Court today Court today

I had a fairly successful morning. A couple of months ago, my father was served on my behalf by a company trying to enforce an arbitration award. Never mind that I had never been served in the arbitration, it was apparently conducted ex parte (i.e. by the plaintiff alone), that I didn't live in the county in which the motion was filed, or that I hadn't lived with my father for some 30 years now.

So, a month or so ago, I filed an answer to their motion denying the legality of the arbitration, of their choice in forum (i.e. venue), and half-heartedly, in personal jurisdiction.

So, there was a hearing set this morning, and the attorney for the other side seemed to have an assembly line going. Nevertheless, when he finally came to me, I launched into my tirade about all of the above, and he offered what I really wanted, which was change of venue back to the mountains where it belonged. In trade, I acknowledged personal jurisdiction for the arbitration enforcement hearings. As he pointed out, he could have served me right then and there, which is why I knew it wasn't worth fighting jurisdiction from the start.


So, I am reasonably happy with the outcome. I got what I wanted, and gave up what I would lose eventually anyway. And he got what he wanted - personal jurisdiction over me. He knew their service on me was highly questionable. Possibly, he also knew that it would look even worse if I could show a pattern of this sort of thing.