Thursday, October 30, 2014

Some thoughts on Toyota's "ambush" ex parte application

An ambush.

Somewhere in the filings opposing Toyota's ex-parte application to compel Barr, the word "ambush" appeared to describe what Toyota had done.

Toyota did the same thing to me as they did to Michael Barr, basically. First there were vast demands for documents, then they ran to court to apply for an OSC when they did not get exactly what they wanted.

I have a very queasy feeling of being abused by arrogant people who, for the sake of their client's defense, purportedly, do not recognize me as a human and as a citizen with equal rights under the law. Mr. Barr and I have rights. We have more rights than does this corporate "person," this fictitious entity named Toyota.

From all of their filings, these defense counsel seem to want to treat us as some bugs that their giant client is entitled to simply squash. I feel like they think that I exist only to be trampled on while they do whatever it takes to get what they want from the court, just the very thing so aptly described as "gamesmanship" by Mr. Bucknell with respect to demands on Mr. Barr and also all the involved lawyers.

Of course Toyota's defense counsel must know that all of their demands that go far beyond what the court ordered would cause many a late night of work for me and for all of us opponents, lawyers and all of us.
Very good and dedicated lawyers with vicious opposing counsel seem to recognize that their duties to their clients sometimes will involve working all night. This is new for me. I deeply respect that kind of dedication.

I do not know directly, but I guess that this latest ex parte probably caused at least several people to work all night. What could possibly have caused Toyota's lawyers to want to do that to their opposing counsel? I imagine this is the tip of a large iceberg and that this conduct has been going on for three or four years now.

The conduct of Joel Smith and Lisa Gilford, in particular, reminds me very sharply of the behavior of abusive people, those excessively selfish folk who might be labeled as having various mental health disorders--narcissism, sociopathy, paranoia, even megalomania--I don't necessarily think that these two individuals suffer from such mental disorders, but their conduct in Toyota's defense sure brings these disorders to mind. I am reminded also of once, many years ago, when someone assaulted me with a car. The police could not manage to put together a case with sufficient evidence of intent. And the driver walked free.

Like that, something very wrong is happening here, and so far these people seem to think that they can get away with it. I hope they will soon absorb the message that they must stop.