Thursday, February 16, 2006

Shut out in court

The judge just ruled against me in court today.

I had filed a motion to reconsider some of Commissioner Irwin Joseph's earlier rulings, because they seem directly contrary to law and precedent. He had invited me to file a motion to reconsider if I thought that he was wrong, and that is what I did.

I asked for a statement of the decision so that I could appeal to a higher court.

One of my complaints was that he deviated from support guidelines under some theory that had no justification in the law. Today, he denied it. He said that he cited In re Marriage of Cheriton (Sept 2001) 92 Cal.App.4th 269, 111 CalRptr2d 755, to justify imputing income from investments.

This is partially true. At the last hearing, I challenged Judge Joseph to give some justification for what he was doing. He mumbled something about he thought that there was a case with a name something like "Sheraton". I couldn't find the case, and he didn't put it in written decision. Maybe it is my fault for looking under "S" instead of "C". I did find some other cases, but they didn't support Judge Joseph's decision.

Now that I have found "Marriage of Cheriton", I can see that it doesn't say what Judge Joseph implied at all.

We still have to go back to court next Wednesday so my ex-wife can report on her new job. She also asked for a court date so she can ask for more attorney fees for her ex-attorney, Jennifer Gray. Miss Gray was there in the courtroom, but not representing my ex-wife.

After Judge Joseph summarily rejected my motion, I asked if I could speak. I wanted to point out a couple of factual errors that he made. He said that unless I was going to thank him for reading the papers and giving a decision, he didn't want to hear it!

No, I didn't thank him for that, because I am not sure he read my papers. He didn't address any of my arguments, except to give the reference to the Cheriton case. It is not even clear when he expects me to pay the extra money, and how much.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good grief. Maybe I should move to New Zealand. I don't think the judiciary could get any worse!

One thing for sure. I'm never getting married again.

Hang in there. What a world!