Some crazy stuff goes down in the field of law. From vicious divorces to nightmare situations where suing someone is your only option, these legal horror stories are better than any TV show.
1. A Fatal Mistake
I once had a client who was a nurse who made a fatal mistake. It was a long story, but I got her off any charges of negligence despite being very disturbed by what had happened. It happened many years ago, but this case will stay with me forever. Here is the full story, for all of you who might be interested.
It was after hours in a small rural hospital. They were understaffed and under-equipped. In the pediatric ward, a baby was very ill with gastroenteritis and hadn't responded to weeks of treatment. The baby was losing weight despite everything. There was no doctor on the pediatric ward that night, or, in fact, in the entire hospital.
When the lab phoned the baby's blood work results in to the nurse on duty, she said that the baby was going to pass soon if he didn't receive urgent treatment. The nurse phoned the doctor on the telephone. He wasn't supposed to go in that day, having already worked long hours that day. He was just supposed to be available for phone calls.
The doc gave instructions for a sister to give the baby an ampoule of potassium chloride. She wrote down the instructions. But the doctor made a fatal mistake. They didn't specify that it should be given orally, which was what was meant. But because the doc specified that a sister must give it, the nurse assumed that it should be an injection, as she herself wasn't qualified to give injections but a nursing sister would have been.
The nurse called the sister from the maternity ward and asked her to come by and carry out the instruction. She explained the urgency. The sister was very busy in the maternity ward, but came to the pediatric ward and gave the injection. The baby passed from immediate cardiac arrest. The partners in my firm didn't want to touch the case, as they thought it was impossible to win.
But in our law, negligence has a specific definition. I won the case for the nursing sister by arguing that my client was trying her best, with only the instructions and resources at hand, under circumstances where she had been told the patient would pass very soon if the treatment wasn't given. She was an amazingly dedicated person and what happened had completely devastated her.
It was to the point where she wanted to quit nursing. I hope she changed her mind after that. There is one other point, though. The one good thing that came out of this tragic event was that I mentioned to a local Rotary Club member that the hospital in question desperately needed some telemedicine equipment, knowing that the club had such a project.
Shortly after that, they were able to make a donation of equipment to the hospital. I even coincidentally saw that doctor in passing years afterward and the doctor was so grateful for that equipment. It definitely changed the situation and made it far less likely that a tragedy like this one would ever again be repeated at that hospital.
2. A Tough Choice
Lawyer here. I don't normally do litigation, but as a pro bono project and for some experience doing a different kind of law, I once served as guardian ad litem for these two kids stuck in a high-conflict child custody dispute. "Guardian ad litem" basically means that the court appointed me to represent the kids whose parents were fighting over them, though this is oversimplifying it slightly.
In other words, I didn't represent either parent, but both parents wanted me on "their side" since my opinion of the case would be influential with the judge. The trial was a complete horror show. Both parents were very low income, basically living off of various forms of government assistance. Each had several other kids with other partners.
The mom said that the dad sold substances and that both kids were conceived via non-consensual relationships. She also claimed that the dad was recently out of time behind bars for inappropriate conduct with other women. Meanwhile, the dad said that the mom was a prostitute who neglected the kids. And there were various reports from the kids' school that corroborated this claim.
One of the kids, the sister, was super cute. But the other, the brother, called his sister a slur in open court and said he hated her. Luckily, the parents agreed to a joint custody arrangement before it went to trial. This experience confirmed for me 1000% that I do not want to be a litigator, especially in family court. What a freaking mess.
3. Who’s Side Is He On?
I once worked with a D-U-I client who had kicked his trial date down by almost two years. He had a history of charges, but had cleaned up his act until this one. His story: He was sitting in his car waiting for a ride when he got picked up by an officer. There were no keys in the ignition. He talked to the officer from inside the car, but there was no way he could have hoped to drive the thing.
The officer’s story: The keys were in the ignition and the window was down. No one is disputing that he was heavily intoxicated. His case was winnable, but for one thing. The client couldn’t keep his darn trap shut on the witness stand. If I asked him the time, he told me where his watch was made and what the name of the clerk was who sold it to him. Classic mouth-diarrhea sufferer.
His friends were his other witnesses, and I couldn’t have asked for better ones. The officers were the prosecutor’s witnesses, and I poked holes in their testimony left and right. The case was far from an airtight acquittal, but I had more than enough reasonable doubt to win...until my client ruined everything. He voluntarily revealed on the stand that it was his fourth charge.
Up till that point, as far as anyone on the jury had been concerned, this was his first. Then, he couldn’t keep his story straight about how and where he had talked to the officer. Opening the window versus cracking the door open? Makes a big difference, because the key would have had to be in the ignition for the windows to roll down.
And if I tried to rein him in, he just went off on another tangent. And this was all after refusing to plead to a stipulated first offense, which would have been fines and traffic school. Instead, he torpedoed his own case, got convicted, and had to spend something like sixty days behind bars while also paying a ton of costs. It also sucked because I got frustratingly close to a win.
4. “X” Marks The Spot…
I worked a divorce case that went to trial. The parties owned a business together, which they started during the marriage and which was their sole source of income. Obviously, the biggest issue was who was going to keep the business. While the divorce proceeded, the General Magistrate ordered my client to keep running the business and to pay the wife temporary alimony. If only it had ended then.
At trial, we went in front of a judge instead of the General Magistrate. This judge was older with poor memory and was fairly new to family law. She ended up giving the wife the business and ordering my client to pay the wife alimony! How is someone supposed to pay alimony if you take away their only source of income for the last 10 years?
I filed a motion for rehearing but the judge denied it. As if that was bad enough, do you want to know the cherry on top of this triple-layered divorce cake? The judge awarded my client his home that he had inherited from his grandmother. The wife had been living in there during the divorce proceedings, and the judge gave her 30 days to move out.
Well, she stayed until the last possible day. When my client went back to the home, the wife had completely destroyed the inside. She took a screw driver and scratched an “X” on the surface of all of the furniture and the walls. My client ended up leaving the country.
5. More Money, More Problems
A colleague of mine is working a child custody case as court-appointed counsel for the mom. Mom had some of her own issues, but the child was taken after she and her boyfriend posted a video on social media of them enjoying a blunt with the kid in the room. That's child endangerment. At trial, mom takes the stand.
While she’s there, she makes some weird and unconvincing distinctions between different “blunts". Not great, but not the end. The judge asks mom what she did for a living. Remember now, mom filled out a sworn affidavit saying she can’t afford an attorney and needs the State to pay for one, hence my colleague’s appointment.
Mom, thinking that a high income would bode well for her chances of getting her kid back (spoiler: it didn’t), says that she works part time at a fast food joint. Knew that one. She said she also worked as a “dancer". Knew that one too. But then she drops the mic. She says that she also braids hair and does nails on the side, and that she averages about $5k a month.
Her affidavit shows she makes less than $1,200/ month. The judge was nice and didn’t charge her with perjury. He tried to give her every chance to walk those numbers back, but she refused. Based on testimony, she lost custody and child support was set based on her income claimed from the stand. I've never seen him pinch the bridge of his nose so hard or for so long.
6. No Compensation
I’m a worker’s compensation attorney. I now represent injured people, but used to work on the other side. This is the case that made me switch. There was an applicant who fell off a ladder, busted his back, got his shoulder messed up, and needed years of treatment. He had physical and psychological issues. The poor guy was really messed up, so he went to court to get permanent disability payments from my client. We were five years into the lawsuit and finally getting to settlement time.
If we bought out his future medical, the settlement would be pretty far into six figures, which is a lot, but keep in mind that this guy was the sole provider for wife and two young kids. Then we made a jaw-dropping discovery. We found out that the man had aggressive brain cancer. He would only live for a couple more years, at best.
Thus, my client wouldn’t have to pay him for very long. In the end, the man did get disability pay for $60k-ish per year. But because he'd only get that one check, what should have been millions was much, much less. I felt terrible for the guy and his family. I tried to get my client, the insurance company, to agree to a more humane amount given the circumstances, but the bean counters said heck no.
The attorney knew it wasn’t me making the decision. Even though he worked on that guy’s file for 5+ years he decided to take $0 in fees. I have so much respect for that attorney turning down $10k+ in fees to help his client in a very sad situation.
7. Cult Classics
Okay. So my sister graduated from high school last year and decided to take a gap year. She came across a Craigslist posting by a woman I'll refer to as "Aileen" about how she has a farm and she's looking for kids who want life experience. She said that she'll provide them room and board to work on her farm and how she can teach them all of these great skills.
I never saw the ad, but I remember my sister telling me about it at the time. She was very excited, this opportunity was everything she had been looking for, she had told me. So she began a correspondence with "Aileen". I did not live with my sister, I'm older by five years so I was not on the scene when all of this was going down. Later, I wish I had warned her.
So she ends up going to this place last August, I think, maybe early September. I have only spoken with her through emails since and at first she was happy, everything was good, she was making friends and all of that. I was wondering why she only emailed and she told me there's no phone service on the ranch, since "Aileen" doesn't believe in phones and she takes them to the library for internet access.
That right there was the first time I thought something was a bit off, but my sister was happy so I didn't push it. Over time, the tone of her emails changed. She would talk about her friends there, the animals, all these activities she was doing, but not about "Aileen" much. Then something switched. It gradually became that "Aileen" is all she would talk about".
Aileen" was telling her some seriously messed up stuff and if she didn't agree with it, everyone else would ignore her existence until she broke down crying and apologized. "Aileen" made her slaughter her favorite chicken, "Aileen" said she needed to cleanse herself and wouldn't let her eat solid food for a week. "Aileen" made her take drugs. Seriously disturbing stuff.
I told her she needed to get out of there, that I'd come pick her up, but she would downplay everything, make excuses for "Aileen," say she was overreacting, that it wasn't as bad as she made it seem, etc. I didn't know what to do at that point. I thought something hinky was going on, but at the same time my sister was an adult and I trusted her judgment at the time.
It's not like I had anything to go off of, a location or anything, and while disturbing, I didn't think anything super egregious was happening. "Aileen" seemed like an eccentric survivalist type, but ultimately harmless. Yes, I was tentatively concerned, is what I'm trying to say, but I felt like my sister was mature and intelligent enough to know when she was in over her head. I was so, so wrong.
My sister emailed me yesterday and I don't feel like that is the case anymore. Something had happened and from what I was able to ascertain, one of the other girls at this place committed some kind of cardinal sin and "Aileen" instructed the other kids to viciously beat this girl. My sister was forced to participate in this. She seemed distraught about it but ultimately blamed the girl because she should have known better than to have done what she did.
I don't know what she did, my sister wouldn't elaborate on it. I stayed up all night poring over all of her emails, looking for some clue to where she was but I couldn't figure anything out. I know my sister took a Greyhound to Lansing, Michigan and Aileen picked her up from the bus station, so I think this freak show is probably in either Eaton, or Ingham but as to more specifics, I have no idea.
I don't think my sister even knows. I have a hunch they're in or around Mason because Aileen made the kids spend the night at Seven Gables. However, I did find out she uses the library in Mason through the IP address, and I’m going to look at my legal options. Someone has to put a stop to this.
8. Back Breaking Work
My ex-husband and his new wife made my daughter a back brace out of wood and steel and forced her to wear it. Yes, really. But the details are even more horrific. My daughter is nine and my ex-husband and I share custody by alternating weeks. My daughter says her back hurts now and her arm is tingling. I have a doctor’s appointment for her on Monday and in the meantime I am trying to remain calm.
I confronted my ex-husband about it and all he would say was one text message where he says his new wife didn't like how my daughter slouched at the dinner table. They aren’t doctors and there’s nothing wrong with her that she needs a brace. I wanted to find a way I can get a quick court date or see a judge because I didn't want her going back there.
One of my co-workers has a cousin who is a lawyer and she knew someone who was able to help me and file the paperwork. My husband played dumb in court but his visits got reduced to supervised and he was ordered to take a parenting class. My daughter went to physiotherapy. Eventually, the court reinstated his visitation when he swore he had learned his lesson and was sorry and with his otherwise clean record the court agreed. This was a huge mistake.
I was against it but the court ruled against me. In any case, I gave my daughter her own cell phone so she could call me whenever she needed to. On her second visit, it happened again. This time the brace had steel and fabric instead of wood and they took her phone too. The next night, she left when they weren't looking and went up the street to a neighbor who is an officer.
The neighbor called paramedics and her co-workers. They had to cut the brace off my daughter. My husband and his wife were busted for it, thank god. They got out quickly but they have been charged and their infant is with CPS. My ex lost visitation and custody and I'm working on making it permanent. Unfortunately, my daughter's shoulder was dislocated from the brace.
It sent her back to rehab and part of her arm is still numb and tingling. She needed surgery and is still recovering. She always played sports (especially at school) and did dance but the doctor thinks she won't ever be able to lift her arm all the way up again. I hate my ex and he'll see her again over my lifeless body. Right now I'm focusing on my daughter while my lawyer takes care of things.
9. Second Opinion
It’s three in the morning here, and I haven’t slept much in four days. Apologies if I’m unable to separate my emotions with objectivity. I’m a husband to my wife and a father to two children under 18. In June of 2018, I began having small seizures and went to see my doctor, who referred me to my hospital’s neurology clinic. The clinic ran bloodwork, did a spinal MRI, and a 60 minute EEG.
They concluded that my seizures were psychogenic. For the next year, the seizures grew worse. I went back to the neurology clinic a dozen more times. My wife and I practically were begging for some, any, additional testing to get to the bottom of the seizures. Fed up, in early December of this year I went to see another neurologist and hospital for a second opinion.
I was in the hospital for weeks where they ran much more extensive testing including a complete brain and spinal MRI, brain CT, lumbar puncture, and other more exhaustive EEG tests. On December 23rd, my last day in the hospital, my “second opinion” neurologist and neurosurgeon came in the room. They told my wife and me horrific news. They said that I have a tumor that likely spread from a misdiagnosed growth in my right front parietal lobe, which has spread to the base of my brain stem.
The right frontal tumor is operable, but the cancer in the base of my brain stem is not. The second doctors don’t seem to want to throw the other hospital under the bus, but it’s obvious (at least to my wife and me) that they think my first doctors made some pretty bad mistakes in missing some fairly obvious signs and failing to run some basic tests.
I’m sick to my stomach. I think partly because I’m scared out of my mind for both me and my family, but also at the thought that this could have been avoided. It’s likely I won’t have the strength to find out if, or how, the first hospital messed up. I’m not sure I’ll even be around to find out, let alone ask the questions. No one thinks I should worry and stress about what “could have been done” and say to focus my energy on getting “well” while getting my affairs in order.
I can’t help but rage at my first doctors for what it feels and sounds like is a major screw-up. I already know I’m going after them in court, whether I’m alive to see it to the end or not.
