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07 March 2006

At Least He's Not Your Lawyer . . .

When a judge says things like this about your lawyer's most recent efforts, this is a very bad sign:

Before the court is a motion entitled “Defendant’s Motion to Discharge Response to Plaintiff’s Response to Defendant’s Response Opposing Objection to Discharge.” As background, this adversary was commenced on December 14, 2005 with the filing of the plaintiff’s complaint objecting to the debtor’s discharge. Defendant answered the complaint on January 12, 2006. Plaintiff responded to the Defendant’s answer on January 26, 2006. On February 3, 2006, Defendant filed the above entitled motion. The court cannot determine the substance, if any, of the Defendant’s legal argument, nor can the court even ascertain the relief that the Defendant is requesting. The Defendant’s motion is accordingly denied for being incomprehensible. 1

1 Or, in the words of the competition judge to Adam Sandler’s title character in the movie, “Billy Madison,” after Billy Madison had responded to a question with an answer that sounded superficially reasonable but lacked any substance,

Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I've ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response was there anything that could even be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Deciphering motions like the one presented here wastes valuable chamber staff time, and invites this sort of footnote.


The full text of the offending motion is here. In fairness, it was submitted by the debtor representing himself pro se, and not a member of the bar, and given that circumstance, the judge is being more than a bit harsh.

Hat Tip to Professor Bainbridge, linked above.

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