Posted by zanoman on 8/05/04

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A friend/employee of mine recently went through a legal
battle involving an Injunction Against Harassment. We both
thought that it would be easy to quash, initially, because
we had evidence in the form of prior emails indicating that
the claimed "sexual harassment" could not have taken
place. What we did not account for that the Pro Tem
Justice sitting that day would accept but not look at the
evidence. When the injuction was upheld, the justice made
it very clear that there was only to be no contact between
the parties. Unfortunately, that's not what the paperwork
said. My friend's lawyer, hired later, did not catch the
mistake until my friend had been arrested for violating the
order while work was being done on the condo of the
plantiff. My friend is the superintendent of the condo
association (I am the president) and he was directing work
on roof repairs that they needed. He was arrested and
ended up spending the night in jail. He ultimately
accepting a diversion rather than go to trial on the arrest
because he didn't want to risk a conviction. After a
lengthy appeal to Superior Court he won a trial de novo.
With a lawyer present, the Pro Tem Justice (a new one) was
forced to look at the evidence and had no choice but to
quash the injuction. I say "no choice" because in the
absence of an attorney, he too would have probably upheld
it. The circumstances surrounding this are involved enough
to write a novel on, so I tried to keep it short. It all
comes down to this:

My friend ended up spending the night in jail because...

The justice court failed to follow their own procedure by
granting him a trial de novo immediately due to an
incomplete record.

The sitting justice filled out the paperwork in
contradiction to what he had said in court.

The justice courts in Scottsdale, AZ are a mess. That's no
secret. Is there any possible recourse against the court
in this case? It cost him around $20,000 to fight this and
it was necessary to do for personal, professional and
political reasons.

Let me know if you need more information.

Compensation for court mistakes, 8/05/04, by zanoman.

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