Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Riley and Garrison Lawsuits Against Legal Schnauzer Feature Fraudulent Conduct Right Out Of The Gate


Jessica Medeiros Garrison
Two prominent Alabama Republicans--Rob Riley and Jessica Medeiros Garrison--have filed lawsuits against me in recent weeks, claiming my reporting on certain subjects is false and defamatory. I know--and I suspect Riley, Garrison, and their respective lawyers know--that the lawsuits are baseless and designed merely for purposes of harassment and intimidation.

Aside from the lawsuits' merits (or lack thereof), we see an alarming trend involving the plaintiffs. They and their associates can't even get the complaints served without engaging in fraudulent conduct. And I don't use the "f word" casually here. The cases hardly are off the ground, and court documents show that individuals acting on the plaintiffs' behalf have engaged in fraud on the court.

We already have reported on the improper service that has been attempted in both cases--via a thuggish private process server in the Garrison case; via a Shelby County deputy and his unconstitutional traffic stop in the Riley matter. I filed documents in both cases late last week, seeking to have service quashed.

(See Motions to Quash at the end of this post. The version of the Riley document seen here is not official. It does not include a time stamp because the Shelby County civil clerk's office was closed on Wednesday, when we filed it. We were instructed to place it with the criminal clerk's office, with assurances it would be properly time stamped.)

Some might view service-related matters as mere technicalities. But that is not how the law views them. It is not uncommon for a lawsuit to be dismissed in its entirety due to improper service of process. And if evidence shows that Riley and Garrison knowingly engaged in, or approved of, fraudulent conduct in the service of process, their lawsuits will deserve that fate.

Why is service so important? The same concepts generally apply in both state and U.S. courts, and they are well stated in a 2011 federal case styled Dunagan v. ABBC Inc., in the Southern District of Alabama:


This court lacks jurisdiction to enter judgment against a party that has not properly been served with process. See, e.g., Hemispherx Biopharma, Inc. v. Johannesburg Consol. Investments, 553 F.3d 1351, 1360 (11th Cir. 2008) (“Service of process is a jurisdictional requirement: a court lacks jurisdiction over the person of a defendant when that defendant has not been served.”) (citation omitted); In re Worldwide Web Systems, Inc., 328 F.3d 1291, 1299 (11th Cir. 2003) (“Generally, where service of process is insufficient, the court has no power to render judgment and the judgment is void.”).

Translation: A court has no authority over a defendant who has not been lawfully served. Can a plaintiff get around that little problem if a defendant clearly knows about the action? Nope, and that is clear from an Alabama divorce case styled Cain v. Cain, 892 So. 2d 952 (Ala. Civ. App., 2004):


Judging by the language of the trial court's August 2002 order denying of the former husband's motion to dismiss, which was entered after the alias summons and petition had purportedly been served, the trial court apparently concluded that the former husband's acknowledgment that he had actually received the trial court's order to appear, as evidenced by the former husband's July 2002 letter, was sufficient for it to also conclude that proper service of the summons and petition had been perfected. However actual knowledge of an action “does not confer personal jurisdiction without compliance with Rule 4.” Gaudin v. Collateral Agency, Inc., 624 So.2d 631, 632 (Ala.Civ.App.1993).

The Cain case goes on to make a key point: It's up to the plaintiff to ensure that proper service is completed; that burden does not fall on me or any other defendant:


When the service of process on the defendant is contested as being improper or invalid, the burden of proof is on the plaintiff to prove that service of process was performed correctly and legally.

My Motions to Quash timely challenge service in the Riley and Garrison lawsuits. Now, it is up to plaintiffs to prove "process was performed correctly and legally." They can't possibly do that because it's a matter of fact that process was not legally performed.


Rob Riley
Even worse, documents in both cases indicate that the individuals who purported to complete process have made false or incomplete statements under oath to the court. Could that constitute perjury that would merit stiff sanctions against those who made the statements--and those who put them up to it?

