In Court

When I was a child there was a TV show called 'Day in Court". At the beginning of each day's episode they would announce it saying each word loudly and clearly as if there were a period between each one: DAY. IN. COURT! And then there would be a loud percussive sound like a gavel banging. I think of that every time I sit in the courtroom waiting for it all to start. As a kid I would watch the show when I stayed home ill from school. We had a big two-story house and our guestroom was where Mom would put us when we were sick. It was a really dark and somber place and for some reason, it had a TV. 'Day in Court' was usually followed by 'Divorce Court'. My mother would never let me watch 'Divorce Court'. Of course, she later spent quite a bit of time in divorce court. Divorces were long, arduous, days-long hearings back then. It was before no-fault divorce and much of the arguments centered around why people were getting divorced. Affairs were the titillating precipitating events that piqued people's interests. Now there is no real interest in why people get divorces, at least not in the courtroom. 'Day in Court' was more of a potpourri of civil cases. I don't think they had criminal cases, but maybe they did. Was it rehearsed? Was it live? I don't know.

I was glad I only had to be in court for a half day this time. There was a more palatable beginning and end time for me. And, (joy oh joy!), Bill's attorney actually showed up and did his job.

As we waited outside for the bailiff to unlock the courtroom, I asked Laura to forward to my attorney a 'rental agreement' Bill had sent her. She said, "Oh, I forgot about that. I never read it. It was an attachment to an email." As she started to read it, it became clear that this wasn't a rental agreement for a new place Bill was going to rent, but a promise to her from him. He said that whatever the court demanded she pay in rent, he would send her that amount in a check. My attorney told her he wanted her to testify and read that on the witness stand. And she did. I guess it was just to show how slippery Bill can be. It would, I guess, also show that he really didn't need the extra money, that maybe it was just an attempt to squeeze me some more.

I was the only other person to testify that day. I was on the stand for a long time. Bill's attorney was trying to figure out why I say I am $3K in the hole every month. He was trying to find it in my records. In cross, my attorney helped me testify that it doesn't come in regular $3,000 intervals, and that some months are more costly than others, such as summer and when things like property taxes are due. I got a little flustered with that one. But I think I had my day in court. Not my DAY. IN. COURT! but I got to have my say. I got to mention gambling several times. I got to explain why I didn't make Bill the beneficiary on my life insurance policy back in 2002, why he was removed from my health benefits, why he was removed from the cell phone plan, why I shouldn't be ordered to pay his attorney's fees. It went almost as well as it could have. I chastised Bill and his attorney from the stand for sitting in that courtroom in September with full knowledge that my auto insurance was expired and never mentioning it to me. I told them if Bill needed money for legal costs, he could use some of his share of my tax shelter to pay them himself. We'll see how that works; they're already asking for it.

But once again we didn't get finished. We lost about a half an hour because the judge spent the time rereading our past hearing out loud. Wasn't he supposed to go over that stuff in his chambers before we started? If we have to do that again, it will take him an hour to go through previous testimony. The clerk was absent that day, that courtroom was going to be 'dark' the next day, and the attorneys were going to have to call in to set a date for our continuance. The judge thought that we could finish it sometime this month. Bill's attorney said he wasn't available. The clerk only offered one date in January, and someone couldn't make it. That left February, and he only offered us the 28th. So there you have it. I seem to be having a very long, arduous, days-long hearing. Just like in the 1950's.