Court, Deposition, Court again

Trial list this morning, but they weren’t ready for us. That means we could get called to pick a jury and get started at any moment between now and Wednesday. Luckily, I have an understanding, and patient client.

Now I’m in a deposition trying to pin down the exact location of a slip and fall accident. There’s lots of confusion and this witness isn’t helping. In this city there are lots of property lines right next to each other.

Tomorrow, if my trial doesn’t start, I go to Court in Media, Pennsylvania to meet with the Judge about a trial the will start sometime next month. I’m hoping we can settle.

Short stuff…

I’m very pleased to have wrapped up the Squarepuser / Artist of the Week project.  It was great to go through all of that stuff, especially the ’97 show from Shinjuku Liquid Lounge.  I’ve never seen that one posted, except for the torrent i got a year or two ago.  The torrent is long gone (off the Dime tracker, anyway) and I’ve never seen the show posted elsewhere.  The best part is that it came with no track listing.  That forced me to listen to these jams over and over again to get the song titles right.  Hopefully this whole exercise will tide me over until August.

The Fretbuzz.net project is coming along nicely.  FBDN himself has proven a capable and attentive webmaster and the resource is really stimulating our collective creative juices.  The best part is that the sight is active, even if not terribly well visited.  We’re not exactly counting hits, but a quick google search this morning revealed that if you just put in the ‘fretbuzz’ we come up tenth – first page, baby!  That’s pretty strong, considering the (most likely) scanty readership.  This means that our updating (sometimes a few times per day!) is paying off.

I recently found an Aimee Mann bootleg from the Bachelor No. 2 / Magnolia era.  It’s a superb recording and there is a sense of commitment and passion in her performance.  So, that will get posted this week, along with my comments on this troubling artist.

The work week ended with an aggrieved father who attempted to strangle his daughters killer during sentencing.  I was waiting for me cases to be called when, on this other case, the Judge consented to hearing from the victim’s family prior to sentencing.  Big mistake.  Now, that’s what I call Courtroom Drama.  Everything was put under control quickly by the highly skilled (and much appreciated) Camden Sheriffs.  Nice work, people.

The next work week begins with the deposition of an officer that killed a 15-year-old boy who allegedly threatened him with a clothes iron.  Cop shot that boy dead.  I’ve go the kid’s mom as a client in a wrongful death / Civil Rights / Excessive Force (yuh think?) case.  So, I’ve got a lot of work to do today to get ready for this clown.  He’ll be well prepared.

Sci-Fi stuff of note includes Ronald D. Moore’s Virtuality which was on Friday night.  I haven’t checked it out yet, but maybe tonight if the work goes well.  I’m excited about sci-fi that is strongly connected to this world and this planet.  It’s a nice break from faraway planets and alien races.  Another project that appears to work along similar lines is Moon, which is getting a UK release next month.  I’m not sure if we’ll be getting this one in the U.S.

And, speaking of movies, we went with my mom to see The Proposal yesterday afternoon.  Betty White was HUGE!

Justice served

It’s not that big a deal, but this win feels nice. Basically, you have a home improvement contractor who is taking a bit too long and he gets fired. That’s my client. He sue the homeowner to get paid for the work and materials already put in to the project – in this case a custom kitchen. He then learns that he can’t sue because he didn’t have a written contract. Ooops! NJ law is a bitch that way. The contractor gets sued for failing to provide a contract and failing to do a good job before he got fired.

At trial we proved that he was never given an opportunity to do the job right because he was fired and never advised of the complaints. Also, we proved that there were no ‘ascertainable’ damages which resulted from his failure to provide a written contract. Those ascertainable damages would have been multiplied by three (3x) if they were found to exist. So my guy started out hoping to get money and then was exposed to the possibility of having to pay $20,000 plus. He still is on the hook for attorney fees attributable to the homeowners’ effort to enforce the violation. We’ll see what that amount adds up to in January, but on the other high-ticket items, we were very successful today.