Why are there quirky ASCII dividers in deposition transcripts? I was reviewing a deposition and noticed the following characters used as cute little dividers in the transcript: ---oOo--- To see an example in action, look here, both on the directly linked page and throughout the document. This looks very nice, but I wouldn't have expected to see this in an official legal document. It appears several other times throughout that deposition transcript, as well. However, I have reviewed several other depositions from the same case and haven't seen any such dividers. But when I Googled it, I found some other depositions with the same set of characters used as decoration from other cases. Is this a well-known convention? Does anyone know the history of it, or the reasoning behind it? Can a court reporter make the executive decision to include these types of decorations?
It's a typographic divider line dating back to the days of typewriting; there's a passing reference to the practice on the Typography for Lawyers website. Standards for formatting documents -- especially those being uploaded as text into online repositories -- are generally set by the local jurisdiction; some courts may specify exactly how and where to use this sort of spacer; others may not allow it at all. For example, this E-File Manual for the Ventura (Calif.) Superior Court specifies "There is NO blank line between the ' ---000--- ' and the caption," whereas the Typography for Lawyers sample document from the Supreme Court of Utah uses "----ooOoo----".
The Louisiana Civil Code of 1870 (it was revised between 1868-1869, but enacted in 1870) applied specifically to civil cases (i.e. disputes between private parties); it's organized by topic area, and is there to keep people from having to comb through every law ever passed that has to do with civil cases. The Revised Statutes of 1870 gathered all the laws of "general character" into one place, for the same reason. The difference between the two was almost certainly an error. In general, there is one official version of the law; other versions are a convenience. The official version normally defaults to the individual laws passed by the legislature (which are organized by date, not by anything useful for finding relevant laws), but that can be changed by statute. In this case, the Revised Statutes contains section 3990, which says in so far as there may be any conflict between the provisions of this act and any provision of the said Revised Civil Code and Code of Practice, that said Code shall be held and taken as the law governing So, the Civil Code took precedence. Your revisions of 1876 and 1882 were not successor laws; rather, they were compilations of the Revised Statutes and Civil Code of 1870 with the amendments to those that had since been passed. The Revised Statutes from 1876 were really the Revised Statutes of 1870, modified by later laws (that didn't touch the divorce provisions). Likewise, the Civil Code from 1882 was really the Revised Civil Code of 1870, modified by later laws. The Civil Code of 1870 still took precedence over the Revised Statutes of 1870, so the divorce provisions of the Civil Code were authoritative.
The judge's instructions state: You have been allowed to take notes during the trial. You may take those notes with you to the jury room. You should not consider these notes binding or conclusive, whether they are your notes or those of another juror. The notes should be used as an aid to your memory and not as a substitute for it. It is your recollection of the evidence that should control. You should disregard anything contrary to your recollection that may appear from your own notes or those of another juror. You should not give greater weight to a particular piece of evidence solely because it is referred to in a note taken by a juror. There is a pattern instruction in Washington that addresses requests to rehear testimony: In making this decision, I want to emphasize that I am making no comment on the value or weight to be given to any particular testimony in this case. The testimony you requested will be [read to you] [replayed for you] here in the courtroom. You will hear it only one time. After you have heard the testimony, you will return to the jury room and resume your deliberations. When you do, remember that your deliberations must take into account all the evidence in the case, not just the testimony that you have asked to rehear. The notes on use state "Although judges have discretion in responding to these requests, the case law disfavors repeating trial testimony for deliberating jurors", followed by the state of the relevant case law. The central point in that discussion is: The concern addressed in the case law is that rereading requested selections from a trial transcript can lead jurors to give undue emphasis to the selected testimony. and an additional concern is that reading the trial transcript selections to the jurors could constitute an unconstitutional comment on the evidence. and finally jurors often request the testimony of a single witness rather than requesting balanced testimony from multiple witnesses that more accurately reflects the positions taken by both parties. If the judge grants such a limited request, then one party's version of the case might be unduly emphasized, yet if the judge expands on the request by repeating the requested testimony along with other relevant testimony, then the judge runs the risk of improperly commenting on the evidence. Minnesota criminal procedure rule 26 Subd. 20(2) addresses the matter of rehearing evidence, saying that the court can allow a hearing of specific evidence: (a) If the jury requests review of specific evidence during deliberations, the court may permit review of that evidence after notice to the parties and an opportunity to be heard. (b) Any jury review of depositions, or audio or video material, must occur in open court. The court must instruct the jury to suspend deliberations during the review. (c) The prosecutor, defense counsel, and the defendant must be present for the proceedings described in paragraphs (a) and (b), but the defendant may personally waive the right to be present. (d) The court need not submit evidence beyond what the jury requested but may submit additional evidence on the same issue to avoid giving undue prominence to the requested evidence. This rule where judges have discretion is a change from an earlier rule where judges had an obligation to allow rehearing. When there is no obligation to allow rehearing, the "safer" path is to not allow rehearing. In State v. McDaniels, 332 N.W.2d 172, the appeals court notes that The judge reasoned that to read the requested portions of the two police officers' testimony would give undue prominence to that portion of the evidence. The prosecutor argued that three or four other witnesses had testified regarding Fifth and Royalston. The testimony was widely scattered throughout the transcript between direct and cross-examination. To locate all references would be burdensome and impractical thus reflecting the reasoning underlying the Washington instruction. In State v. Rean, 421 N.W.2d 303, 306 (Minn. 1988), the court turned down a request to rehear testimony, saying "You will have to rely on your memory of the testimony". The Supreme Court concludes that "To avoid giving undue prominence to the testimony requested, and in light of the difficulty of providing all relevant testimony, the jury's request was rejected". It then observes that "Simply because the jury apparently felt that it was at an impasse did not mean that the trial court was obligated to grant the jury's requests". The court rejected "the wooden approach of always granting a request, even an unreasonable one, if the jury says it is at an impasse" We do not know what objections the prosecution and defense raised regarding the request to rehear, but if one side would likely benefit from a rehearing, the other side is entitled to a "balancing" rehearing (the rules allow the jury to be directed to consider testimony that they did not request a rehearing of); and tit might have been onerous to assemble that evidence.
