Audio original format: 13CVD398.Grodner.v.Grodner.Pitt.DC02.20181114_12-01-55_to_12-43-29.dcr
Audio mp3 format: 13CVD398.Grodner.v.Grodner.Pitt.DC02.20181114_12-01-55_to_12-43-29.mp3
Transcript: 13CVD398.Grodner.v.Grodner.Pitt.DC02.20181114_12-01-55_to_12-43-29_transcript.pdf
===============
IN THE NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL COURT OF JUSTICE
DISTRICT COURT DIVISION
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
HUNTER GRODNER (Now Hunter )
Summerlin), )
Plaintiff(s), ) PITT COUNTY
) 13 CVD 398 versus )
) ANDREJ GRODNER, (Now )
Andrew Grodner) )
Defendant(s). )
)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
TRANSCRIPT
November 14, 2018
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Transcript of proceedings in the Civil District Court of Pitt County, North Carolina, at the November 14, 2018 Session, before the Honorable G. Galen Braddy, Judge Presiding.
APPEARANCES:
Jeffrey L. Miller, Attorney at Law Greenville, North Carolina on behalf of the Plaintiffs
Andrew Grodner, pro se
Greenville, North Carolina
Dillon Tyndall
Ruffin Consulting, Inc.
1815 Forest Hills Road W.
Wilson, NC 27893
TABLE OF CONTENTS
OPENING STATEMENT BY MR. GRODNER 3
OPENING STATEMENT BY MR. MILLER 7
MR. GRODNER ADDRESSES THE COURT 16
MR. MILLER ADDRESSES THE COURT 20
RULING BY THE COURT 21
DISCUSSION 25
COURT ADJOURNS ......................................... 29
12:01:55 P.M. – NOVEMBER 14, 2018
HEARING BEGINS IN THE GRODNER CASE WITH
THE HONORABLE G. GALEN BRADDY, JUDGE PRESIDING
CLERK: CONNIE BLAND
THE COURT: All right. You can come on up,
Mr. Grodner. This is, Madam Clerk, for the record, Grodner v. Grodner, 13 CVD 398. This is on for Mr. Grodner's motion to remove opposing counsel and motion for summary judgment. Each side has been allowed 15 minutes. Do you have any opening statement, Mr. Grodner?
MR. GRODNER: Yes.
THE COURT: All right. If you'd like it make your opening statement, you just have to stand for that.
OPENING STATEMENT BY MR. GRODNER:
MR. GRODNER: Sure. I've prepared it. So, I'll
just read it. So, in my opinion, the only issue today is whether this Court has any doubts regarding Mr. Miller knowingly and willfully providing false statements so much of fact to me, the defendant, since this is what the motion is, and the summary judgment is as well (inaudible) two. One is the defendant, which is me, requirement of me communicating with him via email only, which is provided in the December 13, 2016 Order. There's no exceptions. I'm required to do so and the second thing, according to Mr. Miller, asserted that he can actually direct me how to communicate with him
opposite to the -- what the Order says.
So, it's -- this Court has no doubts that there's
no controversy about this material fact that Mr. Miller provided those two false statements and the Court decides that it is sufficient to rule on the defendant's motion. Then I'd like to say that I'm entitled to my relief, which is to remove Mr. Miller from the case and in my opinion, there are only two other options, which is if this Court has any doubts there's no controversy in these material facts, but they are not sufficient then or maybe there's some doubts about these material facts, and then I respectfully request the granting me the motion for -- to compel Discovery. I tried to depose Mr. Miller. He opposed and, in my opinion, he basically sort of waived any right for questioning the facts that I presented.
In fact, he did not respond to the motion that was
filed on the 12th of October. He did not respond to the motion that was filed on the 2nd of November. He was properly served, and I think the first one is actually outside of -- he has really 30 days to respond; he did not. And I just want to say that given the seriousness of the accusations, I'm basic accusing Mr. Miller of providing false statements to me.
And as I laid out in the motion, this would be in
violation of one of the rules of professional conduct Rule
4.1 truthfulness in his statements to others. This one is absolutely critical because I am in completely stuck. I just need to communicate with Mr. Miller. His client is violating a court order and he's refusing to respond to do any sort of communication via email, which I'm supposed to do and given that I accuse Mr. Miller of that, I think that it's in Mr. Miller's benefit and our interest to have discovery and have his name cleared. So, basically, that's what I would say.