10. Rolling Back The Empathy
A few days ago, my wife snuck out to Walmart to buy our son the only real thing he's been asking for: a PS4. So one day they are off running around and I figured I'd take the time to get it updated, set up an account, and pay for any subscription it may have, etc. I opened the box and nearly screamed. It has books in it where the console should be.
Great. So I take the receipt and head off to Walmart to explain and get a new one. However nope, I talked to everyone at the store from the CS desk to several managers and they refuse to exchange/refund the console. It was paid for in cash. My wife is a waitress and used tips so I can't just talk to my bank about getting a refund.
I know this must be a common scam people do but we are the victims here and Walmart refuses to exchange it or even refund it. I offered to accept store credit/gift card but even then they said no and told me to leave. I even talked to corporate in their online chat, every way possible, and it's always the same: "We stand behind the decisions of our salaried managers".
Corporate literally does not care and shifts it to the "salaried managers" and their decision. So I've been back to the same Walmart four times to talk to them and the last time they said they would call the authorities. I wasn't yelling or causing issues, I just want the PS4 my wife purchased for our son for Christmas. Is that so hard?
So officers came and the manager says right in front of me, "I believe this man has been trying to scam us, claiming his PS4 had books in the box". The officer gets my story and says there isn't enough to do anything against me. The manager dislikes this and I get permanently banned from the store. So the outcome? No PS4, no refund because it was purchased in cash and I cannot do a chargeback. Yes, I am looking into my legal options.
If you are ever purchasing anything expensive from Walmart, open the box immediately after purchase and in front of an employee. Merry Christmas Walmart.
Wikimedia.Commons
11. Say No To The Dress
Me and this guy were together for three years, and we're 19 now. We never talked about the future until a year in. Before then, I'd try to discuss it and he would change the subject. In short, I wanted kids, he didn't. I wanted to stay in Ireland, he didn't. I wanted to get married, he didn't. When I realized it was a bad match, I broke it off but he asked to get back together, saying we were too young to worry about the future.
We got back together. This happened a few times over the next 18 months, and in this time we probably spent more time apart than together. We knew early on that we wanted different things, and while marriage and kids are something I would want further down the line, I wasn't concerned about his open dislike of marriage and kids because 19 is too young to get married anyway.
If I were dating him 10 or 15 years from now and he didn't want to get married, then I might have an issue, but when I'm barely out of my teens, it's not a huge concern, and just loving him and wanting to be with him is enough. Still, when I went to see him this time I was again considering breaking up with him. Aside from the long-term issues, he is also inconsiderate and has a mean streak that I really don't like.
So when I arrived at his place, mentally debating breaking up with him for good this time, and he told me he wanted to take me out to dinner, I assumed he wanted to break up too, and publicly so I wouldn't cause a scene. I don't normally cause a scene, but being in public tends to prevent yelling, and we both yell every time we break up. I found out too late what was going on.
In the last year he has asked me two things that looking back now stand out to me. First he asked about jewelry, what kind of stuff I liked and what my taste was. I assumed it was because my birthday was coming up and he was getting me a bracelet or something, so I told him simple and delicate, silver or steel rather than gold, if there was a color then blue, nothing flashy or expensive as both my job prefers plain jewelry and it's just my personal preference.
I also said "go cheap". The other thing he asked me was how I felt about public proposals. I told him immediately that I, personally, disliked them as I felt I wouldn't be able to say no, even if I wanted to. I feel like public proposals are OK when they've been specifically requested and agreed on, but one that's totally out of the blue is not OK at all.
I assumed he was asking about this because his friend had just proposed to his girlfriend of several years, publicly, and she'd accepted but admitted to him after that she would have preferred something private. I never thought in a million years that he would propose. So you can imagine my shock when we went to dinner and the first thing he did was propose. Oh, but that wasn't all.
The ring was huge, gold, gaudy, with red gems around a diamond and the whole thing was the size and shape of a super bowl ring. He got on one knee and held it out to me. We were in the middle of this popular restaurant and the place was packed. Everyone there could see what was going on and weren't even trying to hide that they were looking at us.
I said no. Well, I didn't so much say "no," it was a much worse reaction than that. I ran out of the restaurant. He drove me there, so I got a cab back and drove home that night. I realize running out wasn't the best thing to do but I didn't know what else to do. I could feel everyone's eyes on me, and all I knew was that I didn't want to marry him or accept his proposal.
I felt like I couldn't even speak, I was so upset about the whole thing. So I just got up and ran. I just want to take the opportunity to say here that I really, really don't care about the ring. Honestly, when I want to get married (which is absolutely not when I'm 19 years old) the right person could just turn to me and say "wanna get married?" and I'd say yes.
I wouldn't even need a ring. I know I'm focusing on the ring and the public proposal a lot, but that's only because of 1) how far away it was from what I'd told him my taste was and 2) what happened next. Because what happened next was horrible. I didn't hear from him until a few weeks later. At that point, he said that he thought a proposal was something I'd want, but he saw now that it wasn't.
He then said that he was out of pocket for the rings. He'd bought us both the same one and gotten them engraved. He linked me to the jeweler's website and the ring was up for $1,650. When I asked why he was telling me this, he said that he'd hoped I would cover the cost of mine. He said that as they'd been engraved he couldn't get a refund.
He'd hoped that I would say yes to the proposal, in which case he wouldn't have asked me to pay, but I said no. He also said I'd embarrassed him by saying no in public, and should have said yes, and if I was really against it I should have waited to say no when we were alone. See, we both live in small towns where gossip spreads at Church.
Enough people were at the restaurant that night that both of us got asked about it at Church on Sunday. He has since messaged me saying he's debating calling in a lawyer to sue me for the cost of my ring, and he also says that I have caused him "emotional distress" by turning him down in public, and have publicly humiliated him for both rejecting his proposal in public and leaving him to deal with Church gossip, which I had no part in spreading.
I think his claims are ridiculous, and he wouldn't have a leg to stand on in a court of law, but I am not a law student or a lawyer. He knew I wanted to get married but not to him. He not only knew this but said he had no intention of marrying me either. He openly despised marriage right up until the time he proposed, where suddenly he's all about it.
He knows that we want different things out of marriage, and I told him that this was why I was breaking up with him the times before this that I have ended the relationship. But there is a kicker in all of this. His mother has reached out to me apologizing for her son's actions. She has said that nothing will come of this and that she raised an idiot.
12. Red Tape
My girlfriend recently filed a harassment report with her company after repeated inappropriate conversations, unwanted pictures, touching and hugging, and all-around creepy behavior that makes her uncomfortable by some of the males at her job. Upon asking one of her supervisors how to submit the report, she and another girl who had similar issues were immediately taken to HR.
She filed the report and chose to remain anonymous on all the HR paperwork. A few days down the road, she is told by HR that both reports have gone missing and they think it was another supervisor that has misplaced them. This supervisor is a different one than the one that had taken her to HR and in my opinion, should have had nothing to do with handling her reports.
After being told that HR lost the report, the HR lady then goes on to say that she will talk to the specific guys at work and will tell them specifically that they aren't allowed to retaliate against my girlfriend. Even though it was against her wishes to disclose her name to everyone, the HR lady seemed to be going to do it anyway. It's now about a week later and everyone has been particularly bitter and mean to her throughout the week for no apparent reason.
The head supervisor for her department then comes down and says they need to talk. In the meeting is my girlfriend, the head supervisor, another supervisor, and HR. The head supervisor is the only one that talks, and starts off with "That stuff is done and cleared, it's over now," then drops the big one. He continues into how my girlfriend’s work ethic, conduct, and paperwork have all been messed up since she got there and that they were going to write her up.
She has never received any negative paperwork from the company and has only gotten in trouble when she was late due to circumstances out of her control. The supervisor is now pointing out things that have never been brought to her attention as being erroneous and is now using it as a tool to write her up. Naturally, she feels confused and angry about the whole situation.
From other supervisors having hands on her report to losing her report and getting written up for made-up stuff, it's all. so messed-up. Part of the things she was being written up for she had nothing to do with. She will be contacting a lawyer to get their opinion on it and to pursue the next course of action. She has voice recordings of the inappropriate things these guys were saying and asking her as well as an email she sent to HR asking the lady to not reveal her identity.
However, her employers have already disappeared the report so it's her word against theirs whether or not she filed one.
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13. Kick Her To The Curb
My boyfriend has mobility issues and uses either a wheelchair or crutches depending on his pain levels. I’ve done a lot of home improvement projects to ensure he can get around my house easily, including a wheelchair ramp up to my front door. My front door is really recessed from the street due to my lawn and hidden by my porch, so the ramp isn’t very visible from the street.
I painted it to match the house as well. A few months ago, a new family moved across the street and the wife’s never been very friendly with me like my other neighbors are, which I chalked up to her being shy or whatever. However, recently I got a note taped up to my door. Its contents made me want to scream. It said she’s going to sue if I don’t take the ramp down, as it’s an eyesore and “reduces curbside value".
I have no idea what she means since you can’t see the thing unless you know what to look for and really get up in my property, as confirmed by neighbors and friends. She refused to answer the door when I went over to talk to her about it. I’m trying not to lose my temper over this but it’s hard. There have been many times my boyfriend has been screwed over by so-called “handicap accessible” places, and I don’t want my home to be one of them.
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14. Banking On It
So last week, a check I wrote bounced from an account I have that I rarely use. It's a beneficiary account from when my grandfather passed. I called the bank, where I was informed of a shocking fact. They said that I closed the account to pay for "my wedding". I told them I sure as heck did not and have been married for six years.
After them jerking me around—"Are you sure you're not getting married?" "Did you maybe forget about taking that money for your wedding?"—I finally got them to open a case. Here's the crazy part. I call and basically stalk them to get them to investigate. I finally speak with someone and what happened is they gave my money away to another woman with the same name.
This woman opened a car loan with the bank and because we have the same name, they just hooked her name to my account. She lives in Florida and I live in Colorado. We do not have anything else in common except our first and last name. So she ends up calling the bank and they "assure her" that money is hers and a relative left it to her, so she rushes down and withdraws it all.
I actually figured all this out before the bank did through some good old-fashioned Facebook and Internet stalking. I sent them the info, and boom. Open and shut case. So now, the bank has admitted fault (finally) and will restore the account. They asked me not to file a report, which sort of makes sense (they after all encouraged her to take it) but I have no idea what personal information of mine she has, or what was given to her. And here's the icing on the cake.
I got a letter from the bank yesterday with her personal information on it, including the address, so now they've compromised both our information. Geniuses.
15. Careful Instructions
My court career was very short, as I really didn't enjoy doing it. But I had one unforgettable client who refused to listen to me and would always give me instructions and not respond to my calls. I can't even remember why he was in court in the first place. Maybe we were trying to defend a claim of shoddy workmanship he had done or something like that?
Anyway, the situation became untenable, and, in England, if you are the lawyer acting in a litigation case, called "on the record," it's actually really difficult to stop acting for the client, unless they agree. You have to go to court and get a court order. English lawyers who trained in London will be familiar with the “bear garden".
It's a place in the Royal Courts of Justice where a scary guy called a Master handles a long line of low-level procedural issues. Things like “Can we have another five days to file a defense?” or “Can we postpone the trial for two weeks because a key witness is in the hospital?” That sort of thing. He also handles applications to come off the record.
Now, I wasn't expecting my client to turn up, but I spotted him lurking at the back of the room. The second I saw him, my stomach sank. Eventually, the Master calls me and asks me about the application and why I wanted to come off the record. "We are not able to get instructions from the client," said I. He replied: "Well, that's fairly unusual. I don't like granting orders on that basis. Have you tried calling him, going to his place of work, that sort of thing?"
At this point, I turned to the client who was at the back of the room smirking. I said: "Excuse me, Master, I need to take instructions from my client". The Master raised his eyebrow. I turned to the client and said "So what do you want me to do now?" As he would typically do, my client told me to "Screw off". Without missing a beat, the Master said: "Application granted".
And that was the end of that!
16. Open And Shut Case
I am renting an apartment and my lease ends at the end of the month. My landlord is an older guy who inherited this house; it's not a professional company or anything like that. I do have a lease that says I get 24 hours’ notice for entry except emergencies which I believe is the law itself, but in this case I did not get that notice.
Last week, my landlord texted me shortly after 8 am saying someone is interested in buying the house from him. He has not previously brought up selling it, so this was unexpected. He asked if I could let them in to see the place at 10, and then at 9:30 texted again saying he's guessing I'm at work so he's just going to let them pick up a key from him and lock up when they are done looking.
I did not see these messages until I took lunch at 12. I texted my landlord back saying I thought I am supposed to get notice for entry and I'm not comfortable with him letting people in unattended. He said sorry but they are going out of town and won't be back for two weeks so it was an emergency, though I'm sure that doesn't count in court. But there was a horrible twist.
They robbed me. I have it on security video, but the authorities weren't able to get much information from it because their vehicle is common and has no license plate. They also wore hoods and bandanas so you can't tell much about their faces. They took everything of value such as laptop and TV and even some stupid things like my lamps.
My renter's insurance originally was going to cover it, but said they need a copy of the report, and the report explains the situation that my landlord gave them a key (as opposed to them breaking in). Now the renter's insurance says they cover breaking and entering resulting in loss, but these circumstances makes it a civil issue instead of an insurance issue and I should seek to get reimbursed for my losses by my landlord instead.
Meanwhile my landlord is an idiot and did not even know these people. He met them at Denny’s, only got their first names, and gave them his phone number and told them his own address to pick the key up, but didn't get any of their information whatsoever like phone number or anything. I told him my renter's insurance won't cover this and because this was caused by him literally giving strangers a key to the place, I would like him to reimburse me for my losses.
He says he's sorry but at the end of the day it's these guys that owe me and not him.
17. His Bottle Runneth Over
A client once told me all about his big fall in a supermarket. I did all that I could to make it clear that the client was traumatized because the supermarket didn't clean the darn floor. Lo and behold, the supermarket showed a recording of the client setting up his fall by opening a bottle himself and pouring it all around the corridor.
I just dropped the case right then and there, and left him on his own to figure out how to pay for all the fees and expenses he had piled up. And that’s the story of my most impossible to defend client of all time, and the one that I can never forget. I really had a hard time moving on from that case and trusting clients again. I didn't even try for a while after that point.
18. What A Coincidence!
Not my client, but my public defender friend told me of an old case he once had. The case was all about stuff that had been swiped. This happened in a semi-high-income neighborhood. Basically, this dude came home and found that his place had a broken window, his stuff was scattered all over the place as if someone had been rummaging through it for things to take, and he actually was missing a few personal items.
Some of the missing items included a Rolex, a MacBook, and more. So the dude called the authorities. A suspect had been brought in later that same night. Turns out, this suspect was caught by private security in the same area. He was seen jumping over a wall, which landed him on the main street almost adjacent to the victim's place. Security saw and went on a short chase.
