For the last several days, I've been wondering what sort of sleazy, desperate, frantic, last-minute douchebagitude Patrick Ross was going to try in order to ice his upcoming August 20 Rule 4.33 hearing, and now we know. I learned yesterday that Patrick has retained a lawyer for ... honestly, I'm not sure. So let's examine the consequences of this latest bit of assholery by Patrick, shall we?
As one of my recent commenters suggested, said new lawyer will undoubtedly ask for an extension to get up to speed on this file, and my initial reaction to that would be:
Fuck, no. For a couple of reasons.
First, Patrick was served with my Application on July 15, so he's had an entire month to retain a lawyer; instead, he waits until less than a week before the hearing to reveal this new development. Fuck, no.
More to the point, it's not clear what a new lawyer would need to understand about a Rule 4.33 Application that is about as close to a guaranteed slam dunk as one can imagine. Anyone who's followed my legal analysis and references will agree that the hearing should go pretty much like this:
Court: "Has your client done anything in the last three years to move this case along? Anything at all? Even the tiniest iota of progress?"
Patrick's lawyer: "Well, no, but ..."
Court: "Dismissed. We're done here."
Am I missing anything? So, no, I would not agree to any extension. But a different recent commenter makes a more interesting suggestion:
"That lawyer must be a masochist, or extremely desperate for billable hours."
I think there's something more interesting happening here, so let me explain.
It is entirely possible that New Lawyer Guy sincerely thinks he has a winnable case, but only because Patrick has, well, lied to him about the facts. Anyone who's followed Patrick on social media knows that he is relentlessly dishonest about everything in that, to win his arguments, he will distort, misrepresent, embellish, exaggerate and so on. Whenever Patrick describes some incident, it's always safe to say, "I'll bet it didn't happen quite that way."
For the most part, Patrick won't outright lie -- what he will do instead is spin. And I'm willing to bet various body parts that that is precisely what he did with his new lawyer. Rather than be properly and brutally honest with his new lawyer, it's more likely that Patrick wove a fantastical tale of harassment and intimidation and illegal surveillance and stalking and threats of violence and masked men with trucks that did not have a license plate, etc., etc., while deliberately leaving out some of the juicier aspects of the case, such as Patrick's status as a trustee-less, undischarged bankrupt who owes me $125,000 and has 15 years of history of refusing to pay court-ordered judgment and costs, and so on.
I'm willing to bet that, rather than make sure his new lawyer truly understands this case, Patrick treated that new lawyer as little more than another receptacle on social media to bullshit and spin. Which brings us back to the first commenter's suggestion that said lawyer will almost certainly ask for an extension, which makes me consider another possibility.
If asked, perhaps I should reply, "An extension? Why, sure, no problem ... on condition that your client put up $10,000 in security for costs, given how much he owes me and his long and sordid history of stiffing me for court-ordered costs. Oh, I'm sorry, you weren't aware that your client was a smarmy little weasel who refuses to pay costs when he loses? Gosh, that must come as an unpleasant surprise."
So maybe I'll go that way. Extension? Sure. As soon as Patrick hands over $10,000 to more than cover the eventual costs award from this Application. I guess we'll wait and see whether the subject comes up.
AFTERTHOUGHT: It just occurred to me that it's probably because of my relentless evisceration of Patrick's case over the last few weeks that Patrick finally figured out that he needs help. Recall that, only a few weeks ago, Patrick described his original lawsuit as "extremely-meritorious":
and insisted that that would be enough to defeat my Rule 4.33 Application. However, on more than one occasion, I pointed out that a Rule 4.33 Application does not in any way consider the merits of the underlying action, only the long delay:
It's entirely possible that my weeks of shredding Patrick's legal arguments finally sunk into that greaseburger-addled brain of his, to the point where he scampered off to hire someone who actually understands how the law works.
IRONY EPIC FAIL: Savour, if you will, this early sentence in the July 18 letter from Patrick to my lawyer, wherein Patrick -- who has just now hired a lawyer -- yammers on about the value of letting grown-ups handle all of this:
You can't make this stuff up. You just can't.
ABOUT SECURITY FOR COSTS ... I asked Google about the proper circumstances in which I could demand security for costs from Patrick, and it came up with the following:
Oh, man, look at that last condition ... "or tries to hide money". I'm pretty sure Patrick's years of dodging and weaving and refusing to pay what he owes me qualifies. But I guess we'll see when the situation arises.
5 comments:
That last part is the funniest, Patrick being all condescending about grown-up guidance, then turning around and hiring a lawyer. I bet he doesn't even realize his own level of hypocrisy.
None of us are going to want to miss that court date via Webex. It will be better than the overpriced pay-per-view WWE fights Patrick pays for instead of paying you what he owes. For a long time, this guy has been told to play by the rules and take an L. Seems like karma and justice will finally be delivered.
"Yes, your honour, my client is suing Mr. Day for umm...four million dollars!?! Because Peter Skinner hurt his feelings on social media. Yup, that's it. God, I wish I didn't flunk the LSAT and could have gone to a better law school, so I wouldn't have to deal with bargain basement clients like this....sigh"
The fact that Patrick has enough money on hand to hire a lawyer should be used as part of your argument that he should have to put up security for costs.
About those conditions to demand security for costs, the first two conditions apply to Patrick as well, don't they?
"lives outside Alberta": According to Patrick's own lawsuit, he lives in Lloydminster, SK. That's "outside Alberta".
And "has no local assets": I don't think Patrick owns any local assets in Alberta. Certainly not a house or property. So he fails on that condition, too.
Seems like he fits ALL the criteria for demanding security for costs.
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