I submitted a proposed order for summary judgment
and if there's no opposition, I think that this Court definitely is in position to grant me this and we can just move on and leave it at that so that's how I should respond.
THE COURT: Thank you. Do you have any
evidence, sir, do you want to testify about -- that was your opening statement? Do you want to just make legal argument, or do you want to put on any evidence to support your motions?
MR. GRODNER: Your Honor, there's no need. I
submitted the verified motion -- this was the November 2nd verified motion for summary judgment. It means that every single statement that I've made in this motion I made under oath. It is verified. There is, you know, I signed it under, you know. with the notary public. So, it serves as sort of affidavit of my statements. I also attached -- so everything that I laid out in the -- in the motion, which is the facts, the most important is that Mr. Miller sent me a text saying, you know, please do not communicate with me via email and I'm giving her emails to police and to the best of my knowledge, he did not. He threatened me multiple times in the past. I went to police and there was no evidence of that. In fact, when I talked to the police, they said that given the situation file, Your Honor will have to decide really what to do. How am I supposed to communicate with Mr. Miller because that's the big problem?
So, when it comes to any testimony evidence, I
don't think there's a need. And from my point of view at least right now, if I understand it, Mr. Miller has not questioned anything that I have said, any fact that I laid out, anything that I have submitted really under oath. So, to the best of my understanding, there is no need for any -- any more evidence than what it is here. And my understanding on the summary judgment is just whether there is any controversy about facts and I filed the summary judgment because I wanted to give Mr. Miller opportunity to question assertions that I've made in motion to remove opposing counsel, and he objected to it. He has the right to do so and he wrote that there's really nothing to discuss which means that the facts that I wanted to question him about he does not see any need to question them.
So, I don't see a need for I mean, I think that
Your Honor is fully in position to rule just on the motion for summary judgment because all the facts are laid out. They're not in any way, to the best of my knowledge opposed, responded, questioned by Mr. Miller. So, it's just a decision of Your Honor whether the conduct of Mr. Miller is sufficient to remove him from the case. And if it's not, then obviously, you know, that's -- but then the Judge obviously will really deny my motion. However, I think that the first question that we need to decide is whether that the facts that I laid out, is there any -- if there's any controversy and we go from there.
THE COURT: All right, any evidence, Mr. Miller?
MR. MILLER: (Inaudible)
THE COURT: Is that your argument? Is that the
conclusion of your argument, Mr. Grodner?
MR. GRODNER: Say it again?
THE COURT: All right.
MR. GRODNER: I'm so sorry, I didn't hear it. If Mr. Miller could repeat again what he said.
THE COURT: He said -- he said he was just
making sure you'd finished your legal argument, then he was going to make his.
MR. GRODNER: Yes, Your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Miller?
OPENING STATEMENT BY MR. MILLER:
MR. MILLER: Judge, as I noted, obviously, you
have to give Dr. Grodner the benefit of not fully understanding the principles of law. And I tried to do that, but his motion seeks to remove me as Hunter Summerlin's attorney and the allegations are that apparently he contends there's been some violation of the State Bar methods or Professional Code of Rules in that some statement made to him, he wants to call it a false or untrue statement under a particular rule that really has no application in this context.
So, I want to bring us back to the correct context
of the case. Dr. Grodner has told the Court that I told him to stop sending me these emails and that is a true statement and I told him that if he didn't stop doing that, I was going to deliver his emails to law enforcement and let them take care of it. And I gave him that notice several times and I did that under the Order that was entered by this Court. He wants to read things as he chooses them to read and have them mean what he believes they mean despite the fact that they don't.
The order that was entered, Judge, as you recall in December, that he recites frequently, contain -- had a context and that was Teresa Bryan withdrawing from the case because the relationship between her and Mr. Grodner had deteriorated to the point where she barred him from coming to her office. Now, these were findings of fact in the Court's order. She wasn't comfortable being in the same room with him any longer. He is not permitted to call or email her office because his calls and emails can be abusive in terms of number and content. She is unable to schedule other client appointments immediately after communication with Mr. Grodner because inevitably those communications are disturbing to her. And the only way that she and Mr. Grodner can communicate is by mail.