Officers were then called in. What a coincidence that the suspect had on his person the exact same Rolex, MacBook, and other things that had been reported missing. Still, my friend had to defend the suspect and try to come up with some kind of excuses as to why the guy might actually be innocent despite having been caught red-handed. Let’s just say he didn’t feel great about himself that day…
19. If The Clothes Fit
So I used to work for a clothing company, and I submitted several designs to them that they rejected and never used. I have since quit and started using the designs I made myself that they didn’t use. Recently, they have contacted me threatening with a cease and desist, even though the property clause in my contract doesn’t apply. None of the designs were made on company time or on company computers.
The designs I’m currently using were designs they asked for when I started as a “baseline” for my work. They said if they liked them, they’d consider using them, but they never expressed interest in them. I brought this up to a lawyer and they laughed. Like I said, I made the designs before I started there on my own computer on my own time. They had no claim to them, and they were just trying to strong-arm a 19-year-old designer.
My lawyer sent back some type of letter and they immediately apologized and said that any designs I didn’t specifically make for customers were mine and mine only. My lawyer said something along the lines of “they can’t afford this type of suit” as they are a mom-and-pop type company. The lawyer did it free of charge. All worked out in my favor!
20. The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth
Defense attorney here! Honestly, sometimes the hardest clients to defend aren’t the guiltiest ones, but the ones who are just huge jerks. I’ve had some really sweet, nice clients who are guilty as sin, and my goal is always to get them the best possible outcome and make sure that their constitutional rights are protected. Easy as one, two, three.
But the clients who lie to me because they think it’ll make me work harder if I think they’re innocent, the clients who call me a public pretender, the clients who call me nothing more than a mouthpiece for the District Attorney, etc. Those are the hardest ones for me to defend. But don’t get me wrong, I’ll still fight hard as heck for all my clients, whether I like them as people or not.
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21. Absolutely Horrifying
At the end of the day, everyone is entitled to a defense and we have a job to do, but it can be really hard at times! The worst I’ve ever had to do was cross-examining a five-year-old who described having to perform adult acts on her father. The amount of detail she went into made it very clear she was telling the truth, as she couldn’t have otherwise known about certain details of the human body at her age.
Having to cross-examine a patently truthful victim of something so horrible, and her description of the smell of my client’s body, it was just awful! Just looking at him, you could tell that he would smell!
22. Taking You For A Ride
I used to take the bus daily to get to work. Not a big deal, I'd just mind my own business, sit wherever there is the least amount of people. But every Thursday was awful. Every single Thursday at the stop after I get on, a giant crowd of what I assume to be the mentally challenged kids from the local school would ride the bus too, about 7 or 8, with the woman I assumed was watching over them.
Still, generally not an issue because I'd just put my earbuds in and stay in my own space. But this bus company was not reliable. We have a nice, modern bus that could sit probably 15 people. One day, a little school bus came instead. It had nine seats. Since that point, it was basically up to chance whether or not the big bus came.
So you can see the issue when the bus rolls up to the stop and there aren’t enough seats. I have a heart condition and moderately severe muscular dystrophy. Considering the 15-minute walk to the bus stop, I needed that time to sit down. So, that's what I was doing, as always. The group gets on the bus and I've got my eyes shut with my music playing when the woman in charge taps me on my shoulder.
I look and she looks angry, motioning to one of the younger ones, who was crying because he didn't have a seat. I take out my earbuds and she says to me that I need to give up my seat. The other people that were on the bus already were older than me. When I tell her I need it she says that I need to respect “my elders” and do what she says.
I try my best to explain that medically I can't stand the entire ride and she gets upset with me and says I'm making it up and “ignoring her” since I had headphones on when she was trying to talk to me, I guess. So after a couple of minutes of this, I snap and tell her that the kid can stand and respect me as I'm older than him, and that one of the other kids can give him their seat if it's so important.
She gives me a look like I just offed her cat and stops bothering me. But that wasn’t the end of it, oh no. Two days later when I tried to get on the bus, I was told I was banned from the service. When I called them, they said that it's a part of their policy that the "fully abled" must give up their seats to those that aren't. I explained the medical reasons I needed it and was simply told I have a lower priority because I'm "fully functional" and the boy in question wasn't, even though it was just mentally as far as I ever knew.
He ended up standing the entire ride and it didn't seem to affect him as far as I know, but I feel like making a mentally handicapped child cry makes me the jerk. I don't have a lawyer but my mom has one she said would help me out, though he is currently out of town.
23. Two’s Company
Y’all. I’m so annoyed. We’ve been living in our new place for less than a full week and our landlord has popped up over here and tried to just walk in with his key three times. Today I drove up just as he was unlocking our door to walk in and I’m just like, “what are you doing here?” The first time I walked out of my bedroom up to see him just standing in my living room looking at my thermostat.
He literally didn’t even acknowledge the fact that he was in the unit by saying “anyone home?” or anything. I was about to pepper spray the heck out of him because his back was to me and I was home alone. Today he said he needed to do maintenance on the A/C and proceeded to crane his neck to look in every room with a door open and rummage through my cabinets in my kitchen.
I really don’t want to be THAT tenant but I can’t do this for a year. It’s always just him telling me some small stuff that could have been said over the phone. The anxiety of thinking someone is in my house when I’m not home is too much, let alone just waiting for him to pop in while I am. I’ve rented since I was 18 and never had a landlord who just pops up at all hours of the day.
24. Make Yourself At Home
My girlfriend’s landlord entered her house after he talked to her as she was going to work. He believed nobody was home, but I was here lying in bed. I woke up to him coming into the apartment to use the bathroom and then leaving. When I said something as he was leaving, he ignored me. I text my girlfriend about it to see if she had given him permission to enter and she said no.
He did have permission to enter the building at 11 am to show her apartment, but this was at 9:30 am and he had no tenant to show the apartment to. He just came in, used the bathroom and left. He didn’t even finish flushing the toilet and he left poop in it! When I confronted him, he became aggressive with me, made threatening gestures toward me, and started trying to accuse me of wrongfully occupying the building, which is not the case.
He then left the property and came back 20 minutes later and started banging on the door and threatening me and accusing me of wrongfully occupying the space again. When I explained to him that I had every right to be there because I had permission from the tenant to be there, he said “Okay, I’ll let you go this time". My girlfriend feels uncomfortable here now, big time.
25. No Fly List
I'm going to try to state this as calmly as possibly. My father has cancer, walks with a cane/wheelchair, and has a port for his treatments that is a tube from the side of his chest going to his heart. We came to this country 20 years ago, both my parents speak English well with an accent that is not so thick people have difficulty understanding them in our city, New York.
They sometimes get syntaxes, plurals, and slang wrong, but it's not hard to figure out. However, the cancer and medication make my father very soft-spoken, and his hearing isn't that great (he's nearly 70) and when very upset or flustered, he can have a hard time finding the right words. Today, they were flying to where my sister and her family live in Houston, Texas.
This is also where my father is undergoing some experimental treatments for his cancer. He had permission to travel, and with him he brings a note from his oncologist from home and in Texas, which includes a diagram of his port but not a full list of medication. He also brings a printout from the TSA about traveling with a port and cancer.
My parents arrive 3:45 to a Tennessee airport for a 6:00 flight. Both parents have TSA prep-check and get in line at about 4:00. They are told to get out into the other line. They show their tickets, and the agent consults another one while they wait, all as the other agents are letting people past them. The agents start questioning my father on where he is going, his name, the address on the ID, etc.
My father is having difficulty understanding the agent’s accent, which is very thick, and the agent is responding by speaking louder and louder and more drawn out, making it even harder to understand. Meanwhile, I assume my dad is not speaking his best English, either, as he is flustered and has been standing a while now, but he is trying his best. It ended up going so much worse.
I'm not sure if they asked about the port at this point, but my father tries to give them the info and doctor’s note he has brought, which I think adds to the confusion. They wave him away, scribble something on his and my mom’s ticket, and eventually they get escorted by a third agent to the pre-check line. They don't know why someone walked them to the line, it wasn't to help my dad walk or anything.
Both parents put their things on the scanner, and an agent tells my dad to remove his kufi (he does) and gets a consult with another agent if my mother needs to remove her hijab. She doesn't, as they finally agree on, but later while patting her down, my mother says they nearly pulled it off several times. They go through the bags and bring out my father’s medication.
They tell him he needs prescriptions for it, he gives them the notes, and they say they will hold it until after the pat-down. My father says that’s ok, but again reiterates he has a port and they cannot touch it. He calls it a “device” at one point, which causes the agents to start speaking loudly all at once. My father stands with his hands in the air while my mother tries to explain.
He tries to show it to them and they yell at him to “not undress". They take him into a small room away from my mother. He is roughly patted down and it took much longer than expected. The agent starts pressing hard on his port and my father cries out. The agent begins to lecture him and say it's needed and they have to figure out what it is, at one point trying to pick up/pull at the port.
My father has survived escaping genocide in our home country, buried his son, and has never once in my lifetime cried in public. I have literally never seen him cry, only my mother has, once. He couldn't stop himself from the tears this time, though, and he cried with pain. He tells the agent to stop, and he is told to stop being “aggressive".
Again, he is a 5'7, 115-25 lb cancer patient who has never raised his voice or not cooperated. It was just the start, though. The agent keeps going, pressing hard on his legs, causing his knees to buckle and he falls to the floor. The agent stops abruptly, they help him to his feet and offer a chair. My father is white, shaking, and still has tears in his eyes.
They bring my mother into the room, and she had already been roughly patted down herself but is fine. They wait together for another 20-30 minutes, without any of their belongings or phones. The agents finally come in and say they can go board their plane and give a half-hearted apology for “taking security seriously” or something like that.
They take their bags…which are missing my father’s medication. He asks for it and after another 10-15 minutes or so, he gets it back. By this point the plane has left. They now go to the ER to see if the port is damaged and for pain medication. He has now missed a very important scheduled CAT scan and consult with his oncology team, and risks getting put out of the treatment plan.
This is on top of possibly getting charged for not calling 24 hours ahead to reschedule, issues with the insurance, etc. My father is currently in incredible, needless pain, in a strange city hospital. His port is OK but they want to check him out again before flying. My father is an absolutely upstanding man who has done so much for the refugee community, other small business owners, and our neighborhood. He doesn't deserve to be treated like this, nobody does. I plan to take action.
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26. Living On A Prayer
Not a lawyer, but I once led a tenant case. Out of twenty families, I could not find a single person that I could trust to put up on the stand and successfully bring our case out. Of the two best candidates, there was one that just kept making ridiculous and illogical demands, while the other kept throwing me under the bus in settlement talks by contradicting everything I said.
All that was required of them was to answer basic questions about living conditions. I put in more than 500 hours learning how to argue a case properly, and still managed to get them a good deal despite all of their terrible behavior. Yet not a single one of them bothered to say so much as a simple thank you to me afterward.
27. From Bad To Worse
Early in my career, I had to defend this gangbanger-type guy who was clearly guilty of substance trafficking and arms charges. He was caught red-handed. The guy was apprehended with several pounds of various substances on him, including several of the most dangerous ones you can think of. There were also a number of swiped items with his fingerprints all over them.
One of the items ended up being traced back and implicated in a really horrific case that happened a few years earlier. The only thing was that the officers messed up in the way they apprehended him, so he ended up getting off the hook. Apparently, the officers ended up pulling down the guy's pants during the interaction and were taking polaroid photos during it as well.
This was back in the late 1990s. To be specific, the officers had this guy's private part out in the open, and they were taking pictures with their faces near it. Some of them were holding one of those scale rulers next to it, touching it, and one of the officers even put it in his mouth for one picture. I’m fully serious about all of this.
Part of me was excited that there was such a clear-cut case of officers bungling a case. Their blundering was to such a degree that the whole case was eventually thrown out. But this guy was clearly guilty, and he ultimately got picked up on a much worse charge a few years later. Maybe the couple whose lives he took would still be alive if the initial officers hadn’t behaved in such a messed up way.
28. A Likely Story
I was defending in a drinking and driving case where the guy argued that the reason there were signs of drinks in his blood is that the officers had used alcoholic hand sanitizers when taking him in, and the sanitizer was on his skin where the needle went. Due to the ethical code of the bar association, I had to ask several questions about this from an expert witness who had more than twenty years of medical experience.
The witness kind of understood why I had to ask these insane questions that made it seem like I actually believed my client’s story was possible. But I felt like a moron one way or the other. In the end, I still got him a better sentence than he would have gotten with his plea deal. But he remains the client I wish I could forget, but can’t.
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29. It’s Not A Lie If You Believe It
The worst was a guy who was convicted for having an inappropriate relationship with a minor. He met this girl online, courted her, then drove a significant distance to meet her. He then took her from her parents’ house to a motel and they did their thing. It was straight out of “To Catch A Predator,” except for the facts that everything was real and that Chris Hansen wasn’t hiding around the corner.
The girl was unmistakably under the age of 18. His defense at trial was that she told him she was over 18. She denied that, and their chat transcript didn’t show that. He was convicted and filed a post-conviction relief petition arguing that his prior lawyer was ineffective and that there were errors in his trial. I was appointed to represent him in this second attempt at getting off.
This guy did not get it. He did the thing he was accused of and was convicted of. He kept blaming everyone else for his predicament: the victim, his prior lawyer, the judge, the officers. It was everyone’s fault but his. I told him he had no case, but he was convinced his conviction would be overturned. We had our hearing and it was very short. Petition denied.
He contacted me later about filing an appeal and I was able get out of the case by filing paperwork showing that his case was without merit and that nothing I could do would help him.
30. Nothing To Lose, And Nothing To Gain Either
One awful client that I had was a career offender. An undercover detective contacted him about buying substances. He wasn’t randomly selected. The substance task force had intel that this guy was selling. Plus, his prior record was full of convictions over similar issues. He was represented at trial by a public defender.
The PD suggested that he cooperate with the substance task force to help to identify other substance dealers, as a way to get a reduced sentence. This idiot took that to mean that the PD’s office was working for the prosecution and was therefore corrupt. He demanded that the court give him another free lawyer right away.
The judge denied his request several times, so he demanded that the PD be removed so that he could represent himself. The judge ordered that the PD stay on as “stand by” counsel, meaning that he would be there as a resource for the defendant, but not act as his lawyer. Around the same time as this defendant got in trouble, one of the detectives on the substance task force got fired for sleeping with an informant.
The detective and informant were not involved in this defendant’s case. At trial, acting as his own lawyer, the defendant tried to argue that the issue with the fired detective somehow had an effect on his case. The judge had ruled pretrial that this evidence was inadmissible, because it wasn’t related to his case. He nonetheless tried to argue it anyway, and almost caused a mistrial.
When he took the witness stand, he did the single worst thing possible. He admitted to conducting a substance transaction with the undercover detective, basically proving the prosecution’s case. He was found guilty. I was then appointed in a post-conviction petition. Again, he acted like everything was everyone else’s fault. He said he should have been able to argue that the substance task force was corrupt.
