New Things. Old People. Dead People.

[captainsblog]

I see all of them.

Friday here was a recovery day after several in litigation hell, either getting ready for or attending at various state court things.  I had enough time to take an hour or so around lunchtime for a tour of the new Bankruptcy Court facilities, relocated in October to our fancypants new United States Courthouse:



I'd been in it occasionally for appearances in higher federal courts.  One oddity of it is its cornerstone: although opened in 2011 (and named in 2013 for Robert Jackson, the last WNY native to sit on the Supreme Court), look who gets the chiseled credit:



So the two courthouses where I spend most of my time now were opened, and are perpetually memorialized on the walls, by Dubya and Nixon.

But we were there for the new stuff for the court I'm mostly there for- two humongous, wired-up courtrooms with a rabbit warren behind them of court offices and the chambers of the two current judges who handle bankruptcy cases in Buffalo and around it.  The chief judge gave the tour, and told the most interesting of the tales.  One was about the portraits on the walls; all four retired Bankruptcy Judges from both here and Rochester have photo portraits above the jury box (we'll get back to that oddity later), but the heavy-duty "objay darts" are of District Court judges from the older days.   These two courtrooms were not intended for BK Court, but for higher judges whose appointments have been delayed in Mitch McChinless Hell for the past 10 years. So when they did move into those courtrooms, they were already decorated for District Court, with portraits of long-past federal judges.

One of the two in his courtroom was of federal District Judge John Knight, appointed by Herbert Hoover in 1931 and serving until his death in 1955.  Picture-taking in courthouses is a major no-no, and I can't find a duplicate of the portrait, or indeed any credible picture of him online, but the story connecting him to that courtroom and its current occupant is a pretty cool one.

Our current judge told us that grandmother was Judge Knight's cleaning lady, who dusted his chambers every day- and he said she was the only one of the cleaning staff who the judge allowed to do so.

We then wound our way back through the behind-the-scenes facilities. Most won't get much daily use with attorneys, since most conferences are done telephonically, but once in awhile we need to get an order signed on an expedited basis or something- so we were shown how to pass through the Get Smart-like doors to get to the jurists' respective Holy of Holies in the back. 

One thing that wasn't on display back there was a lot of room for library books; "the judiciary doesn't like paper," he said.  (There's a general-use law library upstairs that their staffs and even we can use, but it was designed to be converted to a courtroom if that need ever exceeds the need for books, which I both hope and don't hope I never live to see.) Meanwhile, while their book-shelving space is down to minimalist, each courtroom has full facilities for juries- to sit, 12 at a time, in the courtroom with fully-loaded monitors for all the tech shiz, and with separate deliberation rooms in the back.  Bankruptcy courts have been authorized to conduct jury trials by SCOTUS decision since 1989 and under specific statutory rules since 1994, but in the 20-plus years and three buildings they have occupied here for all that time, neither judge has ever had to conduct one.  But don't worry- we have the room for them.

Fortunately, though, the judicary's dislike of old things doesn't extend to the living.  When we got to the way back of the tour in the judge's actual office, he pointed out a large potted plant on the floor next to his desk. Judge Knight gave that plant to his grandmother when she retired sometime before his death in 1955. It then went to his mother, but finally, 80 years and a big new courthouse later, it has come home.

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I then eventually came home to the hot new couples' gift I'd gotten for us: compression socks.

Eleanor has sworn by them for quite some time now, so when she asked to put an order in for some new ones, I asked her to find me a pair to try out, as well.  Today's my second giving them a full break-in, through a dog-park walk and a "Climb Everest" treadmill workout at the gym.  For me, at least, I can't say they relieve foot pain, but they do make me more aware of what those tootsies are feeling, in general: the sole of my foot hitting the inside of the shoe, for one.  We'll see if they help with how cranky they seem to get, especially when I'm first up and around in the mornings.

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Finally, word came over the weekend of the passing of a president. Probably the most predictable, certainly not the most preferred.  He always struck me as a decent man at heart, although he's picking up increasing amounts of criticism as the body cools over everything from Willie Horton to Iran-Contra.  Wingnuts on the other side are no happier about his anti-Cheeto stance in his final years.  So I guess if both sides of the spectrum unite in hating you, you must've done something right.

One odd result of it is I may get a day off out of the deal. The last prez to assume room temperature was Saint Ronaldus McDonaldus Maximus, back in 2004, and I'm pretty sure they closed down all federal facilities for his National Day of Mourning. Poppy's shiva has been scheduled for this coming Wednesday, when I have a contested motion in that very Fancypants courthouse. It's a dispute over when, where and how payments were made to a bank- which screwed up my client by not sending statements for months, and only resumed sending them after it was supposedly too late for her to catch up on her payments. Whether she can now make those payments  is what the judge is scheduled to decide on Wednesday- and if it's closed for the day, we'll get two extra weeks before his next court date which I can attend.

I just hope I'm not mistaken for a potted plant.