The Court also found that these difficulties that
Ms. Bryan encountered with him, and for instance, February 2015, and even at the hearing, the Court expressed that it was concerned with his comments because he seemed oblivious to any problem existing between, he and his attorney. And (inaudible) 21 by the Court, indicates that apparently, he was seeking to have her engage in acts or conduct that she believed were unethical and that she refused to engage in.
When we were in court for that, I didn't oppose the
withdraw, but I do not want this man coming to my office. I didn't want him coming up to me at any point in time and try to communicate with me directly and in any communications that he was going to have with me would be in open court, or and I did say, by email only. And the Court, with the context of his abusive and harassing emails and behavior, made an additional order that said he's not to call or go by my office and all email communication should be concisely related to the case. It shall not be abusive in content or in quantity.
When we dealt with one another by emails and
resolved some matters through emails and all of that went just fine. Mr. Grodner, however, has engaged in a continuous pattern of accusing me of unethical conduct, of criminal conduct, of making defamatory statements about me to my client and to other people and to this Court repeatedly, including trial court administrators. I get a copy of an email from him almost daily. He sends me copies of his text messages almost daily and all of them purport to tell me what I'm supposed to do, what my responsibilities are, that I'm unethical and a variety of other claims and contentions by him. And frankly, Judge, I had enough of it.
Now, he says that he can only communicate with me
by email and that's not what your Order says. It says his direct communications with me are to be by email and those are not matters that are related to court or service of papers in court. The Rules of Civil Procedure govern that, and I told him that in an email. The Rules of Civil Procedure require you to serve things in a certain way and email is not yet one of those ways. He wants to continue his email diatribes and comments and accusations and statements and frankly, it became abusive and harassing and it was too many. Judge, just since October, I received essentially one to two emails a day and at least one or two a week with his statements about what his contentions are about me being unethical, and my responsibilities to my client.
That's the context and the framework of me telling
him if you want to communicate with me, do it by regular mail, just like Ms. Bryan ultimately had to do with him.
There's no inability of him to communicate with me and your Order did not say that he was to communicate and serve papers or do things by email only. It was to have direct communications with me, settlement negotiations and things of that nature -- contact that was cordial or not harassing, not abusive, not voluminous.
And so, he wants to read it like you ordered him
that's the only way that he can do anything in this case, and I think you do need to make that clear to him. He also feels that he can circumvent my privacy and my private email and my private authority with regard to my particular email address and his communications with me and I tried to make it plain to him that he can't do that. And I would ask you to make that plain to him as well just as Ms. Bryan tried to make plain to him and as your Order made plain for all of us.
That's the context of my statements and I got the
emails that I sent him, Judge, if this Court wants to see those emails about what I told him. He seems to think because I didn't take the emails to law enforcement the very day that I told him I was going to do that, that I lied to him or that I made an untruthful statement and that's the basis for his motion to remove me. I told him that his timeframe and his time schedule was not mine. We've got to collect, sort the emails for purposes of law enforcement and that's not an easy process in dealing with Mr. Grodner's voluminous emails. I've made it clear to him what I intend to do, and I intend to do it. I'll state it again in open court: I intend to do it. I don't intend to continue being harassed and abused by this man in his communications.
His motion before the Court to remove me on that
basis, there's no material fact here that entitles him to have me removed. There's no conflict. There's no other definite fact that says, "Court you need to intercede in this and remove this lawyer from representing his client." He's got a personal gripe and grudge and position that he wants to take. Let him file his grievance with the Bar. Let him do whatever else is necessary. But he has no basis in fact or in law in a summary judgment or a motion to remove. He's got to have some fact that's material and some basis in law before this Court can act and he simply doesn't have that here if you look at what this purported grounds are and really his contentious, his gripe, his position statement. He can have an opinion, but he doesn't get to distort the facts the way he wants to distort them.