He argued that his prior lawyer was corrupt because he had suggested cooperating with the substance task force. All sorts of nonsense. The dude admitted at trial that he did it. That hearing was quick too, and he went back to serving his sentence. He then filed a subsequent post-conviction petition, arguing that I was ineffective.
Somehow, his subsequent lawyer was able to convince him that he had no case, so they withdrew it. So I suppose the hardest clients to defend are the ones that blame everyone else for their problems and can’t see that all their problems are their own doing. And those guys always file post-conviction petitions because they have nothing to lose. I’ve stopped taking those cases.
31. Blood On Their Hands
I think my dad’s company is responsible for his demise. My dad passed last week while at work, from a massive heart attack. He was in the bathroom while the attack happened and he tried calling 9-1-1 repeatedly. Here's the thing, though. Six months ago, his company installed some kind of signal blocking device in the bathrooms because employees were going to the toilet and browsing the internet.
The doctors say that if he'd received medical attention within 20 minutes, he might've made it, but they didn't find him until almost two hours after he'd passed. Last month, there was a nasty car wreck just outside his office and apparently ambulances were on the scene within 10 minutes, so I'm sure that if he'd been able to make the call, he might've lived.
I spoke to the company and they've told me to get lost, saying it's private property and they're well within their rights to use jammers how they please.
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32. Yes Means Yes
I’m 18 and in college. Like all 18-year-olds, I mess up. This time, I messed up big time and I ended up pregnant. I waited a week after my pregnancy test came up positive, I went to the doctor to 100% confirm the pregnancy, and my best friend, her boyfriend, my boyfriend, and I took a couples’ trip to NYC so I could have the abortion in a safe environment and have everything taken care of in a timely manner.
We got back to Boston and life went on. I am in therapy to work through my problems regarding my older sister's attempts on her life and dealing with the repercussions of her mental illness. I have not been diagnosed with any mental illnesses, I’m not considered depressed, I have no history of any kind of any mental illnesses, self-harm, or anything of the sort. I receive my therapy in a non-religious environment.
This is just straight-up confidential counseling because my sister tried to off herself right before I went to college, my parents are toxic, and I needed help with that burden. I told my therapist immediately that I’d had an abortion, and told her my reasons: cost of a baby, not wanting children, I go to a university that I worked my butt off to get into and I’ll be darned if I let an unwanted pregnancy ruin my life.
I also could not raise a child that I disdained. Selfish? Yes. But I’m not sorry. I also informed her that my boyfriend and I are still together and that he and I plan on staying together, the intimacy was between two adults who 100% consented, it was just a mix-up and confusion on both of our parts. He and I split the cost of the procedure with him paying 75% of the cost.
I go home and do homework. At around 4 pm, I get a visit from the Boston PD, who are investigating an attack. Their accusations stun me. They think that I’m the victim and my boyfriend is the perpetrator and that I’ve been forced to have an abortion. I ask them where they got this false information and give them proof that both he and I agreed that abortion was the way to go.
After a lot of talking to smooth things over and apologizing, they left. Then I get a call from my parents. They’re ranting on and on about how I’ve sinned in God’s eyes, how I’ve been fornicating and screwed every man in NYC, and how my lack of contact with them is hurting my mother. They screamed down the phone for four hours before telling me that my therapist gave them my address in Boston and they are coming to get me no matter what.
It becomes clear. My therapist called the authorities, reported a false assault and forced abortion, violated all sorts of confidentiality, and had the nerve to track my parents down. I never gave her their number, address, or personal information. She did not know their names, and I only ever called them mom and dad. I never gave her any sort of go-ahead to do anything.
Officers are still hounding me, I’m freaking out and constantly having panic attacks, my therapist is making things worse by CONTINUING to knowingly provide false information to the authorities (although I gave them the information that should have ended this all). But that’s not all. The therapist is also saying that I have Stockholm Syndrome and that’s why I won’t report my boyfriend, and I’m at a loss for what to do.
I also know why she’s having some weird witch hunt. My boyfriend is in a fraternity and in her mind, that’s the root of all evil because frat houses are awful. I’ve also started to get calls from the NYPD investigating the “forced abortion” and I’m freaking out and don’t know what to do. This is serious. The therapist is continuing to call and labeling me with various mental illnesses so she gets her point across and so I’m not taken seriously. The last time officers called was last night.
33. Fence Etiquette
Today I came home to a new fence in my backyard...and nobody knows where it came from. We live in a row home and the house attached to ours is vacant. It's been on the market since before we moved in, and nobody's lived in it for at least seven years. There was a small cast-iron fence between the two yards (on my property line) that went from under the fire escape to the brick garage.
I removed that fence as it was on my property about a month ago and installed brand new, beautiful sod. Well, I come home today and this disgusting, mismatched random combination of fences has been erected between the yards. Part of it goes over my property line, crushing the sod, at the bottom of the fire escape. The leprechauns or whoever installed it stepped all over my grass to do so, and to top it all off, they gave us the ugly side, which is totally against fence etiquette.
I don't know who owns it, so I called the real estate agent. He was just as shocked as I was when I told him there had been a fence built at a house he is selling. He had no idea. He'll be in contact with the owner of the property tomorrow, but she is a 70-year-old woman who doesn't live here, and he said he can't imagine why she would have a fence built. I asked my neighbor on the other side if she saw anything. She didn't. What do I do about this fence?
34. Missing In Action
I will have been in this rental property for 10 years this year. In all that time, I've never actually met my landlord. He lives in another state. He used to have properties both in my state and in his state, but after the recession in 2008 he mostly pulled everything back to his state. My original lease was for the first year here, after that we never signed another lease but we've never had any issues at all about that.
I've always paid the rent by making a deposit directly to his account at his bank. When anything goes wrong, he's quick to hire repairmen. We've had a good relationship for the last decade, even if we don't know what the other looks like in person. But now…we have a huge problem. We think he may have passed on. Our rent is due, but we both lost our jobs and we wanted to talk to our landlord about postponing payments until we started working again.
Except the landlord's phone goes straight to voicemail. More than that, the voicemail box is full every time we call. He hasn't responded to texts or emails. We've been trying to get a hold of him for over two weeks now. Although I've never seen him, he sounds like an older dude and I'm worried about him. I'm also worried about my household.
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35. Knowledge Is Power
I once had a client who was a former paralegal, so he used his knowledge to do everything he could to make the process harder for everyone. He was hoping to drive us all crazy until the judge or prosecutor would just give him a good plea deal to get away from him already. One time, he took things to the next level. To prevent us from holding a hearing, he stripped naked, coated himself in his own poop, and then refused to exit his cell.
So, the cell extraction guys would have to go and wrestle him out of there. While he was covered in his own poop. We'd obviously have to adjourn. He'd spit at people. He'd reach into his pants in court, grab out poop, and smear it all over his head. He'd swear at people. He'd try to get judges to recuse themselves by biasing them against him. In order to make that happen, he would try insulting them thoroughly and constantly. It was an absolutely ugly situation on all fronts.
36. Making Gender An Issue
One client of mine was accused of attacking the mother of his child while she was holding the child in her arms. The regular public defender had to withdraw, because he kept talking down to her because she was a woman. He would call her "sweetheart" every time he addressed her. This made my client think that the judge was biased against him based on his gender.
The guy was a total jerk. He threatened to fire me within our first conversation. He also seemed unsure about how to proceed when I told him I didn't care. When I discussed the incident with him, he essentially admitted that he did it because his baby's mother had insulted him, and he felt a visceral need to put her in her place.
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37. Playing The Freedom Card
I once had a client who was accused of a noise violation. Literally the most minor misdemeanor ever. But he was absolutely adamant that he had a constitutional right to play music as loud as he wanted. And any time anyone tried to tell him otherwise, he'd cut them off and yell at them about his rights and freedoms. I had a thirty-minute conversation with this guy in which I struggled to even explain the basic process to him because he kept cutting me off.
He repeatedly insulted me, saying I was too dumb to realize how he was going to get off. He kept saying his case should be dismissed because "some wealthy suburban guy got off on constitutional grounds, so I should too! Maybe I should look up his lawyer so you can talk to someone who's actually good at his job, and he can tell you how to do your job. Have you even heard of the First Amendment?"
38. Why So Salty?
One of my father's friends tried to “salt the earth” before getting divorced. He transferred the deeds to a rental house and a cabin to relatives and sold the family cars to relatives for tiny sums…and he was just getting started. He put stocks in a trust “for the children” and vanished a chunk of cash from the company he co-owned with his wife.
He even stopped paying himself a salary, electing to burn through their personal savings for over a year instead. Well, he might have salted the earth but he was in for just desserts. When the divorce proceedings went to court, he learned that judges really, really hate it when you try to play dirty games. Turns out that hiding or intentionally diminishing assets is actually not a good idea.
In fact, judges will absolutely refer you to prosecutors. I don't think that he spent time behind bars, but his ex-wife did get everything, plus the satisfaction of firing him from his own company.
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39. Flu Shot
To this day this case amazes me. As a first-year associate, I was given a terrible insurance case where my client received a flu shot and thereafter felt pain in his shoulder. He went to another doctor who performed an MRI and determined that he had a torn rotator cuff. Even though these things were almost certainly not related, my job was to argue that the flu shot caused the rotator cuff tear.
Even so, our doctor witness somehow connected the two and the case paid out. Being the bottom of the totem pole, I had no choice but to take the case—which was handed down by a partner. But at the same time, it just overwhelmingly made me feel like the worst stereotyped attorney. I hated having to walk into court with such a corrupt argument. I could feel my reputation being destroyed in real time.
40. The Veteran
I used to represent veterans to get their service-connected disability benefits. I represented a homeless veteran who told me that he had been stationed in a certain conflict zone. Everything he said corroborated with the timeline and how events played out, and the story barely changed so I took him at face value. I argued to get him compensation for his PTSD with the earliest effective date possible. Then I expedited the hearing due to his homeless status. I got him six figures and off the streets for a while.
I went to town for this guy and worked hard to make sure he got a good result. But then, I learned the real story. The man's full records finally came in two long years after I had first requested them. It turns out that the man had been in the forces, but he had never served in the zone that he said traumatized him. In fact, he never served overseas at all. Kind of burned me out after that.
41. Bug Bear
My boyfriend’s hobby is to take re-claimed wood, custom cut it, and make tabletops or shelves out of them, selling some tables for $400 or more. I had three of these seven-feet long oak wood pieces sitting on the side of my house for a month, out to dry in the sun, on planks. Those pieces can be sold for $1,200 or more when finished. Then my worst nightmare happened.
This lady that lives in the area assumed they were for the trash and publicized the wood online as "next to a dumpster and going to a landfill". My recycling bin was next to this wood, on the back end of my house. I came home to my wood missing and I found her post online, giving it away for free with my exact home address for all to see.
Someone, unknowingly thinking it was this woman's to give away, snagged them. I contacted the guy and got it back. I then wrote the woman a message, showing her a screenshot of the NY State Government Property Lines website of my property’s border, which she clearly crossed over to take the photo of the wood on my property.
I told her to never do that again and mind her own business. Her response was: "I am quite too busy to read all this, either way it was a mistake. Good luck out there in this world, it sure is a bear". After that passive-aggressive stuff, I knew I had to get revenge. I went to the authorities and filed for trespassing. The officer said I could get her for possible larceny.
I'm glad she's going to get what's coming to her because I am now completely uncomfortable with doing future projects in my own yard and the entire town I live in now knows my exact address attached to my name because of this lady. Maybe if she was more kind I would have let bygones be bygones, but now I'm thinking, "the world sure can be a bear".
42. Arrive Alive
So.....my girlfriend went out for a couple drinks with her friend tonight. She didn’t drink much and she waited until she knew she was sober to drive home. When the time came, she drove herself and her roommate home in her roommate’s car. On her way, she noticed that the headlights were off, and flipped them on a couple of blocks down the road.
A minute or two later, she was pulled over by an officer. She admitted to having a couple of drinks and the officer asked her to get out of the vehicle. This is when it gets interesting. The officer made her take her glasses off, in the dark...during a snowstorm...to perform the sobriety test. He then declared that she was wasted WITHOUT HAVING HER BLOW TO TEST HER.
He then detained her at the spot. At the station, she blew way below the legal limit. The lady at the booking desk told her to get an attorney when she heard what the result was.
43. It Doesn’t Run In The Family
I'm 16 and my demonic sister is 15. She has never been right since we were little kids. Always violent. She bashed me in the head with a metal pipe when I was five because I wouldn't let her ride my bike. All of my life I've been putting up with her and I have had enough. She hits me, breaks my things, literally stuck a knife in me last year, took the keys to my car and banged it up twice this year.
My parents won’t do anything about it. She's already in alternative school for stalking another girl in her class. I really don't know what is wrong with her. She's not slow or anything like that. Before she got kicked out of regular school she was in the gifted program. My parents think she's like this misunderstood genius or whatever. They refuse to involve the authorities because it's a "family issue". Which brings us to today.
My parents forced me to let her tag along with me and my friends because honestly she doesn't have any except for this delinquent at the alternative school she is supposedly dating. Anyway, I was hanging out with my friends today and of course the demon was with us. We decided to go to the Dollar Tree to get some snacks. Demon didn't buy anything.
As we left the store, I could hear something in her bag like a rattling noise. I confronted her and this little witch took a bunch of cough pills! I don't know why. So I told her I was going to call mom. I pulled out my phone right there and she punched me in the face. I was really angry she did that in front of my friends and no way was I going to let her embarrass me, so we started fighting.
I took her down and had her pinned on the ground. That's what you have to do; pin her and let her tire herself because she will NOT stop otherwise. I had her arms pinned and she started flailing her legs and kicking me. She got me in the throat as I was letting her go. I was getting off of her when she kicked me right smack in my face, full force, and broke my nose.
Blood was gushing everywhere and she didn't even care, she just left. It took forever to stop the bleeding and my face is swollen and ugly. My friend gave me a bunch of Tylenol and it still hurts. I came home and told my parents immediately. Their reply made my blood boil. They asked me what did I do to upset her. I was so angry I told them I was calling the authorities, but they stopped me again.
Something needs to be done about her because she's getting a lot worse and my mom is eight months pregnant now and I'm really scared for my little brother when he gets here.
44. Out Of The Woodwork
When I was 14, a close family friend took advantage of me. I got pregnant but gave the baby up for adoption when I was 15. I knew the child was adopted by distant family members who lived a state away, but I did not know their names or what they were like. We received a sum of $2,500 dollars when they took her from the hospital. I do not remember signing anything.
I do not know what happened to the “friend” who hurt me; I asked to be kept out of the process as much as possible. My mother said he was sentenced but I don't know if he's still in there, how long he was in, or if he even went to jail. I have two other children, ages 10 and 7 and am now married. My husband knows about my daughter but has deferred to me on how we should handle the situation. Recently, it has all blown up.
A month ago, I received a Facebook message from a woman who says she is my daughter. I believe she is, because of her appearance and that fact she has the same genetic condition as my attacker. She told me that she wanted to get to know me. I spent hours going through her Facebook page, trying to decide what to do. I found myself disgusted by her.
