Chopped liver

I’ve waited in vain for my letter from Defense Counsel Sue Torgerson alerting me to my new status as attorney pro se. This, according to Ms. Torgerson, prevents me from speaking to School Board member Gary Glass until such time as I find a new attorney to represent my interests. Presumably all five plaintiffs will have to do the same. She sent a letter to the other four plaintiffs and they received them Saturday. I expected that the postal service would eventually get around to delivering mine but no such luck.

She kindly sent extracts from a case argued in Federal, not state, courts about some tax cranks who were suing some innocent state tax collectors who were collecting taxes the wackos didn’t want to pay. The information Ms. Torgerson pointed to was a directive from the court for the cranks, who were representing themselves in court but who didn’t bother to show up at the scheduled hearings, to stop sending harassing emails to the tax collectors. Why yes! I could see the analogy immediately. I will send no more harassing letters to Gary Glass.

I’m not sure why Ms. Torgerson did not send her letter to me. I’ve not yet acted as an attorney pro se any more than my fellow plaintiffs have. I did comment on this possibility in a blog post which I’m sure the defense counsel was aware of. Goodness knows a lot of my blog posts were printed out and presented to the Court in May.

Aug. 6, 2009

Re: Harry Welty, et al v. ISD #709 and Johnson Controls, Inc.
Court File No. 69DU CV 09 75 8

Dear Mr. D:

The Court’s order of July 29, 2009 states that you and the other Plaintiffs shall identify your new counsel to the Court when you have selected counsel. We have received no notification of new counsel from you at this point. Please provide us with the identification of the new counsel for each Plaintiff as soon as you can.

Note that even a litigant plaintiff who represents himself (pro se) must comply with Rule 4.02 and other Rules of Professional Responsibility applicable to attorneys. I enclose the case of Bisciglia v. Lee, 370 F. Supp. 2d 874 (D. Minn. 2005) from the Minnesota Federal District court which makes this clear. That means that none of the Plaintiffs, prior to obtaining counsel, may have contact or communication with a represented party, such as Mr. Glass, (or any school board member or school administrator, for example) on the topic of the litigation, directly or indirectly.

There are other Rules of Professional Responsibility which may also apply. You may locate those Rules on the Professional Board of Responsibility for Attorneys’ website for the State of Minnesota. Also, the Rules of Civil Procedure and District Court Practice will apply to the case as well, even in the absence of counsel.

Please note that an unrepresented plaintiff who is not an attorney may not represent other plaintiffs or persons. There may be other rules that apply to each of you in the absence of legal counsel, and we do not offer legal advice to any of you on any topic. If you decide, as unrepresented persons, to communicate with the Court in any manner, you must also include the other parties, through counsel, in your communications with the Court.

Finally, your former attorney had set July 24, 2009 as the date he would inspect documents as requested through discovery. This inspection did not occur due to his disqualification. Your new counsel should be made aware of this fact.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Susan E. Torgerson

I know that Ms. Torgerson has a low tolerance for amateurs in the legal profession, such folks as Abe Lincoln who never went to law school. Why the day she moved to dismiss the taxpayer’s attorney and put us in this pickle she had this to say of the attorney who has led to her law firms opportunity to collect a couple hundred thousand dollars from the taxpayers:

“We had to respond to a summary judgement that, frankly, looked like it was prepared by a pro se party. And the Court has been very tolerant of these plaintiffs.”

A couple of attorneys I quoted this to said, “ouch!”

I’ve always understood tolerance to be a virtue. It seems a little uncharitable of attorney Torgerson, considering all the money she is making, to be so ungrateful to the indignant taxpayers and voter’s she’s trying to prevent from speaking to their elected representative.

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