YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP
I once had a case where my client sold a restaurant to a third party and was to be paid his fee out over a year.
About three years later he retains me to sue on the note.
I asked him why he waited so long.
It turns out he was in Yemen.
This was a few years ago, before the NSA would have put me on their list.
I explained all the pros and cons of the case and the client said, “Get him in court, and I will speak to him and this will settle.”
I managed to get a restraining order, thus stopping the restaurant owner from selling the restaurant.
The first day in court, I pointed to the restaurant owner and said to my client “there he is, go talk.”
No, it seems, for my client to approach the Defendant would have been a sign of weakness: there will be no talking.
The case gets adjourned because opposing counsel wants to file opposition papers.
During the adjournment, the presiding Judge has to step down because of various improprieties.
The Court, not quite knowing what to do, adjourns the case several times. Each time, my restraining order stopping the Defendant from selling the restaurant, remains in effect.
My client, who waited years to sue on his note, is incensed at me because I am somehow responsible for these adjournments, meted out by the court in the form of signs being posted on the door, advising all litigants to come back on the new return date. (In the aggregate, the case was probably adjourned a total of ten weeks.)
I remind the client that I have successfully stopped the Defendant from selling the restaurant and each time the case gets adjourned the Defendant has to carry the expense of owning a restaurant he clearly wants to sell. No, it seems, this is not good because, according to my client, this case must settle and we can’t settle if the case gets adjourned.
At this point, I mention that the portion of the retainer that he never paid was still, well, never paid: could he pay me?
Of course he could—about a month later he wrote me a check on an account that had been closed for years.
Soon thereafter, I was relieved as counsel.
