Like Ben Dunne, we may go to Florida to come home. Like Ben, we may encounter the chickens as they, too, come home.
Who knows what might be found in Florida?
We might find instances of strange judicial behaviour more extreme than the current Irish systemic effort to suppress paper and other records helpful in litigation, or the effort to front-load the costs of litigation.
Take Judge Peel as an example. He was the municipal judge in West Palm Beach in 1955 and had been so for four years. The Judge, however, had a problem; he was in the numbers racket, among other things, and being a judge was his edge over his rivals. He knew when the police were attempting to close the gambling operations because he signed the search warrants.
Besides being a judge, he was practicing law. One of his clients was unhappy; she was pregnant by her partner to whom she was married; unfortunately she was still married to her previous partner. Judge Peel had failed to complete her divorce.
For this Judge Peel was answerable to Judge Chillingworth. Judge Chillingworth was not in the numbers racket; he was in land speculation and had made a considerable sum of money doing that. He was going to retire shortly. However, he took a dim view of failing to complete clients’ divorces and had previously warned Judge Peel about that kind of easy going, laid-back approach to the practice of law. In short, Judge Chillingworth was likely to dis-bar Judge Peel from the practice of law (and from judicial office).
So Judge Peel arranged the murder of Judge Chillingworth (and Mrs. Chillingworth).
Read about it HERE.
Here in Ireland, suppression of documentation or other records and the front loading of costs in litigation hampers Plaintiffs and inhibits them in the conduct of the litigation.
There is a more or less clear line between the kinds of people who are Plaintiffs and the kinds of people who are Defendants. To disadvantage one class is to favour the other class.
Who knows what to think or say to this, to do the situation justice?
One is reminded of Ace and Roy, the (estate agent) employers of Jerry Kennedy’s wife, in the fictional works “Kennedy for the Defence” and “Penance for Jerry Kennedy” by George V. Higgins.
We learned little about them, but their single-minded pursuit of money suggested things were not as they should be; and Mrs. Kennedy was complicit in it.