Summary Judgment - The Trap

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Here's how to avoid the summary judgment trap! Summary judgment can be a good thing - when it's working for you! It can mean the end of litigation in your favor, victory without a fight. It can save months and even years of money-draining litigation sorrows. But! If your opponent files a motion for summary judgment against you, the result can be immediate defeat if you don't apply what I teach you in this newsletter. Banks and other powerful opponents (Child Protective Services, Big Pharma, etc.) do this routinely. They start with a laundry list of affidavits by which they wish the court to believe they've "proven" the facts of their case (inadmissible affidavits, by the way), and their lawyer points to the paperwork, files a motion for summary judgment, and insists the case has already been proven. That is almost never the truth. It's a trap! Here's what you need to know! Summary judgment is provided by Rule 56 Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and by state court rules in every state in our Republic. All the states follow the federal rule closely. There may be a few minor differences but, in general, the rule and the principles are identical. Either party (plaintiff or defendant) may file the motion. The motion must allege (and the moving party must ultimately prove) "there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Danger! There is almost always at least some "genuine issue as to a material fact" that precludes summary judgment. But! If you don't understand what is meant by "genuine issue" or "material fact", you will lose ... needlessly! I've been an attorney nearly a quarter-century. I've read a h--- of a lot of cases in those years, believe me. And, in all that reading I discovered that summary judgments are routinely set aside on appeal! That's right. The majority of summary judgment orders are reversed on appeal. Don't believe me? Go to any online legal research cite and enter the following search terms: precludes w/4 summary (i.e., search the case law in your appellate jurisdiction for the word "precludes" appearing within 4 words of "summary"). Hit "Enter" and sit back and watch the cases fly onto your screen one-after-another. I just pulled up 151 of them here in Florida's state appellate decisions. Read a few dozen and you'll see what I mean. Don't be trapped by summary judgment motions! The key to winning (whether you're the one defending or the one filing the motion) is the rule itself and preparation for appeal that's made simple enough for an 8th grader to understand using my affordable Jurisdictionary step-by-step self-help course. Read the rule ... state or federal. Also read the cases that explain the rule and how it is applied by the appellate courts to determine if summary judgment is proper or not. The motion is evaluated on the following grounds: "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with affidavits, if any". So many of you don't yet understand the power of your five (5) discovery tools and the importance of firing them off at the first opportunity in your case. By requests for admissions, requests for production, interrogatories, and a deposition or two along with a few subpoenas you can make it clear there are "genuine issues of material fact" in the record ... precluding summary judgment. The other fortress against summary judgment is built by drafting powerful pleadings (whether you're the plaintiff or defendant). The pleadings (complaint and answer with affirmative defenses) are the first defense against losing on a summary judgment motion, because your pleadings raise the issues that you're competing for. If you file weak pleadings (plaintiff or defendant) you offer your opponent an opportunity to charge ahead with summary judgment. Weak pleadings followed by delayed discovery opens the door for your opponent to argue, "There are no genuine issues of material fact in the record," and that's all he needs to win. My Jurisdictionary course shows you how to draft powerful pleadings in easy steps with explanations and examples of the forms most commonly used. The courts are jammed with litigation. In most states, it can take months just to schedule a simple hearing. Most judges welcome opportunities to grant summary judgment, because it clears the case off the docket! Beware! The judge wants to enter summary judgment. Not because you are pro se. Not because he hates you. Not because he plays golf with the lawyer on the other side. But, because he wants to clear his clogged calendar of pending cases that are backing up because of the glut of litigation that is delaying justice for good people! You must prepare with lawsuit know-how or lose! Solid pleadings create an impenetrable barrier to entry of summary judgment orders. They plainly state the genuine issues of material fact. If they are "verified" (as I teach in my affordable 24-hour, step-by-step Jurisdictionary self-help course they should always be) then you have built a protective wall around your case. The genuine issues of material fact are in your pleadings! Your pleadings cannot be changed by your opponent. You state your "genuine issues of material fact" in your complaint or answer and affirmative defenses, and protect yourself from summary judgment motions filed by the other side! Prompt discovery provides an additional barrier against summary judgment rulings. When the other side cannot produce documents you've properly requested according to the rules, and those documents would tend to prove your case, then a "genuine issue of material fact" is established that precludes entry of summary judgment. The same can be said of requests for admissions, interrogatories, answers to deposition questions, and so forth. And, of course, the importance of arranging in advance to have every proceeding recorded by an official court reporter and to arrange in advance for obtaining a certified transcript afterward to prove everything said or done in court cannot be overstressed! Like the Chinese Laundry operator used to say, "No ticky. No washy." If you don't arrange in advance for a certified transcript to be available to you after every in-court proceeding, you've telegraphed permission for the judge to do whatever the judge wishes to do ... and that include knocking your case off his busy calendar by granting summary judgment, because without a court record the judge knows he cannot be reversed on appeal! No transcript. No appeal. It breaks my heart to learn how many of you are beaten by summary judgment and other tactics by unscrupulous lawyers who don't care about truth or justice or fairness or anything beyond