I'm not required to file anything with regard to
his motions in the matter. I'm simply required to comply with the law – period - and tell the Court why he's not entitled to the relief he seeks. He sent me an email about the deposition and a subpoena and as I understand it, he got a motion for summary judgment and or in the alternative to compel as well. I don't know how we receive with that part of the hearing. The subpoena that he sent me required me to go to Wilson for a deposition in violation of the Rules of Civil Procedure. It required me to produce attorney-client confidential communications. It required me to spend a substantial amount of time that he's obligated to compensate me for, but he made no provisions for that and I objected to it. We timely filed the objection. He seems to think that I've got to be deposed in order to tell him why he's wrong that his position, give him a legal position why he's wrong about his legal position. His deposition serves no purpose at all in the case at all. It's sought -- the subpoena sought things that he can't seek by subpoena and it was invalid on its face. We did him the courtesy of showing him why. Now he's not responded to any of that and Judge, I'm happy to discuss each item under Rule 45 and each item under the deposition statute 30(b)(1) why his notice of deposition and his subpoena were in error. And I'm entitled to have
that quashed to the extent that this Court's hearing that issue about his motion to compel.
I'm also entitled to attorney's fees in this matter
because he's filed a frivolous motion that has no basis. He's caused me and my client to incur expenses. He's served a subpoena and notice of deposition that clearly violates the Rule requiring me to take action in that matter.
And so, I would say Judge, number one, there is no
basis to have me removed as my client's attorney. If she's dissatisfied with me, she can certainly terminate our relationship. Dr. Grodner doesn't have that privilege or that authority and his motion doesn't give this Court that privilege or that authority. It states no basis.
Number two, to the extent this Court entertains the
motion for summary judgment, for some reason on that motion about my removal, there's no material fact involved in the motion that would entitle this Court to remove me, and number two, there is no basis in law that would authorize this Court to remove me. This Court certainly could if I violated something, this Court certainly could sanction me. You have authority over lawyers, just as the State Bar can. I urged Dr. Grodner to file a complaint, if he hasn't already done so, with the State Bar. Let's litigate it. Let's litigate the facts of the matter. Let's litigate Dr. Grodner's behavior and conduct. Let's look at the entire context of email transmissions and let's see where the dust settles in this case. To this point, that's not occurred. I'm prepared it's going to occur at some point.
In any event, Judge, I've got all these emails and
things that have been sent back and forth for a very limited period of time and it's substantial and it's too much and I ask this Court to direct him to cease his email communications with me, to send his communication by regular mail like his prior lawyer required, to serve his papers by regular mail, as he's required. He acknowledges because he sends me email and matters by mail the same things over -- regarding this case. That he focusses his communications about the case. I'm tired of his statements. I'm tired of his allegations and accusations, and I'm prepared to litigate those matters in the proper forum and the proper way. This isn't it.
Judge, I'd ask you to deny his motions. I'd asked
you to quash the subpoena. I'd ask you to allow me to present the Court with an attorney's fee affidavit for the time involved in these matters that he's caused by his motions as a frivolous pleading, the motion that he filed and under Rule 45, my entitlement to fees and expenses there. Rule 45 also has a provision that says I could get lost earnings as a result of this process. I'm not seeking that.
I can answer any questions the Court may have.
THE COURT: Mr. Grodner, you have time left if
you like to make any responsive statement in your motion.
MR. GRODNER ADDRESSES THE COURT:
MR. GRODNER: Yes, Your Honor. How much time do I
have?
THE COURT: You have eight minutes.
MR. GRODNER: Okay. Well, thank you very much. So, I would say that putting aside everything that Mr. Miller said, and we can safely assume that I'm the worst person in the world and let it be that I was the worst client ever that Ms. Bryan had and anybody else. Putting all of this aside, Mr. Miller has not questioned, you know, the fundamental facts I put in the motion. He -- there is a provision that says I'm supposed to communicate with Mr. Miller via email. There's no exception. There's no sort of -- Mr. Miller tries to make it look like there's some interpretation and to the best of my knowledge, Your Honor did not provide any of this. But on a -- on this level, I would say that what Mr. Miller just did has proven my point, that he has been dishonest in the past. He's dishonest now. He will be dishonest in the future, and it's impossible to really conclude, you know, move on with the case. That's another argument to remove him and just the fact that my first motion was filed on October
12th. This is more than 30 days. My other motion was filed
November 2nd. Mr. Miller has not filed any response whatsoever, only about maybe 10 minutes ago, we didn't even hear the word objection, but I assume he objects to it. For any rule that you can find, he cannot do this. So, if Your Honor is looking for argument to remove Mr. Miller, he just provided it today by objecting in this manner, which is completely against the rules. And requesting from Your Honor what he's requesting, he is trying to ask Your Honor to not follow the (inaudible).