There are a lot of similarities between her and “the friend” as she is rude, vulgar, whiny, and smokes illicit substances. She is married but has a publicly strained relationship with her husband and refers to him by cruel nicknames. I decided that I would not be comfortable meeting her. I blocked her without responding. After a week, I began to receive letters from her.
Four letters in total. I did not read those either but recently received a phone call three days ago. I finally answered. I told her that I was not interested in getting to know her and that she should leave me and my family alone or I would get the authorities involved. Her answer chilled me. She began to berate me. She told me that my family was her family.
She accused me of not going through proper adoption procedures and that I had maliciously sold her to an awful couple as punishment for being born and that I had held back important information. Without medical records, she lived life as a very sick child and was deeply in debt from the genetic testing necessary to diagnose her illness. She told me that she would be making contact with my family whether I liked it or not.
She also said she would subpoena me for her father's name if I did not comply and that I could possibly go behind bars for selling a baby. When I began to cry, she offered me a cruel alternative. Her genetic condition makes getting pregnant more difficult. If I agreed to pay for a round of IVF, she would consider us "even" and would only try to make contact with her father.
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45. Money In The Bank
I am 19, and I currently live in New York City. My parents passed when my brothers and I were young. The eldest was 11, the second was seven, and I was five. They left money for each of us once we turned 18 to help with college and life expenses. I turned 18 last year, and went through the process of getting the money. It was in March 2019 that I finally got it.
It turned out to be a large sum, around $230,000. I decided to split the money into two accounts: $75,000 into a savings account that no one was supposed to be able to touch, and the rest into my checking account. I wasn't spending much every month, and my grandma has only taken out a few thousand to take care of bills. Yesterday, it came to my attention that my entire checking account had been bled dry.
There are now only $200 dollars to my name. I called the bank, and we found several instances of transfers of large sums of money over the six month period after I deposited the money. I'll admit, I really should have been paying more attention, but I was sure only me and my grandma had access to the account and I got no warning from the bank about any of these transfers. Then we figured out the whole awful story.
We tracked where the transfers were going, and they were going straight into my middle brother's account. He had somehow gotten a hold of my info. When I confronted him, he said he had spent it all and only had about $4,000 left. He spent it all—a whole $197,000—on food and on in-game purchases. I know it sounds unbelievable, but after looking at his bank statements, it's true.
It's just line after line of Uber Eats, Postmates, and game purchases. My grandma wants me to forgive him and let him work to make the money back, but this man just finished community school and has no work experience. It would take YEARS for him to make that money back on minimum wage. I’ve decided to call the authorities on him as well as sue the bank.
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46. No Prosecution
One time, I represented this client first when he was a juvenile charged with disorderly conduct at school for fighting, then when he became an adult, it was for simple things like possession. As he got older, it became easier and easier to figure out what parts of his life hadn’t gone well. Over the years, I tried to counsel him and push him to better himself.
When he got his high school diploma, he started going to Narcotics Anonymous, started classes at a community college, and found a part-time job. Then, on the night of his 21st birthday, he was charged with driving while impaired. Of course, I take on this case for him. But about 6 months later, when we're supposed to be in court, my client doesn't show up. At this point in his life, this was highly unusual.
As I’m trying to figure out where he is, the court starts going over Arraignments and First Appearances. Lo and behold, three people are up for murder charges. The prosecution starts to tell the judge about the facts of the case. During his speech, he mentions the victims' names. That's when I felt my stomach drop. One of the victims was my client.
Apparently, my client was at a party when these three individuals decided to allegedly do a drive by shooting. My client suffered multiple wounds and didn’t make it to the hospital. So...by default, as you can’t prosecute someone who isn't alive. Thus the State has to take a dismissal which means that technically I won my case.
Either way, it was crushing. My client was finally turning his life around...only to pass before he could enjoy it.
47. Taking Its Toll
As a former employment lawyer, I regret defending a company in a lawsuit in which their employee had an accident, lost her left leg, and had the left side of her body covered in burn scars—with the company at fault. The case was more or less like this. This lady worked at a toll booth on a highway. Whenever she needed to go to the toilet, she'd have to close the toll and change the sign lights to red so no one would go through that toll.
Unfortunately, due to lack of maintenance, one day, the lights did not change. The results were catastrophic. As the lady was crossing the road, a car ran her over and dragged her for 10 excruciating meters. After defending this case and this horrible company, I realized that I no longer wanted to do this kind of work. I dropped everything and quit the week after.
48. Unsafe Roads
The case I particularly hated happened at my first law job. This woman was a long-term client of my boss. In the past ten years or so, she has been caught driving while impaired eight times, violated home incarceration countless times, been caught with controlled substances a few times, and even jumped two people while she was supposed to be confined to her home
My boss at the time was the master of getting people off for these kinds of charges, so this client always managed to stay on home incarceration with whatever releases she desired. I always regretted her cases because that woman is truly a danger to the public. She’s undoubtedly going to end someone's life someday. But lord almighty, if she isn’t the luckiest woman alive in getting away with reckless driving so far...
49. No Lesson Learned
In one of my first cases after passing the bar exam, a young man retained me on a D-U-I charge. No one was hurt, but he totaled his car. During trial, the officer testified that my client was clearly wasted at the scene of the accident, and that my client was loudly blaming the accident on the idiot who took his car, crashed it, and then fled before law enforcement arrived.
However, according to two other witness statements, my client's friend (the passenger) was the one blaming a mystery stranger, not my client. The officer must have confused the two men during his testimony. This discrepancy raised a reasonable doubt in the judge’s mind, so she acquitted my client. Looking back, I wish she hadn't.
At the time, the acquittal was somewhat unexpected for me. In my personal view, my client was clearly responsible for the accident, regardless of who was blaming the mystery idiot to the officers. But I was happy my young client got off, no one was hurt, and lessons were learned. And I was quite euphoric to have won my first big case.
The regret? About a month after the acquittal, my young client called me at 3 am from the local detainment center saying, “It’s me again! The authorities got me again! Can you help me?” Not only did I answer no, I instantly regretted getting the earlier acquittal. My client apparently didn’t learn any lessons...
50. Rotten To The Core
I worked in defense and represented a guy who had been driving while impaired. Long story short, he was pulled over by law enforcement after they followed him leaving a bar. At trial, I got the one of the officers to admit that during the 2.5 miles he followed my client for, he did not observe a single moving violation—no speeding, erratic driving, driving over the lines, blowing stop signs, running red lights. He didn’t even “stop suddenly” at red lights.
I also got the DRE officer to testify that the accused only spoke Spanish and they couldn’t get an interpreter officer to the roadside to explain the field sobriety exercises, which the officers documented the accused “refused to perform". Jury came back in 15 minutes. The guy was extremely grateful, and his lovely family was very gracious in thanking me and our office. Felt good about the whole thing. Then everything went so, so wrong.
A couple months later, I’m in the county to meet with a client, and I see him in one of the pods. I find out that sometime after the trial he inappropriately touched his 8-year-old step-daughter. I think about that case a lot.
51. Real Estate Litigation
After law school, I had to turn down an amazing job offer because my wife got a better offer somewhere else. So basically, I followed her along and was desperate to find something. After three months of fruitless efforts, I would take just about any job that required a JD. Three months after moving, I got an interview for a "real estate litigation" job.
They hired me the next day, looking back that was probably red flag number one. First day on the job they taught me how to foreclose on a claim of lien. These are two things I had never heard of before. Turns out, it is totally brainless work if you have the right forms. So anyways, it took me about two months to realize this (when I had my first set of hearings) but literally my sole purpose at the firm (which represented over 100 Home Owners Associations) was to take people's houses away for not paying their Home Owner's Association dues.
After my first set of foreclosures, I actually slipped into a pretty legitimate depression. I was getting paid peanuts to drive nearly an hour to work every day, to do work I despised, on behalf of people I literally could not pretend to care about. Then came the straw that broke the camel’s back. I started signing the foreclosures and one day I realized I was THAT GUY. I understand someone has to do the work I guess—there certainly is a lot of money to be made—but it was not for me.
I did that job for three months, came home one Friday, and told my wife I'd rather be homeless than go back on Monday. By some stroke of luck, I started a stellar defense job within two weeks and all of the heartache has 100% been worth it. I've won a lot of cases and never once felt bad about it. Never lost sleep over someone not going behind bars.
So yeah, every case where I took someone's house away (probably two dozen times) for not paying HOA fees (generally $4,000 or less) was the worst case I ever won. Screw those.
52. Big Regrets
I did some custody work early in my career and won some cases—more on the merit of my trial skills than on the merit of the parents. The thing with family law work in general is that there is essentially no bar to entry. Anybody with a law degree and a pulse can get a family law practice up and running quickly because there is just an absolute glut of work.
What that also means is that 75% of the lawyers practicing family law are clueless and awful. Early in my career I certainly was clueless, but at the least I was not awful. Therefore, in a battle between clueless and awful versus just clueless, clueless usually won. So yeah, I can't recall any specific cases, except to say that fighting over children in court is a terrible thing and basically everyone loses. I regret that entire portion of my career.
53. Another Custody Case
A woman wanted her daughter’s custody. We used the state preference about custody going to the mother (judge bias), her improved economic situation, and some minor garbage like the daughter’s grades and discipline problems at school to discredit the dad. Not even a month after we won, the mother calls and says she had a ''problem".
Then she explains the ''problem'' was that her boyfriend forced himself on the girl, and after that she had the gall to ask that we pick up HIS defense. It was one of the things that made me want to quit government work.
54. Don’t Look A Gift Horse In The Mouth
Summer of 2018, I get work regarding what seemed from the client's description—a pretty drawn out and messy divorce case. The husband was my client, and he made it seem, very adamantly, that his soon to be ex-wife was after his every penny. Given; he appeared to have a fairly high paying job, it looked like a pretty common type of case, the city I work in has many instances of this, it has a high cost of living and a lot of well-paid working professionals in private industry.
He was a very well spoken, amicable guy in his late 50s, and truly seemed like he'd been taken by surprise and betrayed by his soon to be ex-wife. When I actually got to the case, however, I was basically floored. His wife was a working professional as well (worked in government), they'd been married for over twenty years and had two kids together, and a paid off house.
Before taxes he made almost three times what she did, not counting his stock options, and yet she'd contributed equally to their mortgage on every home they'd owned over the course of the marriage. By all accounts, despite a vast difference in income, she'd carried her weight, raised two kids, and worked full time during the entirety of the marriage.
I live and work in Canada, she could have easily raked him over the coals in the divorce if it had gone to court. Instead, it seemed like she'd done everything she possibly could to not have him subjected to that. This divorce had been ongoing for five years before he hired me, and it was basically him looking a gift horse in the mouth over and over, a constant renegotiation on the contract they'd both signed initially, with him skimping on alimony and then debating on lesser terms.
He was basically given an inch and tried to take a mile, dragging it out for so long that per divorce law it had to go to court. I almost suspect he did so as a way to try and drag her through the mud, though he may have genuinely been that delusional. I consider it a win only because his ex-wife was adamant about only wanting what was somewhat fair, and for it to be over because of the strain it was having on the family.
Per the contract he owed her, there was about 50,000 in backpay, but she was content with 15,000, which was less than this guy made in a month. I did regret the "win" though, because she seemed like a very nice woman with the patience of a saint, while almost all of his anger towards her seemed to come from a wounded ego.
55. Twenty Years
I prosecuted a murder case. 21-year-old kid starts dating an older guy's ex-girlfriend. The older guy, a real biker dude, was going all over his small town talking about how he was going to kick the kid's butt. The older guy sends some inappropriate pictures of the ex while he's getting loaded at a bar, so the kid says something smart in response. Older guy comes to the kid's house to fight him.
The kid shoots him once, and the older guy doesn’t survive. Jury didn't buy self-defense or castle doctrine. Convicted of voluntary manslaughter. Twenty years. Burned up his appeals with no luck. I have a son about the kid's age. I could totally imagine him doing the exact same things if he were in a similar situation. It's going to haunt me forever. No doubt about it. Started thinking about other jobs the moment the verdict came back.
56. Big Hearts, Bigger Stomachs
Not really “winning” but I recently had a case settle where my client was so obviously lying it was painful. He was in a fender bender and said he was too disabled to drive, or to work at the office as a result. He then claimed that his employer fired him after he had been on disability leave for almost a year. Some really big claims.
A few months after filing, we discovered that he played in a national, amateur, full-contact football league and there was footage of him getting tackled, endzone dancing, and tackling during the time he claimed he was too hurt to sit at a desk. Even when I confronted him on it, he claimed he hadn’t played while he was injured—despite having a stat line and footage of him playing from games dated on days he was supposedly getting physical therapy.
We didn’t settle for as much as most of my cases, but he still walked away with like $20k. I’m happy to be a plaintiff’s attorney for the most part because my clients have typically been wronged but he was such a bald-faced liar it really made me angry.
57. No Rest For The Wicked
I was representing the government at a social benefits tribunal. The applicant was an autistic man who was struggling to make ends meet, but was trying his absolute best to contribute everything he could to society. He had a job where his manager was very accommodating and was a very sympathetic person. He just wanted the extra cash to make his life a little easier for himself.
Sadly, he didn't qualify for the benefit, but I think he deserved it. My closing argument was that no matter how much we empathized with this man, no matter how deserving we thought he was, he simply didn't qualify and the tribunal had to apply the law. He was unsuccessful, and when I left the building to head back to my office, he was just sitting outside on the curb crying. That image has stuck with me for a few years. Pretty heartbreaking.
That was the lowest point in my career and I have moved on. It's really important to remember that mental health in my line of work is a very real issue that is hurting people. There aren't sufficient supports in place to help people like me and many others who find themselves in positions like this.
58. Smells Like Teen Spirit
I felt nauseated after being sick for a few weeks, so I went to the nurse's office at my school. There was only one nurse there, and I was the only student there. I explained my situation and requested that due to my asthma, she turn off her essential oil diffuser. She refused. Two more students came in, and they explained what problem they had.
Both of them said that the essential oils were making it hard to breathe, and she denied that this was even possible. I believe that one of them also had asthma. I was having a large amount of difficulty breathing, so I told her that this was a health and safety issue. She got angry and asked me to leave the room. She had not yet attempted to diagnose me. I fully plan on reporting her.
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59. An Unclean Break
I met my husband four years ago, just before moving to Georgia. Shortly after my move he followed me, and we fell in love. We lived together from 2015 onward, and in mid-November 2018 we married. Then it all unraveled. Today I discovered that virtually everything he has ever told me or demonstrated about his life was a complete fabrication.
From specific medical issues to jobs (past and present) to education to family relationships to the claim that his first language was not English to phone conversations that never happened to people he knows to...if you can think it, he has lied about it. We live together but my name is on the lease and I hold the title on both of our cars.