If the rule of law still means anything in Alabama, the answer should be yes. In the "reality bites" world of Alabama courtrooms, who knows what will happen?

The fundamental question is this: Do Alabama judges have the cojones to hold GOP power brokers Rob Riley and Jessica Garrison accountable for their bogus attempts to serve process on me (and my wife, in the Riley case)?

We will be on hand to make sure you learn the answers.

(A footnote: We are making progress in identifying the process server who claims he "personally served" me by throwing documents down our driveway, toward the garage, while making no contact with anyone living at our house. The service return includes an illegible signature, but the address is 2012 Magnolia Ave., Birmingham, AL, with a phone of (205) 930-9333. That apparently is home to a company called Investigations Inc., which has a Web site at investigationpro.com.  The site's "About Us" page tells us the company is owned by one Charles Hopkins (hopkins@investigationpro.com). Hopkins, or someone who works for him, is anything but a pro; "fraud" would be a more fitting term. More importantly, whoever filed a document stating he personally served me committed a fraud on the court.)


(To be continued)






22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad to see you are taking it to 'em, LS. I hope these buzzards regret the day they messed with you.

Anonymous said...

Process servers are among the lowest forms of pond scum on earth. About the only lower form involves lawyers themselves.

Anonymous said...

Impressive, you made that crystal clear.

Anonymous said...

LS, I know you aren't a lawyer, but it looks like you do pretty good legal work to me. I'm sure judges and lawyers probably scoff at your motions, but they are readable and seem to get to the point.

If I ever have legal problems, I wish I could hire you.

Anonymous said...

The parties in both of these cases are lawyers, represented by lawyers. They should be well acquainted with the rules for lawful service of process. I see no excuse for them not being able to get it right.

Anonymous said...

I think this was an important step for you to take. Well done, sir.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the education on service of process. I had no idea it was this involved.

Anonymous said...

Glad you got your version of events out there. Now, let's see how the other side responds.

Anonymous said...

jessica killed the rabbit dead
slinging in schools lawsy-wawsy
woo-woo you girl hag*

smoker toker mid-night choker?
whores smores whatever moves shaken down clowns
circuses yesterday fools charade today

born again, daddy wears a
penis nose his foreskin gone lost about
losing IT sad-sad mommy

can’t fix IT & why
jessica rabbit dead or alive hanging-in
cults usurping U.S. Constitution

ego shattered battered fractured soulless
scary no imaginations’ levels of criminally insane
Satan's no worries *fag/s ... “hell’s empty & his devils are all here ....”

Porn Pom
xo

LS you prove when we read, and can understand what the words say that we are reading, plus the art of assimilating the information AND this includes the advice of experts who are actual experts, the law is very clear.

Law was not and is not meant to be secret coded BS that only certain members of society get to have as the way to live 'comfortably?'

In other words, you prove here that the people of the Legal Schnauzer community and Legal Schnauzer, are indeed the trustworthy in society.

Thankfully for the internet and this is being jerked now, people can finally demand accountability from the lawbreakers that are in positions of being paid salaries to then behave as worse than sociopaths, this continuance of their inability to accept the reality of 'caught in the act', proves psychopathy.

The time for HEROS is always, thank you so much.

xo/PP

Anonymous said...

Interesting that you were able to track down the company that handled process on the Garrison case.

If your version of events is true, the company might have a problem on its hands. Of course, I think you can count on them coming up with an affidavit to establish their version of events.

Good luck.

Anonymous said...

FRAUD VITIATES CONTRACT

The sentence which is what it is.

Fraud makes the 'contract' immoral.

This means, there is no contract.

Vitiate is defined as 'immoral', which then defines no contest in the contract of fraud.

Lawmakers in the USA were crafted from the mold of the worst of the criminally insane that run the country and Alabama is big biz in the industries of 'gambling', for the laundering of money to play in the big time global mafioso financial.

Good work LS. Be careful, these so called 'officials' are caged wild beasts now.