So, he's dishonest right now with Your Honor by
saying that he can, you know, object. He's basically out of time and not only this, he did not present any evidence. Everything that Mr. Miller says is -- he can say that the sky is red. It's an argument. There is no fact. If Mr. Miller wants to testify, obviously, this is it. I don't think this is a proper venue because I have no idea what will happen. I have no idea. I had no word from Mr. Miller whatsoever. I was prepared. I have no other way to predict what will happen. So, I prepared my proposed ordered. And in general, what I would say right now is that if we need to proceed, we need to continue. I mean, I definitely, if Your Honor thinks that there is anything that we need to discuss, then I do ask for a continuous and to give Mr. Miller time to really respond, because he did not. What he did is just an argument. There's no fact that, you know, he did not present anything under oath that would be fact. His statements are just arguments and there's nothing to it.
So, so the bottom line is I have presented facts
and why we are here today is for Your Honor to decide whether these are true facts. So that the real thing that we need to determine when Mr. Miller asked me please do not communicate with me via email, which I did in the past, in the summer which he communicated. He helped arrange summer weeks for me which is obviously how it was supposed to work. Suddenly, he said, please do not communicate with me via email. The question is do I have the right to communicate with him it any other way, but email given provision in December 13 order? So, that's number one because if he told me that I can, then he obviously provided false statements. And then also can he have the right to request me communicating any other way? He can obviously claim that maybe I was abusive in communication. That is fine. But that's different than asking me to communicate in a different way because if he asked me to communicate in a different way, he could say, please call me, I would be in violation of the Order, and he could call the police and put me in jail. And it's pretty much equivalent. He wants me not to communicate via email. He wants me to send him letters which I do not have the right to do at this very moment according to the law of the case.
And the only thing that I really think we need to
decide is whether these facts the Court assumes they are
true. If not, then we have to continue, and we have to give Mr. Miller an opportunity to respond or like I said, compel him, you know, deposition to explain himself under oath, because this is no evidence or yeah, or provide more facts.
So, and I want to add one more thing to conclude.
We had a big hearing. It was in December 2000 and I believe '16 and it was on the 14th of December 2016. If, Your Honor, remembers, there was an exchange between me and Mr. Miller about jurisdiction of Polish passport. And I said Your Honor, there is no law that exists that governs jurisdiction of Polish passport by this Court. Mr. Miller says, "I have it in my hand right here." That's what he said right there to Your Honor, and Your Honor said -- I asked Your Honor,
"Can I see this case law?" Your Honor said, "Nope, I trust Mr. Miller. If you want, you can appeal it." I did appeal it. In the file, you do have an appeals case and if you go back to the end and you look at the concurring opinion by Judge Murphy, he says explicitly there is no case law that allows this court to have jurisdiction of a Polish passport. Mr. Miller directly, explicitly, willfully, knowingly lied to Your Honor, right there and it is proven through the appeals process. It's right there and that's probably one of the biggest lies. These things are small. I can provide way more but to, Your Honor, that's what Mr. Miller did. Just look at the file right there. There's no -- there's no jurisdiction that this Court has over a Polish passport or any other foreign passport, any other property. It is right there and Mr. Miller by saying that there's case law that he has in his hand, he didn't have it. I ask him; he didn't provide it. You can see in the court of appeals. There's nothing.
And, I'll end with this and (inaudible) thank you.
THE COURT: Mr. Miller, you have a minute left.
Did you want to make any final comment?
MR. MILLER ADDRESSES THE COURT:
MR. MILLER: Judge, again, he said he doesn't
understand the motion process versus (inaudible) process. To the extent he's filed a motion to remove, there's no basis for any removal asserted in that motion authority or that would justify any removal. To the standards of motion for summary judgment about a motion to remove, there is no material fact at issue stated in that motion that would give this Court authority to remove me. To the extent that he says there is an admission, he is being dishonest with this Court because he knows that he's been told in repeated emails that I disagree with everything he says and then unless I say something different, he should assume that I don't agree with it and that I dispute what he says. And I think he will acknowledge that in probably 10 emails at least that I notified him of that. He seems to think that silence is tantamount to accepting his ridiculous assertions, his unsupported assertions. And I say to the Court, it's not. You don't have to accept the false statements of a person by being silent and not rebuking their dishonesty or their false statements.
