| | |
|
MichaelDuignanFirstPaper 4 - 26 Feb 2010 - Main.MichaelDuignan
|
| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstPaper" |
|---|
It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. | | | Filing with the court | |
<
< | I used my lunch break to take the train downtown to Centre Street. Three hours and $15 later, it was settled. I would reappear at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 to plead my case before the Small Claims Part of the Civil Court for the City of New York (coincidentally not too far from where we met Robinson and his diagnosis of "civilization's pathology"). I remember thinking how convenient the timing was -- I wouldn't have to take much time off work and I'd show up to court already wearing a suit. Perfect. | >
> | I used my lunch break to take the train downtown to Centre Street. Three hours and $15 later, it was settled. I would reappear at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 to plead my case before the Small Claims Part of the Civil Court for the City of New York (coincidentally not too far from where we met Robinson and his diagnosis of "civilization's pathology"). I remember thinking how convenient the timing was -- I wouldn't have to take much time off work and I'd show up to court already wearing a suit. Perfect. | | | Preparing for a showdown | | | Every case has a turning point | |
>
> | On the day of my case, I showed up to court, but, alas, my opponent did not. Sat before a court-appointed magistrate, I was given about a minute to air my grievance before the court cut me off to rule on account of defendant's absence. And, like that, I had a certified default judgment in my hands. As good as gold.
It turns out my case was decided long before I ever filed the claim. Whether I admitted it to anyone or not, I knew the odds of defendant actually appearing in court were slim to none. As I had come to befriend her, I knew the defendant had not grown up in an English-speaking part of the world, and had only recently emigrated to the U.S. On account of her lesser grasp of the English language (of which she was particularly self-conscious), I inferred she would be terrified to enter a courtroom. And I was right. | | | Use the court as a means to an end | |
>
> | Three weeks later, I walked into a midtown branch of defendant's bank around noon with an information subpoena. By four o'clock, I received a call from the bank stating the defendant had arrived to pay over the damages that would remove the hold the bank had placed on her account. I was astonished. What I couldn't do on my own in one year I was able to do in four hours thanks to the backing of the civil court. "Now that," I thought, "is power." | | | Did principle really determine the case? |
|
|
|
|
This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform.
All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.
|
|
| | |