He has some belongings in our home, but most of it has been purchased with money that I have earned over our four years together, plus money from my personal savings account. I am totally open to letting him walk with all of “his” stuff, and even signing the older car to him. But other than that, a quick internet search makes it look like I might have grounds for annulment of my marriage. That’s what I’ll be pursuing.
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60. Here Kitty Kitty
My mom has a history of mental health issues; however, she was seeing a doctor and everything was straightening out. I moved in with my boyfriend and when we moved, the landlords refused to let us have a pet. My mom offered to take care of our kitty, and she agreed that I can get him anytime I want to. We have a verbal and written agreements that Kitty is still mine, and she’ll let me get him whenever my living situation allows pets.
Over the weekend, my mom had a mental break. She took a bunch of her boyfriend’s stuff and mailed it to me to sell on eBay. When I refused to do that for her and sent the box back to her, she got mad—and she said she got a horrific revenge. She sent me message after message explaining how she beheaded my cat and his head will be on my doorstep Monday morning.
I also found out she quit taking her medication, and she went off the deep end. I called the authorities and animal control. They did a wellness check and to my surprise, Kitty was alive and healthy. After the officers left, she demanded that I come by her house and get Kitty, and if I don’t, she’ll behead him for real this time. So I went to her house and when I went to claim Kitty, she refused to give him up.
I called the officers back out, and this is where it went from frustrating to infuriating. According to them, since the cat has technically lived with her for more than three days, the cat is hers. I showed them our contract, her threatening messages, and showed them where she told me to get him. They said that they can only take custody of the cat if she actually harms him, and since he was still alive and unharmed, they said I’d need a court order to officially get custody of the cat.
After I went home, she kept sending threats, so I blocked her number. I ended up going to the hospital because I thought I was having a heart attack. Anyways. I don’t know what to do from here. All I know is, I believe her threats are credible and I need immediate custody of my cat before she actually crosses the line and actually hurts him.
Also, my landlords are understanding of the situation and will let me house my cat. I’ve had him since he was two days old, nursed him, and took total ownership of him. He’s now 10 years old and I just need him to be safe.
61. A Pain In The Butt
My mother took my sister to the doctor for a colonoscopy so she could drive her back after. While there, my sister wakes up during the procedure. She admits she was kicking up a fuss. Apparently, she was too sedated to actually verbalize her pain so she basically just screamed and cried. She could hear the doctor telling the nurses, "this sometimes happens during the procedure, it's just the body's response. I know it's upsetting but she's not awake and can't feel anything".
When it's over and my sister is back in her room, my sister told my mom what happened. She was still crying and extremely upset. It was painful but also terrifying to not be understood by the doctors. The doctor came in to tell them how it went. When he saw her, his reaction was horrific. He immediately launched into this speech about, "Yeah sorry she's crying, all young women do this. It's called 'being a teenage girl,' we see it all the time here".
My mom says "Uh, she's saying she was awake during the procedure". The doctor had this look of shock on his face. He kind of rambles for a while and then jumps into this thing about, "Well her blood pressure was getting too low so we couldn't give her any more sedation". My mom said "Alright...But she's in a lot of pain here, is there something we can do about that?"
The doctor literally said, "If I could give you a pill to cure being a young woman, I would. But I can't, so she's all yours, mom," and he left. The nurse was horrified and said, "You should not be seeing this doctor again". She apologized a bunch and gave my family a referral to a new doctor. We're going to file a complaint with our state regarding his comments about not having a pill to cure being a young woman.
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62. Not Supposed To Look Like That
I had my first child six weeks and three days ago. During delivery, I tore and had to get stitches. The doctor on call didn't tell me how many stitches I got, where he put them, or even what type of tear I had. Then I had my six weeks check-up on Monday and when I finally get a room, I realize my doctor didn't have any notes or know anything about my delivery from the doctor on call.
She had to ask me if I got stitches and if the doctor on call gave me any information about them. I had to tell her I had no idea, I was out of it after delivering my son, I couldn't even hold him. When she finally gets to checking to make sure everything is healed up properly, her face changes and she tells me we have a problem. She then pulls out a notepad and begins to explain that the way I was stitched caused it to heal in a weird way.
She then draws the opening and shades out the middle of the hole. I now have two mini holes that not even a pen tip could fit into! She tells me I have to have surgery because the problem isn't going to resolve itself. I already had a traumatic time healing from the birthing process and I now have to go back through what traumatized me to begin with. I’m going to look into suing that doctor.
63. Parole Corruption
In the spring of 2018, I was a third-year practicing intern at a public defender's office. As the job entailed, I dealt with a lot of clients who were facing time, but none stuck in my mind the way this one guy did. One day, I looked over the file where the client had three years of probation. I found this very odd due to the initial charge: Possession.
Even so, I go to the docket call and to talk to my client. He's a white male, 30-35-years-old. The first words out of his mouth were "$600". I didn't know what that meant or what was going on. So, I asked him. What I quickly learned was that this client was mentally impaired. During our conversation, he kept bringing up the fact that he didn't do anything, and that he is "paying, paying every month" etc.
And, probably due to my lack of experience, I kept trying to steer him towards the issue: Why did he violate his probation conditions? It didn't even cross my mind that, hold on, maybe he didn't actually do it. I left the cell, talked with the public defender, and told him about the situation. After our conversation, I realized what the client was trying to say.
He had fees of over $2000 and all he had left to pay was $600. If you don't pay, you are in violation of your parole and you have to go back in the slammer. So, in his mind, he thought he was there because he hadn't paid n full. The reality was much worse and different. After a mini investigation, I determined it was the half-way house where he resided.
I contacted the wonderful old woman who "ran it" if you will. She gave me details that this man, although he knew, could not regurgitate and express. Turns out his parole officer was a complete scum bag. He had gone to the half-way house, told our client what a piece of garbage he was, and how he was a total waste of DNA.
He proceeded to go into the kitchen and bring out his service weapon. Then, he ordered my client to go into the back yard and literally dig a grave for himself. All of this was done in front of the old lady. On the day of the case, I called and she immediately came to testify for him. The judge dismissed the case. Found out later, the parole officer was doing this kind of thing to multiple people. He got fired immediately.
64. Slumlord
I helped represent a slumlord in a lawsuit regarding discrimination in public housing based on disability. The state was representing the disabled tenant. The facts were pretty clear, the slumlord discriminated on the basis of disability. However, our state doesn’t have much case law regarding discrimination in housing based on disability.
We ended up sowing enough doubt to survive the tenant’s motion for summary judgment. Knowing that the tenant needed money, we made an offer for a decent amount of money for a disabled tenant, but peanuts for the slumlord. I imagine the state wanted to proceed to trial, but the tenant desperately needed money and accepted.
By gaining the best outcome for our client, we allowed the slumlord to get off basically scot-free.
65. True Story
A guy was a convicted felon so couldn’t be in possession of any arms. So he sold two firearms to a pawn shop, only for them to later traced back to him because of the store's paperwork. The felon's story was that they were his father-in-law's and that he and his girlfriend had only found them after he passed. They sold them because they wanted to get rid of them and they needed the money.
The DA office refused to waive the three-year minimum sentence, so it went to trial. I was the prosecutor for the case and ultimately I got a guilty verdict, meaning the guy had to spend three long years behind bars. I felt bad because I think his story was true. I did my job...but at what cost? A guy who made an honest mistake got locked up for three years of his life. That one keeps me up at night.
66. Doubtful Justice
I had a divorce case where I represented a wife who was livid because her husband left her for another woman. The wife reported that their young daughter made a comment about something that could be interpreted as inappropriate touching by her father, the husband. The only conceivable corroboration about the comment would have come from the daughter’s testimony.
However, the daughter was so young that her credibility would be suspect, and nobody wanted to put her through the ordeal of testifying against her father. There was no possibility of prosecuting the father, because there was no other evidence that he'd mistreated the daughter. But the wife pushed for sole custody and insisted that the father would only get supervised visitations for the next year.
We/she won. I’ll never know for sure what happened between the father and daughter, but the more I think about in retrospect, the more I doubt that justice was served.
Wikimedia Commons, Donnie Ray Jones
67. Malpractice In The Court
I once represented an insurance company in an awful case. A man had a brain injury due to a car accident, and passed six months later. His family sued my client. I've never seen a lazier effort on behalf of a plaintiff. His firm immediately handed the case over to a junior associate. She barely did anything with it. We had settlement negotiations but they were way too high considering the lack of any medical evidence they had to link his demise to the car accident.
It probably was related, but you can't walk into court with that argument and no evidence to support it. That seemed to be their plan. On the eve of trial, I told the other side's lawyer to accept the settlement but she refused. I told her she would lose because I was going to get all of her "evidence" thrown out. Still, they went to trial.
The partner that was supposed to be there with her, but he didn't show up because his dog was sick. No joke. As I predicted, all of her evidence was thrown out. The family was sobbing as the case devolved. In the end, my firm won but I didn't feel great about it. The judge was appalled. I'm sure the firm was sued for malpractice. The young associate got fired within weeks.
68. Brain Matter
I came into law school with a very clear moral compass. I knew what I wanted to do (defense) and I had very strong feelings about capital punishment. I thought there was never a situation that warranted it. Cut to me working in my school’s Capital Punishment clinic. The way the clinic worked, was that you'd typically be assigned 1-2 clients, review their case, visit them, and do research at the discretion of the supervising attorneys. I had one client, and his case will haunt me for the rest of my life.
He goes in for life after a really brutal assault on a teenager during a burglary... and proceeds to move to more and more secure facilities after numerous attacks on guards and an escape attempt. But that wasn't what got him capital punishment. See, while my guy was in supermax, he managed to slip his cuffs, beat a guard lifeless with a metal bar, and throw his battered body down the stairs.
All of this is on video. There's no question he did it. So, the jury deliberates for like a day before they give him the long goodbye. By the time I get the case, it's about reviewing his eligibility for capital punishment. So, I dig into his case file for the testimony that appeared at trial and there's all this stuff about huge problems with his cognitive ability and like his actual brain structure.
With the supervising lawyer's okay, I do a little independent research, consolidate all the different testimony and map it onto a brain. The conclusion I come to is pretty simple but completely shocking. This guy has less than half a brain. Through a combination of substance use, a rough upbringing, and birth defects, roughly half of my client's brain just is not present anymore in any meaningful way.
Including all the centers that regulate hormone production, fight or flight response, and threat assessment. I find a bunch of medical reports where people with just some of these conditions get severe behavior imbalances, and in at least one case psychotic episodes. Basically, I help establish that this guy has the kind of diminished capacity that makes him ineligible for Capital Punishment under Atkins.
If he's successful on an Atkins claim, then he is structurally ineligible for capital punishment. But, do I feel good about helping to probably save this guy’s life? Heck no. Because it means he's going to be in a supermax forever and he's already shown that he can harm people in a supermax. If he doesn't get the chair, he'll still be in prison for life, and I can almost guarantee that he will injure (or worse) another guard during that time, probably multiple ones.
BUT if he's executed, we're executing someone who really isn't meaningfully responsible for their actions because most of their brain is gone. He never had the option to make the right decision, or make any decision, because of his incredibly extensive brain damage. It's out of my hands now, but they are appealing so it's going to go before the court eventually.
I drank a lot that semester, and I'll never do capital punishment work again.
69. Mental Scars
This is my nastiest case by far. There was a guy in the UK who came from Zimbabwe. He lived here for three years from the age of 16 and then went abroad to serve in the British forces. When he returned from service, he got himself a girlfriend. One night, he went to her apartment and found items that would suggest she had more than one partner.
After a heated argument, she admits that she's a sex worker. He's so furious that he strangles her. He runs off to Heathrow Airport to catch the first plane to Zimbabwe and is caught by the authorities. He claimed that he had his passport on him because of pure chance, and the reason why he was going back to Zimbabwe was so he could end his own life at his grandfather's grave in shame.
The cases against him were to A) imprison him or B) boot him out of the country. He got imprisoned but we were called in for the second case as I was with an immigration firm then. We won the appeal. Twice. On the grounds that he was mentally scarred by his time in combat, his officer gave him an amazing report and that British guys with service records don't get the best treatment in Zimbabwean prisons.
Now he walks the streets as a result of good behavior. This has always been... a weird case. He was definitely supposed to have been kicked out of the country for his grievous actions. But human rights are human rights...
70. Saw Situation
When my uncle was a young personal injury lawyer and had to take all the cases assigned to him, he had a client who was drinking with his neighbors on someone's front porch. It was a spontaneous get together and he got quite toasted. The client starts talking about his amazing new portable saw he just bought. He brings it out to demonstrate, propping up a board against the porch stair and his thigh. He proceeds to cut himself so badly that his genitals were hanging on by a thread.
So, my relative has this guy in to chat, and he says he wants to sue the whole world: the maker of the saw, the store that sold it and the neighbor whose porch he was on. He unexpectedly drops his pants right then and there to show the damage. He refused to accept any blame for it. And I always thought lawyers had boring jobs.
71. Doctor’s Defense
I work in medical malpractice defense. Once I had an obstetrician who burned a patient during a procedure. For the next 16 months, whenever I met with the doctor, he lied to me, saying he had no idea how it happened. But the patient came in without a burn, and after the procedure, the patient left with a burn exactly where the doctor had been operating.
There's no way this doctor didn't know what had happened. It wasn't until I brought up settlement, because by that point, I knew we weren't going to win, that he finally admitted, "Oh maybe I do know what happened". We ultimately settled that case, but sometimes I think this doctor really ought to have lost both the lawsuit and their license.
72. No Pay
When I was a young associate, I was assigned to do a civil commercial trial for a client that was not happy with the senior partner. He stopped paying. We moved to withdraw. The court refused to allow us to withdraw and forced us to go to trial. We spend a significant amount of time in trial prep., etc. I win the trial.
Client never pays. The client's position was that my boss screwed up the deal and that there never should have been a dispute/trial to begin with. Firm policy prohibits us from suing clients because that causes a drastic increase in malpractice premiums—9 times out of 10 if you sue a client for nonpayment, they will countersue for malpractice. All in all, technically I won. But the entire case was a mess and the client didn't even pay.
73. Accumulating Bills
I won a summary judgment motion that my firm fully expected to lose. We had a decent argument, but odds were stacked against us. For the uninitiated, a summary judgement motion is a time in the lawsuit when each side thinks they know all the facts there are to discover about the claim and the various defenses that will be brought up.
One party (usually the defendant) says, "Based on all these facts, even if they're true, I still win because plaintiff can't prove his case". You file a motion asking the judge to review all the facts. This is not a trial and doesn't have witnesses. It's all done on paper, reviewing expert reports or witnesses' under oath deposition testimony, taken usually months prior.
You ask the judge to say, "Yes all these things are true, but it is not enough to show a violation of the law, party filing the motion wins". And you do not proceed to a trial. Do not pass go. Do not collect your contingency fee. That's a lawyer joke...a contingency fee is what sometimes winning lawyers get paid only when they win.