To the extent he made some statement about the
passport issue, we argued that issue in the court of appeals. We both presented our positions about that issue. He knows what the truth is about both my statement in the transcript and about the Court's Order and about the arguments that were made, and he's misrepresented those facts to you today. The position that he takes is one based on what I contend is a misunderstanding of the law governing this Court's authority concerning him.
RULING BY THE COURT:
THE COURT: That's your time. All right. I
think what we first start with is the motion to compel and the facts seem to indicate that a deposition was -- a motion to conduct a deposition was filed on Mr. Miller, a notice of deposition scheduled for 1 p.m. on November 1st, 2018. It was also requested in a subpoena issued under Rule 45 that this deposition was requesting all written contracts or other documents, which you are aware or have access to, which appear to constitute any agreement between Jeffrey Miller and his law office and Hunter Grodner, now Summerlin, related to your legal services as Plaintiff's attorneys, all statements, records, accounts and billing documents prepared, entered, maintained and submitted my you, Jeffrey Miller, or your representatives, concerning 13 CBD 398, including your appellate representation since January 9th, which itemized your specific billings, payments by Hunter Grodner, now Hunter Summerlin, according to her time or nature of legal services performed by the plaintiff. Under Rule 45, Subsection B, I'm sorry C3, it reflects a party's ability to object to subpoenas under Subsection B. Each of the following grounds may be sufficient for objecting to a subpoena. Subsection B reflects the subpoena requires disclosure of privileged or other protected matter and no exception or waiver applies to the privilege or protection.
I have not become aware of any exception to that rule. Therefore, the motion to quash that subpoena would -- because it appears to directly affect Mr. Miller's ability to maintain his attorney-client privilege -- that motion to quash is granted.
As it relates to the motion for summary judgment to
require the removal of Mr. Miller as attorney of record, except in the matters of proceedings, I think -- I don't know if somebody's gave you any legal advice, Mr. Grodner or what, but they were misdirected in if you're getting -- somebody's telling you anything or I don't know exactly where you're starting. Certainly, I have disposed of a number of cases with Rule 56 in the Rules of Civil Procedure. Most of that deals with claims, if you look at Subsection A, it says a party seeking to recover upon a claim, counterclaim or crossclaim or obtain a declaratory judgment at any time after the expiration of 30 days from the commencement of action or after service of motion for summary judgment, but adverse party may move with or without supporting affidavits.
Let me say if I accept the facts as true that Mr. Miller has lied to you, that he has refused to comply with discovery, that he's not responding, that he has acted against the Rules of Professional Conduct, I don't have the authority, I don't have the subject matter power to remove him as attorney of record. Now, certainly if you feel there is merit to those facts, even if I found those facts true, even if I said, Mr. Miller has acted unprofessionally, he's not done this, I can't find a conflict in what he's -- a conflict of interest. I can't find anything that's been alleged as being unprofessional behavior between a litigant and a litigant's attorney because trust me, I deal with this daily in domestic court. This is not the only case I have where there's a strong difference of wills between parties and their attorneys. I promise you that's not it. But nothing in the Rules of Professional Conduct allow me to say, "You're all not playing nice and you, Mr. Miller, may not be playing nice, so I'm removing you as attorney of record."
That is where you're going to have to go speak with the State Bar Association and there is a process for doing that and certainly, I can't order him to go to a deposition. I've never had that happen, never had it requested. So that is unchartered territory as far as a trial court and requiring an attorney to go and subject themselves up to potentially disclosing or responding to questions about their work product, their trial techniques and strategies. That's just not discoverable in a court of law. And you know, that's where I'm at right now. Mr. Miller, if you want to pursue attorney's fees, I think you should probably submit your request and a fee affidavit. If you want to question about the fees, certainly you're entitled to do that, Mr. Grodner, but your motion has no merit and I'm dismissing the motion for summary judgment.
And if you'll submit the proposed order. As far as
your future contacts, I think it was an order that went to great lengths to try to establish how that and how that should be. There's been a motion to modify that order, so I can't rule without a properly served motion. So, until I see something of that nature, I would not venture in that grounds because I don't -- again I don't have the authority to modify an order unless there's a properly filed motion to do so.
