Perfect day in court....
Jan. 15th, 2013 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogAll I lacked was a judge, an opponent, and a client.
I filed a Chapter 11 for a small business back in 1997. Fairly routine, finished up two years later. Not quite four years later, the co-owner of the company called me. She'd always been part time in the business, working days at a fairly large local company for her primary work. The company rang in 2003 by shutting its doors and filing a Chapter 7 which put them all out of work- most, only temporarily, since other companies quickly filled the voids left by its departure from the scene. All she needed done was the filing of a claim for some back pay.
And there it remained for almost a decade. Once in a blue, I'd get notice of something connected to the case, but nothing connected to her claim or its overall resolution. Finally, in October, came a notice that I had to respond to: client's claim was being objected to for "insufficient documentation."
Usually, there are brought by the trustee assigned to distribute the money in the case, but this one was different. There were piles of objections being brought by various former owners of the business against their creditors, including the one I filed the thing for. It made sense, in a Cynical Lawyer sort of way. Bankruptcy operates a pecking order, where certain classes of claims get all of the available pie before anyone down-dessert from them gets any of it. So by objecting to a claim for wages, which gets priority over other creditors and BIG priority over the "equity" of former owners, they shrink the levels above them and stand a chance of getting some of the pickings left over now, more than a decade later.
I wrote the client to advise of this- mail got returned with no forwarding address. Phone number didn't work, either. Still, I soldiered through a few hearings, where all I did was get it put off a few times, most recently until today. No return call from the objectors' lawyer about explaining or maybe settling their position, so I headed down there this morning to the sight of an empty courtroom.
Everybody agreed to push it back two more weeks, the law clerk said. Everybody but me, that is. Apparently, lacking a client to talk to, I also lack any right to receive courtesy. So I spent my parking-meter time reviewing the thick and ugly paper file devoted to this pigmess. Yes, it predates the court's switchover to electronic filing, which kicked in sometime a few years later. Through those scanned documents, and a review of the docket (at least THAT got converted to a searchable online format), I discovered some things. One, there was a totally separate claim for SOME of the client's pay, that somebody else actually arranged through a successor company to pay. Two, the company's trustee actually sued my client in 2005, over an alleged overpayment made right before the case got filed. I'd never gotten notice of that event, despite the claim filing, but I at least got a lead identifying a different local lawyer who represented her (and some other former employees) in those proceedings.
HER last best address for the client went back to 2005.
Splitting the difference? I remembered that her company, the one I did represent ages ago, had an accountant. The business was still active with the state agency in charge of such things. Maybe HE had something. He did- a 2004 address which matched one for the company I'd googled (and never heard anything back from when I called the number at it). And, he told me, my former clients had split up in the intervening years, so he might have no reason to want to help me even if he did know where she now lives.
----
I've now got two weeks to figure the rest of this out. I will keep puzzling and may yet get to the bottom of it. At least, if I can succeed in contacting her and proving that she's owed money, she will get a nice return on her investment- and I, recompense for all this effort. Otherwise, both she and I will be S.O.L.
I filed a Chapter 11 for a small business back in 1997. Fairly routine, finished up two years later. Not quite four years later, the co-owner of the company called me. She'd always been part time in the business, working days at a fairly large local company for her primary work. The company rang in 2003 by shutting its doors and filing a Chapter 7 which put them all out of work- most, only temporarily, since other companies quickly filled the voids left by its departure from the scene. All she needed done was the filing of a claim for some back pay.
And there it remained for almost a decade. Once in a blue, I'd get notice of something connected to the case, but nothing connected to her claim or its overall resolution. Finally, in October, came a notice that I had to respond to: client's claim was being objected to for "insufficient documentation."
Usually, there are brought by the trustee assigned to distribute the money in the case, but this one was different. There were piles of objections being brought by various former owners of the business against their creditors, including the one I filed the thing for. It made sense, in a Cynical Lawyer sort of way. Bankruptcy operates a pecking order, where certain classes of claims get all of the available pie before anyone down-dessert from them gets any of it. So by objecting to a claim for wages, which gets priority over other creditors and BIG priority over the "equity" of former owners, they shrink the levels above them and stand a chance of getting some of the pickings left over now, more than a decade later.
I wrote the client to advise of this- mail got returned with no forwarding address. Phone number didn't work, either. Still, I soldiered through a few hearings, where all I did was get it put off a few times, most recently until today. No return call from the objectors' lawyer about explaining or maybe settling their position, so I headed down there this morning to the sight of an empty courtroom.
Everybody agreed to push it back two more weeks, the law clerk said. Everybody but me, that is. Apparently, lacking a client to talk to, I also lack any right to receive courtesy. So I spent my parking-meter time reviewing the thick and ugly paper file devoted to this pigmess. Yes, it predates the court's switchover to electronic filing, which kicked in sometime a few years later. Through those scanned documents, and a review of the docket (at least THAT got converted to a searchable online format), I discovered some things. One, there was a totally separate claim for SOME of the client's pay, that somebody else actually arranged through a successor company to pay. Two, the company's trustee actually sued my client in 2005, over an alleged overpayment made right before the case got filed. I'd never gotten notice of that event, despite the claim filing, but I at least got a lead identifying a different local lawyer who represented her (and some other former employees) in those proceedings.
HER last best address for the client went back to 2005.
Splitting the difference? I remembered that her company, the one I did represent ages ago, had an accountant. The business was still active with the state agency in charge of such things. Maybe HE had something. He did- a 2004 address which matched one for the company I'd googled (and never heard anything back from when I called the number at it). And, he told me, my former clients had split up in the intervening years, so he might have no reason to want to help me even if he did know where she now lives.
----
I've now got two weeks to figure the rest of this out. I will keep puzzling and may yet get to the bottom of it. At least, if I can succeed in contacting her and proving that she's owed money, she will get a nice return on her investment- and I, recompense for all this effort. Otherwise, both she and I will be S.O.L.
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no subject
Date: 2013-01-17 12:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-17 03:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-19 07:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-20 02:36 pm (UTC)So I've gone from my last contact in '03 to clues from 4, 5, and now, '06. Seven more rounds and I'll be good to go.