answering of submitted written interrogatories.  These are still sworn, but the answers are in writing, as are the questions put to the subject of the interrogatory. 

The objective is to lock in testimony prior to court.  Then if an opposing party later says anything that conflicts with the interrogatory on the stand, the discrepancy can be demonstrated.  When one is responding to an interrogatory, the generally accepted legal tactic is to give as little actual information to your opponents as you can, not by being duplicitous of course, but by minimizing the details of the answer. 

But, though that is generally the tactic, I don't know if it is the best one in this particular situation.  Although we are Defendants in an action alleging that the contract has been nullified, it is our position that not only have we not done anything that would breach the contract, the Plaintiff's engaged in a variety of actions and inaction's which were designed specifically to seize the property, putting an elderly couple, one of whom was disabled by blindness, out of their home of nine years.  That these actions on the part of the Plaintiff were premeditated and without legal merit.  That the lawyer for the Plaintiff was in a position to advise her clients that their case was not well founded in law.  That is to say, the lawyer herself shared in the culpability for this wrongful action, violating her duty as an officer of the court.

The legal terminology for the damaging actions of the Plaintiffs and their counsel is called Abuse Of Process.  This is a tort.  If a judge finds that the Plaintiffs engaged in a frivolous suit, without any thought to the potential consequences, the court can award damages to the Defendants that are appropriate to the circumstances, and set protections in place to prevent further such abuses by these Plaintiffs for the duration of the remainder of the contract.

The foregoing does not constitute legal advice.  Laws vary widely from one geographic area to another.  Anyone in this same sort of difficulty should get the advice of competent counsel licensed to practice contract law in that jurisdiction.     

[LIGA girl]

Hi Anthro

a deposition is a statement made by a witness and committed to writing and an interrogatory is a set of questions submitted to your opponent to gather further information from them regarding evidence they may use in court. Tactically if you answer an interrogatory you give as little info as possible while still being truthful. I hope this helps, I am not sure what legal action you are involved in.

Cheers
Vicki

[anthropositor]

Yes LG, that is correct.  But a deposition requires a court stenographer, and attorneys get to play a part as well.  It is adversarial in nature.  That is the source of most of the expense.  Interrogatories are done by correspondence between the attorneys involving responses to questions put. 

The action here is the attempt to overthrow a land contract of nine years.  The details are in the earlier part of this thread.  The Plaintiffs allege that the contract has been negated and that I am therefore in unlawful detainer because of my refusal to leave.  But the refusal of the Plaintiff to receive payments, in itself, is not the same as the defendant willfully failing to make the payments.  That is why, when we could no longer  compel the Plaintiff to accept the payments, we opened a new account for the purpose of housing the payments as they came due, until such time that the court makes a determination in the case.

[Uncle Matt]

That is why, when we could no longer  compel the Plaintiff to accept the payments, we opened a new account for the purpose of housing the payments as they came due, until such time that the court makes a determination in the case.

A very wise move, I think...

[anthropositor]

Yes, my lawyer was glad, in retrospect, that I thought of it.  His first reaction was that it was not necessary.  I believe it was a pivotal move, showing that I never had any intention at all of breaching the contract.

[LIGA girl]

Hi Anthro

I am aware that this thread contains some of the facts of the case but it is a long thread and a lot of other things are discussed in it.

What are the grounds on which the plaintiff claims termination of contract?

Here it is possible to represent yourself in a matter such as this, bypassing the need to pay lawyers. If you know the points of law you are arguing, you can draft or respond to a set of interrogatories yourself and have a deposition typed and signed in accordance with the law for it to be acceptable evidence in court. Is that possible over there? You simply need to know the legal grounds on which the P is claiming relief in order to draft your responses or statements accordingly.

cheers
Vicki

[anthropositor]

Unfortunately the body of the process of the law is convoluted, as are the court procedures that need to be navigated.  An example is the interrogatories directed toward me nearly a month ago by the other side.  The game plan was that my lawyer would send them to me, I would retype them, including my answers.  The trouble is, I have not seen them and my lawyer is pretty hard to reach.  Nor has he read them to me over the phone.  But verbally, he has recently said that this particular deadline is not cast in granite, and is, often as not, observed in the breach.  But meanwhile, I have been more and more disturbed with the passage of time.  What has happened in the last year has had the effect of a siege.  And my lawyer informs me that it could go on for another similar period of time.  That, and not yet having an entire game plan presented from his perspective is dismaying.  As a chess coach, I realize that the absence of a game plan provides a serious handicap.  The other area of problem is that my lawyer really does not want me contacting the other side, in spite of the fact that I have made no mistakes so far, and that all contacts up to now have worked out well.

I certainly would rather have an advocate in the courtroom, rather than representing myself, but on the other hand, I really do need to know each of the next moves in a timely way, and how those next moves propel us toward a successful conclusion.  If I do, the pressure is cut in half.  It is quite certain that the other side has been deliberately playing for delays, and would like to continue to do so.  Not hitting the deadline for these interrogatories makes us seem to be delaying.  I don't like it at all.

I had an unanticipated spell of vague apprehension a few days ago, followed in short order by a sense that I was losing temperature.  You might call it a "cold sweat" for lack of a better name.  I began to rise from the couch and was overpowered by a sense of vertigo, which then continued even when I turned my head.  And some nausea was beginning to develop.  Some of the possibilities are; a stroke or a TIA, an infection of the inner ear. 

I considered what to do next.  The first thing was to inform my wife as precisely as I could that I was having some difficulties, since I could still speak.  There was no paralysis of the face or arms, but the legs were not showing any signs of reliability.  If this was the onset of a new stroke, it was considerably different than the one five years ago.  That one presented no obvious physical signs.  Even the extreme stupidity that set in was more obvious to me than others.  Only some of my chess opponents began to notice.

Once my wife knew what was going on, I prepared myself for the trip to the bathroom.  Dizziness was really a problem.  I moved in a low, wide-legged crouch.  But the legs were very weak.  I went down as I got to the bathroom.  My wife got a little freaked.  Wanted to call an ambulance.  I was not close to losing consciousness.  My pulse was strong and steady, no sign of fibrillation.  I calmed her down while I was laying there with nothing to do.  My voice seemed oddly frail sounding to me.  I tried to make it more resonant, without success. 

In any case, I sent my wife off for half an aspirin and to try to find the missing thermometer, while I just laid their doing the easy part, nothing whatsoever.  My time sense got a little off.  I thought I had been on the floor for twenty minutes.  My wife says more than an hour.  The only thing I had done that required a lot of effort was to sit up enough to take the aspirin with a full glass of water.

But after this long rest, I was able to get to the toilet soon enough to regurgitate a few times.  So I added the possibility of some sort of food-born poisoning to my list of things which might have caused this.  I was at or on the toilet for perhaps another hour, and had the strength to get to my bed under my own power.  I woke up ten hours later, fit as a fiddle.  Had I gone to the hospital, we could easily have been several thousands further behind the eight-ball, making it that much more likely that we could go under, and lose the house even before the case ever came to court.

This certainly did not seem likely to be a cardiac problem.  Much more likely, the year of nonstop stress had taken its' toll.  From that perspective, leaving everything in my lawyer's hands, especially without knowing his complete game plan, was probably the worst thing I could do.  But I'll take a few days off, and then work it out.  If I have to take over the case, I guess I'll have to do it.

[anthropositor]

Fifteen months from the beginning, and counting.  Still no further moves and no court date set.  Justice delayed is often justice denied.  But that is how the "system" works.  No sense spinning my wheels.