Anyway, the client initially was thrilled. Case is over—we tried to break the news gently... nope. Three years later we're back in the same spot we were before we "won" our motion. The other side appealed it up to the state supreme court and won. So, we are back at square one. North of $100k in bills for his lawyer, with no resolution. Maybe it'll settle, maybe it will go to trial.
74. Scot Free
I have been a defense lawyer for 30 years. I have tried over 100 violent cases and 20 capital cases, but here's the one that stuck with me. I had a case very early in my career where I defended a man who was being accused of ending a young man's life. In the end, the jury was hung and my client was acquitted at his second trial. I was doing my job, but I had this suspicion that my client's story wasn't completely honest.
As we left the courthouse, he was walking one way, and I another. I yelled back and asked, “ You shot that guy didn’t you?” He said, “Yep!” and laughed. I have never asked a client if they were actually guilty since hearing that man's laugh. It bothered me for quite a while.
75. Relapse Regrets
I do family law. I once represented a father who had lost almost all custody of his kids because he'd had issues with illicit substances and had spent time behind bars. He came to me saying he had been clean for nine months and had his life together. He seemed so sincere in wanting to get a full relationship with his son. Meanwhile, the other side fought viciously to keep him away. After a long trial, we prevailed and my client got fairly frequent unsupervised partial custody.
Only about three months after the case, everything unraveled. The father was back doing drugs and selling all his stuff for more money. But for me the most soul-crushing thing is that he set up a fake GoFundMe stuff for his child's "cancer". His child didn't have cancer and has never had cancer, so you know where that money was going.
I withdrew from the case at this point so I don't know what happened afterward, but I imagine and hope his custody was taken away. Basically, the net result of winning the case was that the poor boy had to witness his father relapse and then get exploited by his own dad for money. Definitely the worst case I ever "won".
76. Hard Business
I had this happen to me twice. Got my client out on bail, only for him to leave the court and immediately get jumped so brutally that he didn't survive. The first time, my client got chased by law enforcement, then a struggle ensued, and my client ended up with a bullet in the head. His mother told me that it was my fault that it happened. The second time, a young man no more than 16 years old got released while awaiting his trial.
One of the conditions of release was that he maintain a curfew. The exact same night that he got bail, my client broke curfew, went over to somebody else’s house and lost his life in a substance-related theft. The mother blamed me and said that the devil was working through me and that we were all demons. Not my best days on the job.
77. Wild Ones
I have a co-worker who is a bit of a “character,” to put it nicely. Recently, they’ve been bragging about how they’re going to get revenge on their ex by filing a false bite report for their dog. They claimed that the dog will be euthanized as the ex supposedly hasn’t paid for a dog license. The co-worker said they’re willing to do it “as often as it takes” and also planned on filing false dog-at-large reports.
They think this is very clever and have bragged about it multiple times. This is despite them knowing that I’m a huge animal lover. The worst part is the co-worker broke up with their ex because the co-worker was cheating and the ex wouldn’t forgive it. My boss does know about it, as the co-worker bragged to him about it, too. This co-worker is still on a probationary period and I don’t think he’s going to keep them after it ends.
I figured calling animal control could be a good first step but wondered if I’d be mistaken for a friend of the ex’s. I just didn’t want to sit back and do nothing, though, if there’s a chance an innocent dog is going to be hurt or worse due to this piece of work. I’ve never gotten involved in a situation like this before and am not overly comfortable doing so, but wanted to help if I can...so I actually called up the ex.
They weren’t overly surprised that the co-worker would do this but were still pretty shaken. They’re going to make sure not to let the dog out of sight, and got a report as well as vet records to show animal control if they come knocking. The ex has filed for a temporary restraining order and is working on a permanent one. They've also installed home security cameras and cary a copy of the report and a one-page vet record showing the dog is spayed and vaccinated.
The dog has also been to obedience school and they wrote a letter saying she hasn’t shown any human or dog aggression. Animal control are very good around here. They assured us both that euthanasia is an absolute last resort in any case and that they’d require extra proof from this co-worker should she report anything. Additionally, since the co-worker has a restraining order to boot, the co-worker can’t be “bitten” by the dog without violating it.
And the department also says they don’t allow totally anonymous reporting—you can keep your name secret from the dog’s owner, but not animal control. So the dog is safe, and the ex is forewarned and forearmed. I’d call it a win.
78. Door Don’t
I have a small but somewhat successful takeaway business in Australia that does pick-up and delivery. For the past month or so, Door Dash drivers have been coming into my shop and picking up food for customers. We finally picked up on it and I called Door Dash and to my surprise, my menu (which was incorrect, with food and prices) were on there.
I asked them how this happened and to take me down. They told me it was done automatically. They never asked me or informed me. I told them to take me down immediately. They said okay. About a week passes and I'm still getting Door Dashers. More and more frequently. I call them again and this time they try to argue with me, saying that they are doing me a favor, insisting I stay with them.
I explain I am losing money with them because instead of people paying me a delivery fee for my own drivers to deliver the food, they are paying Door dash instead. They tried to plead with me to stay. I said no and even now I'm only temporarily removed from their website for two weeks. I feel like I've been wronged. I don't want another business making money off my success and I want compensation.
79. No Fake Friends
My fiancé and I adopted a dog from a rescue a couple of weeks ago. Then I received a Facebook friend request the evening after doggo came home from the lady who had been fostering him. She also happens to be one of the co-founders of the rescue. I have very few friends on Facebook (literally just 28 people) because I only want to share my life with good friends and family, basically just people I trust, so I didn't accept the request.
I didn't actually take any action at all, I just ignored it. This backfired on me in the worst way. A few days later, I received an email from the woman "reminding" me to accept her request and that I need to post a photo of my dog weekly so that she knows the dog is doing well and is still with me. I told her I wasn't comfortable with adding her on Facebook since I didn't really know her, but would be happy to send her periodic updates.
Apparently, this wasn't good enough, and she responded with an incredibly snooty email saying that she requires social media contact in order to be able to assess how the dogs are doing and make sure they are in a good home and that adopters are adhering to the contract. She also said that if I refuse to accept her friend request, she may have to take “action” and have our dog forcibly removed from our home.
NOWHERE in the contract does it state that I must be Facebook friends with her, and when I asked the friend who recommended this rescue if she had to do this, she said she didn't, but that this person is kind of known to be very involved and protective of the dogs she adopts out. Do I have to actually do this, and can the rescue actually take my dog back if I don't? I'm even more uncomfortable with the idea now knowing how overbearing she is. It's just a boundary thing to me.
80. Dog Eat Dog
There is an eight-month-old male German Shepherd that is not fixed living in our apartment building. I have a six-month-old Australian Shepherd. We live on the fifth floor and the German Shepherd lives about four doors down. We run into each other quite often since we live on the same floor and both use the elevator. He has bit my Aussie in the elevator twice, both times on the leash while the owner would unsuccessfully try to pull him away.
He went after him another time outdoors, which was the first time we discovered the GS was hostile. The worst occasion was when we went to a pet store about a block away. When we walked inside, the GS was off his leash and immediately started attacking my Aussie. The owner did not immediately intervene. I got down to try to get between the GS and my dog and he bit my arm as well in the process.
After about a 20-second struggle, the pet store owner was the one who ran over and pulled the GS off me while the owner stood there and looked confused. I took pictures after the event. I had a winter coat on so my arm just had red marks and scratches, but my Aussie’s paw was bleeding and he limped around for about five minutes. I first spoke with the apartment building and asked for their advice.
They said as long as the owners were taking preventative measures, such as a muzzle, they would not intervene. I spoke with the owner of the GS after this and they agreed to get a muzzle for their GS just for on the grounds. However, the attacks have happened so often that I do not think they can easily control their dog. My Aussie is also now afraid to enter the elevator and pet store since he associates it with where he’s been hurt prior, and also hides from the GS if he sees him in public.
After seeing the GS and the owner for about a week after these events, I kept noticing that they do not have any kind of muzzle still. I spoke with her today, and when I heard her response, I wanted to slap her. She said that after thinking on the issue she has decided to not get the muzzle. She said that the GS is an emotional support dog, and with a muzzle, he would not be able to do his job.
I suggested then maybe using a gentle leader leash, that way if he lunges the leash would close his mouth. She said she is not comfortable with that. I do not know the logistic of emotional support dogs, but I do know they do not have the same rights as service dogs. I feel so stuck now. I feel that if I go to the apartment building at this point they will say there is nothing they can do.
Pixabay
81. Mistaken Identity
One day, this deputy knocked on our door and my wife answered. They asked her name, she told them, and they asked her to step outside. She declined because she wasn't wearing shoes. He said "OK, we will do this inside then," and stepped in the door. He told her that he was there to detain her. She's never even had so much as a parking ticket in her life.
She protested that she had done nothing wrong and that she had a common name, figuring it might be mistaken identity. Finally, they agreed to let her get her ID. After examining it, they went and looked up the birthday of their suspect and found that they were indeed different, so they left. I'm still very, very upset that this happened.
If she had stepped outside, they would have likely detained her on the spot. She did not have her phone, and I would have had no idea what had happened to her. I would like to file whatever complaints I can, and ideally, to find the judge who signed the warrant to complain how poorly the deputies did in trying to arrest the correct person.
82. Keeping Up With The Joneses
The home in question here belongs to my parents, but I housesit for weeks or months at a time for them and deal with their neighbors enough to care. So anyway, these neighbors moved in a year or two ago and have made life so uncomfortable for my parents (and me) that they are actually talking about selling their home to move away.
This is their marriage home with ALL their memories. I thought they were selling because they wanted to move out of state, but have since found out it is because of the neighbors. My parents’ neighbors’ kid (a very immature 20-year-old) has a beater he leaves parked in front of my parents’ front yard. He has it parked in the middle so that it takes up ALL the space and no one can park on either side of it without blocking a driveway.
It has been in three wrecks in the past year and currently, he won’t drive it. Why? I don't know. Perhaps it isn't in running condition anymore. All I know is it hasn't been driven in over a month....well, until what happens next. I want to also mention the neighbors have a full garage. They also have the same size space in front of their yard to park in, which happens to always be empty unless they have company.
Their driveway can and does fit three of their cars, including another beater that has never left the driveway since they moved in. I politely asked him to move his car when I saw him several weeks ago and he flipped out on me, cursing and screaming at me. He followed me to my car and was yelling at my car door window, to the point it had fog from his breath.
Several days later, I visited my parents and he had his friends parking in front of his car so as to block the driveway partially while still leaving the spaces empty behind his car. I spoke with my parents and they said the kid had his friends doing that ever since I had asked him to move his car, as some kind of payback. They said he's really mean and to just let it go.
This did not sit right to me, so I later after visiting I went to the neighbors’ home to speak to the parents. I explained the situation and asked them to speak with the boy about moving the car and told them about his behavior towards me with the disrespect and language. Bad idea. I assumed they were decent, normal people and this was just an out-of-control teen.
I assumed mom would just say, “Billy, go move your car” or something and it would be taken care of. Turns out, he got it from mom and dad. I get the dad yelling at me to get off his property as the mom (from another room) starts bellowing about how I did NOT just tell her how to parent and he can do whatever he wants and screw me and my parents.
I didn't know this at that time, but have since found out my parents believe the neighbors keyed their car about six months ago. My mom asked the neighbor mom and son to not smoke at the edge of their driveway, as it’s right next to my parents’ bedroom window and they would be awakened by them talking in the middle of the night.
Apparently, that set them off and they would talk extra loud and would hold up a phone playing music to their window as a “screw you” to my mom and dad aftr that. That's also when their car got keyed So since I made the mistake of talking to the neighbor parents, the feud has ratcheted up. It's no longer just the kid's one car and his friends when they come over.
Now the parents are retaliating too. They finally moved the beater, but only to move their cars from the driveway to taking up the two spaces in front of our yard adjacent to their driveway. The one car parked just enough to have the front poking into our driveway. The beater was moved so it’s parked on the OTHER side of our driveway in front of our other neighbor's yard but also sticking out enough to just be in the way of our driveway, too.
This has been going on for a few weeks now. My parents just seem to want to let it go. Not only do they say the street parking is technically public parking and they can't officially complain about it, but they complain the neighbors will only retaliate worse. My parents travel a lot and my work makes it so I can’t always be there to sit the house for them.
They fear the neighbors will do something to their property when they are gone. I used to think they were over-reacting and the neighbors’ kid was just rude, but this isn't right.
83. Bite The Hand That Feeds
Two large pit bulls got loose from their owner’s grip and attacked my dog unprovoked. This is the second time it has happened with those same dogs. She is refusing to pay vet bills this time because “I shouldn’t have been walking my dog around her apartment". The first time I let it go because she paid the vet bills and my dog got the care she needed.
She is a medium sized, 35lb dog. This time, I turned a corner with my dog and her dogs saw mine, overpowered her, and even though I picked my dog up, they bit her leg and dragged her down before going for her neck. I screamed for help and eventually, people came out to help. One bystander said I “should avoid that area because I know her dogs live there".
And I guess they convinced the owner that it was MY fault that her dogs attacked my dog. My dog has a reputation around the complex for barking and trying to intimidate people, but I keep her in check and hold a short leash because of that. My dog has never attacked anyone or anything and has never gotten out of my control because I know how to handle her.
This lady said that “my dog is known to provoke reactions” and is using that to justify why her dogs attacked mine. I’ve already called animal control and I am about to file a complaint to the property manager of my building. I also have puncture wounds on my hand from her dog when I was trying to get its jaws off my dog. It's just ridiculous.
84. Don’t Get Greedy
My ex-wife has custody and wanted me to allow her new husband to adopt our son. She told me that I have to do this or else she will take me to court to force me to do this. They married this year. She divorced me four years ago, and our son is seven. Well, she ended up taking me to court. Her lawyer focused a lot on my record, which had happened before I even met her, and she married me knowing about it.
Her lawyer claimed otherwise and said that I had hidden my record from her and she only learned about it after our marriage. This was a slam-dunk for me and my lawyer to disprove. I had email communications with her acknowledging my record. Meanwhile, she stupidly insisted the emails not being in her inbox is proof that the emails are made up.
Perhaps she seriously thought deleting the emails from her account would delete them from mine too. Her own lawyer looked really upset after this. She dropped the case immediately after that hearing. Her own husband apologized to me, said he wouldn't have agreed to come forward for adoption if he knew the truth. He was a decent guy.
My ex lied to him about me to get him to adopt my son. It's been a couple of months since then and according to my son, they're now separated. I'm talking to my lawyer to change the custody agreement, too.
Pexels
85. Together For Never
My husband has been cheating on me for our whole relationship of 10+years and served me with divorce papers just now. He wants me out of the apartment by next Friday, but I am too embarrassed to tell my family. In my culture, no one gets a divorce and I don’t know where to start. I know I need to get a lawyer but I’m completely confused and blindsided right now.