While there are certainly statutory and procedural vehicles for sanctions, they are almost never requested or allowed when moved for, and are almost never imposed by judges. Something very severe needs to occur and not just your typical discovery violation ("speaking objections" during depositions, being late with responses, failure to cite to affidavits, affidavits citing conjecture rather than fact, et). It would have to be something quite serious....like misleading the court or directly failing to comply with a direct order or ruling on a motion. It is exceedingly rare. It is most seen in Federal Court.
The language that you're referring to, where it states that if they do not provide responses to legitimately served discovery requests in a timely manner, that they would be responsible for attorney fees, this does not refer to your attorneys fees that you incurred in defending the suit. It refers to attorneys fees that would (actually could) arise out of a hearing on a motion to compel, in the event they never answered. If that occurred, the law allows you to ask the court to award you reasonable attorney's fees as well as sanctions, but only those having to do with getting the court to make them answer. Importantly, despite the rule that states this is a potential repercussion for continually failing to answer, they rarely get awarded. This usually only occurs when the court has already warned them, after you (i.e., your attorney) has willingly given them extensions, the court has given them further extensions, and they still failed to produce/respond. Typically an attorney will allow the other side substantial extensions of time, and this is something you may not even know about. When you say they completely ignored the deadline, I'm assuming you mean the deadline on the discovery notice that gets served with the papers. Interrogatories and Requests for production of documents rarely get done anywhere near the deadline in the rules, which is a mere 3 weeks. Many times, it takes much more than this to track down everything that was requested. This is why extensions happen all the time and unless you're asking, this isn't something your lawyer will even discuss with you. When you say they "didn't offer a remotely reasonable settlement until after the deadline and didn't finally dismiss the case until months after the deadline," I'm assuming you mean they didn't make a reasonable demand (it sounds like you were the defendant). This is actually very common, and in fact, it is very early on to make (or reduce the original) demand low enough that the Defendant will accept it prior to the discovery deadline and all the depositions have passed. (When I say deadline, I don't mean the one you're talking about, I mean the actual discovery deadline, which is set forth in the scheduling order; this can easily be 9 months from the time an Answer to the Complaint is filed.) If you're referring to the token deadline put in the first set of interrogatories served, this not a "real" deadline anyone of the attorneys expects to be adhered to. Further, this a very quick settlement and you should be happy your attorney disposed of your case so quickly. As you pointed out, you are paying a lot of money every day the case lives on. In fact, the money you saved by settling early is substantial. If your attorney had gotten the documents and responses and had to wade through all of them, organize them, send follow up requests, take depositions, etc., you would be out easily another $10,000. Your lawyer did you a favor, because a less honest attorney would tell you to wait, to see if there is a defense, just so they could pad their bill. Many times when it is clear that the case is going to settle, the lawyers will serve pro forma discovery, and will say to each other not to bother answering while they attempt to settle. They are timely served if you cannot settle, but it's clear that settlement is the ultimate goal. This is very typical when the defendant almost certainly has exposure, but when the plaintiff's case also has some holes. Because of issues on both sides, they agree a modest settlement to dispose of the matter, quickly, is the best course. When you say the settlement explicitly involved each party paying their own attorney's fees, all settlements contain this clause. I have never seen a settlement agreement where a party agreed to pay the other's attorneys fees. It's just not done. In the rare case it is, it's part of the structure of the settlement and it flows to the Plaintiff, not the Defendant. This may occur in a civil rights case where there are no real damages, but the statute allows for attorneys fees to be awarded if even one-dollar is awarded. So, in a case like this, sometimes the plaintiff will accept their attorney's fees being satisfied as the settlement, (usually along with some sort of consent decree), so as to curtail the abhorrent behavior. If you want to discuss these issues with your attorney, they are not billable: they are administrative pertaining to your bill; hence, you can do so without fear of being charged. If you're nervous, tell him ahead of time you'd like to discuss your bill. He won't try to bill you for this, as he can't, and furthermore your case is settled so your file is closed. To answer your question explicitly: No - your fees are not recoverable. This is not only because you've already settled, but you were never entitled to them anyway. To answer your question about the point of sending discovery at all if you are not going to expect answers and the goal is to settle, (1) is to preserve the right during the discovery period, in the event settlement negotiations break down; (2) to give the other side a picture of how sharp your attorney is, and that he/she will be asking the right questions and they will be invasive; and (3) this is just how it is done. What you've described is how almost all low level cases proceed. Lastly, just to address what you said about it taking a few months from reaching a verbal or "handshake" agreement and having the settlement actually be recorded by the judge and a dismissal issuing, this is just something that takes a little while. Depending on the type of case it is, the court may need to approve the settlement. Even when it's not necessary for the court to approve the settlement, it takes a while to go back and forth on the language, draft the stipulations of dismissal and so on. A few months is right on target. It sounds to me like you had a pretty effective and honest lawyer who could've dragged this out for much longer. Advice for the future, in case you ever find yourself needing the services of an attorney again: If you have these types of questions, you should ask them as they come up. Again, it's not something that you can be billed for, and your lawyer should be happy to answer. Some lawyers are better than others in remembering to explain what the technical stuff means, and what the game plan is. However, the client has a responsibility too, which is to ask if you don't understand.