All right. That's the order.
Anything further from the respondent, Mr. Miller?
MR. MILLER: No, sir.
THE COURT: Anything further from the movant, Mr. Grodner?
MR. GRODNER: Yes, Your Honor.
THE COURT: What's that, sir?
DISCUSSION:
MR. GRODNER: Your Honor said that this Court has
the authority to remove an attorney ---
THE COURT:
For a conflict of interest.
MR. GRODNER:
For a conflict ---
THE COURT:
criminal behavior.
--- if I've seen them engage in
MR. GRODNER:
What I'm saying is that this Court
has authority to remove attorneys.
THE COURT: Give me your legal authority to do
that.
MR. GRODNER: Well, Your Honor, just provided it,
meaning that this -- when there is a conflict of interest --
-
THE COURT: He has no conflict of interest.
He's representing his client.
MR. GRODNER: But, what I'm saying, first of all,
that Court, this Court can remove an attorney.
THE COURT: I'm not removing him.
MR. GRODNER: But, Your Honor ---
THE COURT: Because you have not shown any
grounds to do that, Mr. Grodner.
MR. GRODNER: Your Honor ---
THE COURT: And when you file, because you file
a motion and action, you're really getting very close without legal facts or authority to what's called a Rule 11 motion and that attorney is then going to turn around and ask for sanctions against you -- monetary sanctions, and I'm just telling you. I don't -- I know you're not an attorney. I know you're a well-educated person. You're an econ professor. I've dealt with that. I was an econ major in college, but if you're getting information from somebody telling you how to do this, I mean because you've got everything in the proper format and the motions look good. It's just I can't, and I won't do it because it's not properly grounded in fact and that's what this action is in the wrong court. If you want to have him removed, I suggest you take it to the State Bar and that's against his interests and I'm telling you take it to the State Bar. But I don't see anything where I've got the ability to do that and that's just where I'm at.
MR. GRODNER: And I just ask can I have the right
to speak?
THE COURT: Sure.
MR. GRODNER: Because Your Honor interrupted me.
THE COURT: But your time is up.
MR. GRODNER: I know because Your Honor
interrupted me multiple times.
THE COURT: I don't feel I did. I let you both
make your arguments. I just ruled. I said do you want to say anything further about the order?
MR. GRODNER: Yes, and in the middle of me
talking, Your Honor interrupted me.
THE COURT: Go ahead, sir. I'll give you two
minutes.
MR. GRODNER: So, first of all, Your Honor
provided an example when this Court has the authority, has the right and sometimes has the need to remove an attorney from the case. This is when there is conflict of interest which means this Court has jurisdiction over attorneys and can remove them, number one.
Number two, the question is what constitutes a
reason to remove an attorney, when there is conflict of interest, that's the reason.
THE COURT: What is the conflict?
MR. GRODNER: Your Honor ---
THE COURT: Tell me the conflict. I want to
know what is the conflict between you two.
MR. GRODNER: I am willing, and I follow
everything Your Honor is doing, saying, writing. Your Honor wrote an order saying that I'm supposed to email -- only communicate via email with Mr. Miller. From this here, I still don't know how it is resolved. And Your Honor just told me that Your Honor will listen to me and Your Honor for the third time interrupted me. How am I supposed to proceed if I'm basically being prejudicially treated like this?
THE COURT: Now, you're trying to create
something, Mr. Grodner, that's not there. You can argue prejudice. You can argue that stuff, but it's just not there. I've ruled adequately. If you don't agree with me, take it to the court of appeals and I'm sure they'll tell you I'm correct.
MR. GRODNER: And, Your Honor, I did, and Your
Honor was wrong when Your Honor took over my Polish passport. Please look at the file right now and look at the court of appeals’ opinion.
THE COURT: I'm just telling you I'm confident
in the way I'm ruling today. There is no conflict of interest. He has not represented you before; he's not represented anybody in your family before. That’s the conflict of interest. Because you'll have a conflict -- you don't understand the legal term of conflict of interest is what I'm ruling on. And that's the ruling and this Court is adjourned.
12:40:07 P.M. – COURT ADJOURNS
[END OF RECORDING]
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