Anonymous said...

This all makes me think we need to change the rules on service of process.

This notion of having people come to your house and bang on the door, maybe at all hours, doesn't seem like a great way to do it.

A lot of people have legit concerns about home invasions and such, and they don't want to open the door to just anyone. With so many people armed these days, it seems potentially dangerous for both the servers and those being served.

Should be a better way to do it.

legalschnauzer said...

I agree, @1:10. I'm certainly not a fan of process servers and the lawyers they work for, given my recent experiences. But I do feel they are dealing with a cumbersome and dysfunctional system.

I don't have an answer at the moment, but I do think there must be a better way to do this.

I've been on the other side of the equation--trying to get people served as the plaintiff--and I know how hard that can be, too. In fact, I think it took me and Mrs. S almost a year to get a couple of lawyers served one time.

The whole deal is messy, and experiencing it makes you feel like you need an industrial-strength shower.

Anonymous said...

Good visual, industrial-strength shower.

The last decade to, two, those reading and paying attention, not so much hooked on the shadow media stuff going on - well we watchers didn't miss the weirdness happening as though a society practice and practices to accept.

Wondering what is going on. Then the Karl Roves bust down all the years and years of people learning how to be civilized.

Taking Alabama backwards further than the state already was, and now the horror is too real to further ignore.

The Community best get a powerful gathering together and petition this tyranny back into the due process rule of law, now.

Creepy isn't crawly anymore, full steam into fascism here.

Anonymous said...

It seems to me that Garrison and Riley are cutting corners on service because they feel time pressure.

Why do they feel time pressure, why are they in such a rush to pursue these claims, regardless of whether they are legit or not?

That's the most interesting question to me.

Unknown said...

most interesting thing to me is the fact the "American Government" has not been outed for not being the U.S.A. real government.

what happened here is what the whole country should be outraged at, but no, the criminals are still doing the best they can to figure out another angle to kill the truth.

very dangerous, Big AL, i'd get out and advise all those that don't want to watch a very bad ending in the places where the degradation is the worst, go to another place while the natural clean up gets done.

no consumers no gov.

Anonymous said...

How many years did it take the Federal Reserve System to set up its system of criminals.

Must of had a standard for their law schools and the law schools were certainly not about strengthening the U.S. Constitution's due process law in truth, justice and the power of individual rights'.

So what the Fed did was fake the people of America into thinking the class of justice was a legitimate branch of government.

The illegitimate thought they were dictators, tyrants with gavels and of course get to dress up in robes and this symbol was supposed to tell the people to trust the law.

Law that isn't but, the most embarrassing behavior from adults with children, families, and the 'pillars of our society' get to be paid by the Fed to be degenerates.

USA has too finally admit how corrupt the NOT our government representatives are and this is because the NSA got caught.

No conscience in these 'people', they would kill Legal Schnauzer should they be able to get away with homicide in broad daylight.

Certainly they didn't intend to commit the suicide on themselves as they have, via public exposure.

The Fed isn't but, a fiend too.

Wayne said...

LS..I commend you on the Quash petitions. Very good. Any court that has common sense should take them and approve them (or whatever they do) and throw these frivolous lawsuits out.

Anonymous said...

2 decades ago a search warrant was served on a place I was renting. The warrant was blank about what was being sought. That was deemed by federal court to be a harmless error since the subsequent warrant listed items that were taken away after a search was made.

That implies that your home may be searched and if nothing was found, no harm and no foul but if anything was found then a new warrant may be issued which lists the product of the search and that warrant would then be deemed as valid.

Do not trust the court to obey the law.

Anonymous said...

Where is Roger?

Anonymous said...

Keep up the good fight!!! I'd never heard of this blog, but it was just picked up on TPM - Talking Points Memo which is a national website/blog. This story is going to get way more media attention now... Hopefully, we'll get to the bottom on these "Riley and Garrison" characters....Hope their dirty closets and laundry are clean...

Anonymous said...

He's in jail.