Probably not until and unless the process server gets the correct address and actually serves you. Then the documents should explain the matter fully. If the person who was attempted to be served took note of the court involved, and told you what court it was, you could call the Clerk of the Court and inquire. Otherwise you would need to ask every possible court, which would take a great deal of time and effort. You have not been lawfully served (at least not in most US jurisdictions) until you have been served in person, or perhaps by mail, or by publication in a newspaper, or in some other way considered lawful in your jurisdiction, but serving a person at your old address is not likely to be valid service. (Valid methods differ from one jurisdiction to another, and in some situations differ by the kind of case involved.) If the person at your old address gave the server your new address, s/he will probably be along shortly. If a process server is given an address by the client (plaintiff), s/he may well go there first, and only do research later in case the first address is wrong. One need not worry about it until the papers are served, but it might be wise to read the legal ads in any nearby large newspapers for a few weeks, in case of service by publication. The papers should give the name of a court, and perhaps the name of a judge. You can call the clerk of the court and find out if the papers are legit. There may well be a docket no or case no or some other identifying umber, as well. This will help in verification. Docketed cases may be listed on a court web site. A comment asks is service by publication is still possible. It can be. According to the Michigan Court Rules Rule 2.106 (D): (D) Publication of Order; Mailing. If the court orders notice by publication, the defendant shall be notified of the action by (1) publishing a copy of the order once each week for 3 consecutive weeks, or for such further time as the court may require, in a newspaper in the county where the defendant resides, if known, and if not, in the county where the action is pending; and (2) sending a copy of the order to the defendant at his or her last known address by registered mail, return receipt requested, before the date of the last publication. If the plaintiff does not know the present or last known address of the defendant, and cannot ascertain it after diligent inquiry, mailing a copy of the order is not required. In addition, subrule (E) provides that: If the court orders notice by posting, the defendant shall be notified of the action by (1) posting a copy of the order in the courthouse and 2 or more other public places as the court may direct for 3 continuous weeks or for such further time as the court may require; and (2) sending a copy of the order to the defendant at his or her last known address by registered mail, return receipt requested, before the last week of posting. If the plaintiff does not know the present or last known address of the defendant, and cannot ascertain it after diligent inquiry, mailing a copy of the order is not required. The moving party is responsible for arranging for the mailing and proof of mailing. Thus if the plaintiff does not know and cannot determine the defendant's address, or has an incorrect address but thinks that it is correct, a service by publication (or even by posting) may be lawful, if the Judge so orders, without the defendant getting an individual copy of the documents by mail. This requires some unlikely events, but is possible.
In closing arguments, an attorney should only refer to evidence that was admitted at trial. In opening arguments, an attorney may refer to evidence that the attorney reasonably believes will be admitted at trial, and if the attorney has grounds to admit the transcript as an exhibit, could do so. If not, the attorney could still reasonable state: the evidence will show that an arresting officer described Mr. Jones as &quot;crazy&quot; without showing a transcript or explaining where it comes from (on the theory that the officer will either testify to that effect at trial or will be impeached at trial with the transcript for testifying in a contrary manner). Usually the transcript can usually be admitted only for impeachment, so usually it wouldn't be admissible absent contrary testimony at trial. But there are exceptions that apply to that rule which could make it admissible and hence proper to reference or show in opening arguments.
"as is" is likely in quotation marks because it reflects its usage in the Uniform Commercial Code. Although in the UCC it is reasonably clear that the quotation marks serve to delineate the example from the text, legal drafting is generally precise and by using the same form it unambiguously refers to its usage therein. Another reason is that in this circumstance, it doesn't necessarily take on its ordinary meaning, but rather the meaning stipulated, and with the effect stipulated, in the UCC. Finally, the UCC stipulates that the exclusion of warranty must be conspicuous. Adding quotation marks may help to show that it was set apart from the rest of the text.