a newer sports car and a bigger swimming pool in their backyard. You don't have to lose just because you're pro se! I receive emails every day from people who believe that lie ... people who'd rather complain about their losses and blame anyone but their own unwillingness to learn. This is not the spirit that once made America great, my friends. Learn Rule 56 (or the corresponding rule in your state court). Read a few dozen cases you can find online using the search terms given above. Educate yourselves on something other than the insidious silver-bullet nonsense that is so prevalent on the internet these days. People who say justice is impossible for pro se litigants are misinformed. Read the testimonials at right → Justice most certainly is possible ... for those who take my affordable 24-hour, step-by-step Jurisdictionary self-help course. If you want to learn the rules at the law library and not pay for my course, that's fine with me. But, please stop believing those who say pro se justice is impossible. I will say this: Justice IS impossible for those who don't yet know how to command the courts as I teach. Finally, please know this about me and my success in court: I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I have never belonged to a country club. I didn't win cases by being one of the "good old boys". For most of my life I was common as dirt. I didn't get my chance to go to law school until I was 39. That was 28 years ago. I won on a regular basis in spite of the odds against me because I believe in the rules of due process and, after 10 years of fumbling around in the dark, I finally learned how to use those rules effectively to control judges and get justice for my clients! Until I was 42 years old and passed the bar exam, I had to work as hard or harder than any of you just to make ends meet! I was a ferry boat skipper. I ran fishing boats. I swung a hammer and pushed a saw and carried sheets of plywood and 2x4's. I had a job pulling beers in a southern bar where pickled eggs, pigs feet, and boiled peanuts were the food du jour. I scraped barnacles off boat bottoms. I climbed tall radio towers to replace light bulbs. I once spent weeks inside unfinished sailboats grinding fiberglass in the Miami heat, enduring the itch of fiberglass dust mixed with sweat and occasional blood from the cuts of sharp edges of newly laid fiberglass material. At one point in my long career of unimaginables, I drove a Frosty root beer truck delivering cases of soda to country stores in the farmlands east of Tampa. I worked my way through undergraduate school at Florida State (because my family could not afford to send me to college) installing short wave radios in fire trucks and ambulances. I didn't make enough to go to an ivy league school. For years I lived in rented one-room apartments and got about on a bicycle, because I couldn't afford a car or gasoline. For nearly 9 years of my adult life I lived in small beat-up old sailboats, no air-conditioning, no refrigerator, no TV. I know what most of you are going through! I want to help you! But, you need help yourselves and others! I didn't win most of my cases by sucking up to the good old boys! I won by learning how to use the rules, and you can learn, too! We can win the war against corruption in this nation and be the example Adams and Paine and Washington intended us to be ... but we must do it according to The Rules of Law and with due process, not foolish fables. YOU DON'T HAVE TO LOSE! Believing internet fables, even if they were true, isn't going to help you or your family. Joining the crowd that can only complain and point fingers isn't making things better for any of us. The true patriots who are making things better for all of us (or, at least, trying their best to do so) are those who fight for victories over corruption using due process and the Rule of Law for which too many good men and women have already given their lives. Let us honor those who gave their all for the sake of liberty and due process by renewing our pledge to the cause of Justice ... overcoming the corruption in our courts by forcing judges to obey the rules too many have already died for! Please don't send me emails telling me the courts are corrupt. I know first-hand about corruption. That's why I created Jurisdictionary in the first place. I know judges who are so corrupt they should be horse-whipped. I know lawyers who are so corrupt they don't know how to stop lying, even when they aren't in court. But! I also know how to win ... and you can, too! Well, that's it for today's newsletter. I'd appreciate receiving some emails this week thanking me for Jurisdictionary instead of attacking me for not joining the milieu of madness that has little to offer beyond telling us what's wrong. Most of us already know what's wrong. What we need is for more of you to discover that the only way to deal with corruption is to overcome it! Complaining about corruption alone does not stop it! When corruption is in the courts, the way to win is to rub the judges' noses in their very own rules! Good judges will do what's right. BAd judges fear being reversed on appeal. I didn't win for a quarter-century by belonging to the "good old boys" network. I don't belong to any fraternity or secret society. I hate the good old boys for a number of personal reasons I may write about in my autobiography someday, if anyone is interested. I hate all they stand for. I hate their abuse of people who don't know how to fight back. I hate their cruelty. I hate their arrogance! So I created Jurisdictionary so YOU can fight back! The choice is yours, after all. I cannot make you believe what I say. You simply need to try my methods and see for yourself what the people who wrote those testimonials at the right have discovered.  If you already have my course, urge EVERYONE to get the course and stop the courthouse corruption that is destroying our nation and putting your children's future in peril of being utterly destroyed by the elitist agenda to rule us all by taking away our voice and our right to be heard in court on the public record! If you don't yet have my course, order it today and find out for yourself just how powerful you can be with just a little bit of practical lawsuit know-how! Help us restore due process to our nation, please! Learn how to use the rules to command justice! Help us overcome the evil of this age! Do it for your children! Dr. Frederick David Graves, JD Jurisdictionary ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ May you find Strength in Your Higher Power,  GranPa Chuck   "We the "Little" People"     Defend Yourself>>   My Family Reform Blog   My Family Rights Affiliation