The New Journey........... A Light Bulb Moment......

Part One

I know you're probably getting as overwhelmed by legal jargon as I was at the time. The three friends who were my normal support were getting pretty sick of it too, I suspect. Although I have to give them credit, they hung in there and listened to me mull the information over and over and over again until I finally figured out how to make each piece work for me.

There were so many times I was asked, "Are you sure this is worth it?" that I couldn't even guess a number. My answer was always the same. There was no way I was going to quit on this although I sure could have used a day off every now and then.

Unfortunately for me, I didn't have the option to just ski working on it for the day. Because BG and WF had filed their counterclaim, if I didn't follow through, the court would automatically rule in their favor even though they were the ones trying to cheat me. If I wanted to get my horse back I had to get the legal things figured out so I could get my paperwork correct and filed with the court meeting my deadlines.

The most frustrating part about the legal system is its vagueness and yet, that vagueness is a very important part of the system. Laws are written to cover all possible situations that might pertain to them. Wording is such to purposely not limit applications. The lawmakers want their laws to be applied across a broad set of circumstances. I suspect the purpose of this is so that there don't need to be so many laws although sometimes I really felt like the sole purpose was to make me crazy.

The result of this vagueness is you can look at something and immediately question, "How does this relate to me?" I can't even tell you how many times I would find the information I was searching for in the law or court rules only to ask myself that question. Finding my way from the vagueness of the law to how it worked for my case was a stretch. I felt like a blind person fumbling around in the dark hoping for something I recognized.

I began to see the way to do this was to manipulate the law to suit my purpose. Manipulation is not my thing but clearly an important part of the legal system. Stretching boundaries to fit scenarios seems to be the law of the land. I found if I could interject my truth within the parameters of the law that's what I should do and not worry if the law had been applied that way before. What was important was that it was still the truth and it looked to me like it fit within the guidelines required by the court. Then the court could decide it it worked or it didn't.

If I made a mistake, there would be ways to fix them. Listening closely to a reason for rejection would usually expose the correct route to take.

Obviously, it wouldn't be good to stretch an interpretation so far no one could see my point of view but me. However, if my observation was something that might make sense to the "reasonable man" the door was open for me to use it. This was particularly important when it came to evidence I had in my possession since there is a burden to prove that evidence is in fact real. Just saying it is does not satisfy the court, and in many situations a foundation must be built to get evidence admitted at trial.

While I was trying to sort all of this stuff out, I was also still trying to figure out how to pin BG and WF down with the resources available to me in discovery. Even though I still didn't understand Admissions and Interrogatories, I knew they were probably very important to my case, even if the local court rules had not made provisions for me to use them. Because they were used in most rules of evidence, they must be important components of discovery. I just was not getting what they were or how I would use them.

To understand my confusion about these two vehicles for gathering evidence, I submit the definition of each.

The definition for a request for admissions as it pertains to discovery is "a list of questions which are similar in some respects to interrogatories, but different in form and purpose. Each "question" is in the form of a declarative statement which the answering party must then either admit, deny, or state in detail why s/he can neither admit nor deny the truthfulness of the statement (e.g. for lack of knowledge, etc.).

The definition for interrogatories is "In law, interrogatories (also known as requests for further information) are a formal set of written questions propounded by one litigant and required to be answered by an adversary, in order to clarify matters of fact and help to determine in advance what facts will be presented at any trial in the case."

How would you make either of these work in this case?

Each time I read these definitions over, I swear my eyes crossed and my mind turned to mush. I just couldn't get how I was supposed to make these things work for me but I was equally convinced they were the key to getting BG and WF on the ropes.

All this angst sent me to the homeless woman now living in my back yard. I knew she must understand about admissions and interrogatories and how they worked to prove a case. Gradually, with her help they changed from being mind blowing legal terms to powerful weapons. For the first time in weeks, I began to get a picture of how to use those tools in supporting my case.

What my guest said to me that triggered my final understanding of how these items would work in my case, I cannot say. She sure didn't direct me to use them as I did. What I can say is ,until those many talks with my now resident paralegal happened, these definitions in and of themselves just did not click for me. Then suddenly one day as we were talking, yet again about them, the light bulb went on and I knew what I must do.

Because I had researched the laws and found that discovery was indeed limited within the Pierce County District Court as told to me by that attorney, I knew I needed to seek the court's permission to be able to utilize Admission and Interrogatories in my discovery process. That meant I needed to figure out more paperwork to make a "pleading" to the court for additional discovery.

I decided if I must go back to the judge, I might as well kill two birds with one stone. I would not just seek to expand discovery but I would request leave of the court (specific verbage I learned from my paralegal advsor) to correct the mistakes I'd made on my first filing. I immediately began working on my paperwork so I could go to the judge for both issues.

I knew the provision that allowed me to seek permission from the court for additional means of discovery had specifically stated the court would not allow any blanket requests. I did not, however, understand exactly what that meant. My understanding of how the elements of discovery could be used was so limited, I thought the request I was making was within the constraints of that rule.

I got my paperwork done within a couple of days and headed back to the District Court. I found out when I took them that I had been wrong. The court clerk took my paperwork straight to the judge and minutes later I had my response. "The court required specific requests for information before it would make a ruling." I decided the best way to do that was to just provide to the court exactly what it was I wanted from BG and WF.

That might sound pretty simple but considering all the pieces to this puzzle there were, I knew I needed to be searching for information to contradict what they had said or to get them to say things that contradicted what their documents both to me and to the court said.

This was a pretty tall order that needed to be accomplished in a very short time. In my research I had also come across the deadline for discovery and it looked like I was running out of time.

I had been under the mistaken assumption if they didn't ask for it, they didn't get it. From my paralegal friend I had learned if I hadn't provided it, I couldn't use it. That meant I not only needed to have everything I planned to use organized and submitted to the court but I needed to have requested everything I wanted from the other side done and approved within that fast approaching deadline or else I was sunk.

To be continued.....................

MY Discovery Process....

This picture is Legs getting a little down and dirty himself. Had Legs not had that injury as a foal, he'd have easily been a reining candidate.


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