He’s being completely irrational and doesn’t want me to have anything. Not the furniture in the house, the food in the fridge, or our dog. But it gets so much worse. We don’t have a prenup. I met him when I was 19 and he had opened up his first restaurant in the city. I really thought we’d grow old together. I know, stupid of me not to cover my butt, but I was with him for so long that I got really comfortable and couldn’t imagine him doing this.
We bought a condo in New York and most of it was paid for by me and my family but it is in his name. I’m scared of losing the house since my parents and I put so much into it. But I also can’t afford to keep the house on my own for more than a few months unless I ask my parents for help, which I’m also embarrassed to ask for. Can his infidelity help me out here?
More than that, he bought me a car for my birthday just last year and is telling me I have to leave the car with him—so I have no way of moving any of my stuff out. Plus, I am a co-signer on two of the small loans that he has on his restaurants. I’m also invested in them and they’re a great second source of income. Let me tell you, this SUCKS.
86. Don’t Drink The Water
My girlfriend and I were coming home from a trip abroad and had just gone through customs in Houston, Texas. On our way to the next gate we decided to use the restroom, and she waited for me as I went in. As I came out, she was just finishing a presumably long drink of water from the fountain. On our way to the gate, we stopped at one of the restaurants and ordered food.
After asking for water, we were told that the airport water system had been contaminated two days prior and that they were not allowed to serve us water. Not from machines, or sinks, or anything. My girlfriend remarked on the water that she had just drank, and they just ignored it and got us different drinks. My girlfriend is now extremely sick—and we are planning on suing for sure.
87. You Are NOT The Father
A girl who I never slept with claims she's pregnant and I'm the father. We fooled around for a few weeks but never did “it". We're both 16 years old. My parents don't believe me when I tell them that we were never intimate that way. They want me to man up and accept responsibility. The truth was much different—and it came out. She was lying, since she was protecting her new "boyfriend"...who is 24, which is definitely against the law.
She said so to her friend, who told me, then I told her parents. She then confessed to them. I've blocked her number and the guy is now in court.
88. Father Doesn’t Know Best
I'm in grad school but still go to the same OBGYN in my hometown, out of familiarity and convenience. I was planning to switch once I finished school and settled down. I also have my father listed as my emergency contact. For some reason, the office keeps calling him to confirm my appointments, despite me telling them three times to never call that number and to please call my cell phone instead.
Things came to a head yesterday when they called to confirm my appointment for an ultrasound and he CANCELED it without my knowledge. My father and I have a tenuous relationship, but that's not related to this situation. This has to be a HIPAA violation, right? I can't imagine they're not doing the same thing to other women. This could get someone seriously hurt if they were seeking birth control or anything behind the back of an abusive parent or spouse.
89. Homeward Bound
So a little over a month ago, my purebred yellow lab went missing from my backyard. At first, I thought she might have escaped, but after looking around it turned out someone broke into my backyard and took her. I made a report but nothing ever came of it and she didn't turn up anywhere. Last week though, a friend who lives over four hours away from me sent me flyers that were put up for a found dog.
It was my dog. I should mention here that my lab stands out due to the fact that she got into an accident as a pup and she lost her left eye and tore her left ear up pretty bad. I called the number on the flyer yesterday and got into contact with a woman we'll call Stacy. I told Stacy that she had my dog, and after a 20-minute conversation, I all but confirmed it. Here's the problem.
When I asked what a good time to come and get my dog back was, she refused. Stacy claims that they have had the dog for almost three weeks now and that because I took so long to get into contact with her, she decided she's going to keep my dog because her kids have "fallen in love with her". I told her that was complete bull and that she needed to give my dog back.
She hung up on me and I assume she blocked my number. I found Stacy on Facebook and she wasn't lying. I found a status from around three weeks ago talking about how she found my dog abandoned on the side of the street and took her in. She is now also posting pictures of her kids and my dog claiming they "adopted" her and renamed her. I’m so mad right now and don't know what to do.
That dog lived with me for over five years since she was a puppy and now because they've had her for three weeks they think they get to keep her. I have all of the papers that prove I own her (dog license, proof of ownership, medical records, etc.) and she is chipped. I also have that initial report. What do I need to do to get my dog back?
90. Unwanted Company
I am a mid-20s female. I bought a house with my ex-boyfriend out in the sticks of Kentucky about a year ago. Not terribly long ago, he cheated on me and abandoned our home to be with his new girlfriend. So, I own this property and live here by myself. One of the people that live at the house across the pond from me (it’s a multi-generation home) is a 21-year-old male.
He has been watching my house and saw that my ex isn’t here much anymore. So he comes down about four days ago and we’re having a regular old friendly neighbor conversation. Then he gets creepy fast. I made the mistake of telling him my ex and I broke up, and he instantly started asking very personal questions. He asked to take me to the movies, if he could come over and watch a movie, to go fishing, to go shooting, to hang out.
I said “no” to all of these, explaining first that I am not interested in dating or hanging out, that he’s my neighbor and that’s weird, and that I’m “seeing people". He continues to insist. I tell him flat out “no” and that I can be his neighbor and that’s it; I make an excuse to go inside. I go to a friend’s house for a few days and notice he drives past my house 10+ times in a two-hour span on my security camera, every night.
I keep my doors closed and locked. Yesterday he decides that no means yes and comes to my door asking to come inside, says that he just wants to talk and that he has a Rambo DVD for us to watch. I only have the door cracked a bit and tell him 5+ times that I am in the middle of something, that I’m busy and that he needs to leave. I’m angry, so the final time he tries to insist, I slam the door on him and lock it.
So far, I know I am going to be video recording any interactions he attempts with me from now on, but I know trespassing is a sticky law. I don’t have any trespassing signs up at the moment. I am also putting my house on the market this Saturday because I’m just done and want a fresh start considering everything that’s going on in my life, but I will be at the house a lot while it’s on the market.
91. Park It
I rent an apartment, and an assigned exterior parking space within my complex’s parking lot is included in my rent. I have a parking pass that I display in my car, and documentation from my landlord stating that this specific spot belongs to me. However, I have a neighbor that always parks in my spot. I have contacted my landlord every time this happens asking him to handle it, but nothing ever happens.
I have also kept a log of every time I notice this neighbor in my spot and when I’ve contacted my landlord. For what it’s worth, the neighbor does not have a visible parking pass on his car, and also puts a cone in my spot when he’s gone to reserve it, so I don’t think this is just confusion. I don’t think he owns a spot at all. This past weekend, it went from annoying to mind-blowing.
Said neighbor had my car towed from my spot. I confronted him in person, but all he did was claim that the spot was his. I once again contacted my landlord, who stated that this spot was indeed mine, I shouldn’t have been towed, and he would speak with my neighbor to reiterate that it is my spot. Well, apparently the neighbor didn’t listen, because last night he was in my spot again.
92. Too Close For Comfort
I'm going to sound like a busybody, but I am concerned with my co-worker and her boyfriend sleeping naked with her breastfed seven-year-old. Now she's getting ready to pull her out of public school because her teacher is questioning why the girl is smart but acts like a much younger child. This co-worker of mine is beautiful and very popular, but in my opinion is taking this hippie thing entirely too far.
Her daughter is smart enough but constantly reverting to acting like a toddler; she's doing it more than she acts her age. I support extended breastfeeding but this is getting weird. We work at a health food store, like we are talking major crunchy granola. So, once she let it slip that they all sleep naked in bed together. I honestly do not think they are creepy at all, but as liberal as I am, that's still getting weird at her age.
I've always minded my own business, however, but now that she's saying she's going to pull the girl out of the public school because the classroom teacher is starting to question the emotional development of the child, my spidey senses are tingling. Do I mind my own business or make a discreet phone call to CPS? No way in heck would I discuss the matter with her; she's on one heck of an ego trip.
One last detail: another co-worker's daughter spent the night at their house and they had both girls running around naked, which would not have been cool with the girl's conservative mom.
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93. Not A Lucky Divorce
This woman won $1.3million in a lottery pool and filed for divorce 11 days later. She never mentioned her lottery winnings to her husband. She also did not disclose the proceeds during the divorce. She would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for a letter that arrived at their former marital residence over two years after the divorce…
The letter was an offer to buy out her lottery annuity with a lump sum payment. The husband promptly lawyered up and the family court awarded 100% of the prize proceeds to him.
94. Speaking His Mind
I’ve had so many awful cases and clients over the years. But there is one in particular that stands out in my memory. He was a man constantly in and out of incarceration, and with clear mental illness and aggression issues. He was very threatening, rude, and psychotic—and that's just the start. I can't give specific details due to privacy considerations, but use your imagination.
Anyway, during his trial, he appeared by telephone. Use your imagination as to why he couldn’t appear in person. When the opposing counsel began to give his opening speech, my client began screaming that the lawyer was a liar. He accused him of making things up and being full of total nonsense. So I start telling my client to let the attorney finish and that we'll have our time later.
The client screams at me that if I can't correct the lies, then he'll have to do it himself. I tell him there's a procedure and we can correct any lies we want when it's our turn. He pipes down. The other lawyer continues. My client is snickering angry remarks under his breath the whole time, like "This is all fake!" He then starts to scream at the other lawyer.
The judge quiets him down, but now he starts yelling at the judge and stuff is getting real. I'm telling my client to listen to the judge and not to talk over him. After a while, my client finally ends his screaming. We barely finish. More snarky interruptions from my client ensue until the judge says that if I cannot control my client, who is constantly screaming like a toddler, then he would lose the right to talk for the remainder of the trial.
Somehow, my client makes it through the next bit without screaming, and whenever he is close to yelling, I have to calm him down by saying something like: "Don't worry, Mr. X. We'll have our turn". The judge is extremely angry and annoyed, because what should have taken an hour took two and a half. Then he says, "Any final remarks?" This is when my client did the stupidest thing I've ever seen.
And I kid you not, my client addresses me out loud and is like, "Am I allowed to say that if the judge doesn't side with me, then I'm going to..". I cut him off immediately, and was like no. I inform him that unless there was any evidence missing, then there was nothing more he should say. Till this day, I'm not sure what he was going to say, but based on a prior conversation where he said he'd "bash someone's head in" if they got in the way of his goals on the streets, I suspect it may have been threatening in nature.
Anyway, we lost the trial. Many weeks later, I heard that people from several rooms away heard my client screaming during his trial. Also, oftentimes, believe it or not, lawyers are very underpaid for the kind of BS we have to deal with. Some make a lot of money, but many of us are basically typewriters, babysitters, researchers, editors, therapists, counselors, middlemen, advocates, actors, and officers of the court, all in one.
95. Good Call
This never made it to court. I asked my divorce lawyer what was the worst thing a client had asked him to argue. I was expecting a "I want the salad spinner!" sort of story. He had a client, a professor in his 70s who was divorcing his wife, also a professor in her 70s. They were both Jewish. His wife had a tattoo on her arm. It was a number, put there when they put her in a concentration camp in WWII as a child.
Husband was born in the US, was not German. The German government was in the process of settling a case with the survivors. She had some amount of money, a six-figure sum, due to her. The husband wanted his lawyer to argue that he should get half the settlement money. The lawyer told him that there was a special circle in heck for lawyers who ask for stuff like that and that he was not planning on ending up there.
96. Justice Prevailed
I found it necessary to represent myself on a custody matter because my ex was physically harming our daughter. My daughter came to stay with me, and the day she arrived, she had a bruise on the side of her face. She told me her mother had sucker slapped her and bounced her face off the refrigerator door handle. I reported this to local law enforcement and CAS with no results.
Skip ahead to almost two years of making myself knowledgeable on court procedures and self-representation, and I knew that regardless of the issues, my ex could never resist the need to correct me. It was my ace in the hole—and it went perfectly. When I finally appeared in front of the Superior Court justice with my ex and her lawyer, the justice asked about my ex slapping my daughter. I informed him of the bruise on her face and that my daughter told me her mom slapped her.
My ex then went into a rage, yelling that she would never hit our daughter and that I was making this up to paint her out to be a bad mother. I looked at my ex and said, “Our daughter told me that you slapped her and bounced her face off of the booze cabinet". Without missing a beat, my ex immediately corrected that it wasn't the booze cabinet; it was the refrigerator.
Her lawyer did a facepalm, and the court justice winked at me as he put it over for a final hearing to award me custody. Sweet justice.
97. Rebutting In
I had a client who, despite being a large man, had been domestically mistreated by his much smaller wife throughout their marriage. After the divorce, she turned her anger on their son. He ran away one day to live with his dad, and we filed to restrict his ex's parenting time and ask for a permanent modification to the custody agreement.
At the permanent hearing, she denied hurting the child or my client in front of the child, said she never threatened anyone ever, and that she never made disparaging remarks about my client in front of their son, either. But there was one big thing she didn’t know and couldn’t tell her attorney. My client had recorded multiple instances of her doing all of these things.
So I called my client back up for rebuttal right after her testimony and played an audio recording of her screaming at my client, threatening to break his face in, and calling him a loser, all while the child could be heard in the background begging her to stop. I looked over at the other attorney and she had her face in her hands. We won.
98. Daddy Issues
This was one of those revelations that haunted me the very moment it came out. It was a case where my client, a mother, was trying to get a restraining order against her brother for harming her kid. The entire time, she’d been super dodgy about the kid’s father’s identity. Well, in the middle of open court…she confessed that the brother was her child’s father.
99. "Come Here, Horrible Witch Who I Will Never Forgive"
My uncle represented this guy getting a divorce from his wife of 15 years. Super toxic breakup and they split everything 50/50, even the land that the house they lived in sat upon. Well, she decides to build a house right behind the other house, mind you this was a lot of land, probably 200 yards separating both home sites, so that the back of the houses faced each other.
The house gets built and my uncle gets a call from his client asking about the legality of a situation he had gotten himself into. Apparently, his ex-wife would spend a lot of time in her backyard, so he saw her all the time. What he did was buy a female dog and name it the same name as his ex-wife.
100. It Hits the Fan
I worked at my local district attorney's office as a prosecutor when I was freshly minted lawyer. We had a special setting trial on a case that had been reset too many times. The week before, it became clear that this particular case was going to finally be tried. I was ready at the State's table waiting for defense counsel when he walks in and tells me he's going to ask for a continuance.
I'm pretty sure I laughed, thinking that it was never going to happen. So the judge walks in angry that he has to sit through another continuance request. Meanwhile, I get the aroma of something foul in the courtroom and I can't place where it’s coming from. The judge asks the defense attorney why he needs another continuance and the defense attorney pulls out his briefcase, opens it, and pulls out a ziplock bag with soiled underwear inside.
Turns out he defecated his pants that morning in court. He was an elderly attorney and was taking stool softeners. The continuance was granted, and in fact, the entire courtroom shut down for the day to allow maintenance time to clean and shampoo the seats he was sitting on. I have no idea what ended up happening in that case, I never tried it, maybe another prosecutor did, but this was one of my more memorable "I rest my case" stories that I've seen a lawyer pull off.
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