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Or just fun, maybe?

We had the arbitration hearing a week and a half ago and should get a decision in a few more weeks. I'm optimistic that we will prevail, but we've all seen too much in recent decades of clear justice that never gets served to call it a slam dunk. The lies can be very confusing to people who didn't experience the reality to judge.

I did have several fun moments with the opposing counsel, who had a very annoying strategy of asking compound leading questions, repeated time after time, apparently hoping to get me to say something that he could spin into the opposite of the truth. At one point after an especially verbose effort to put words in my mouth, he asked me, "Does that accurately represent your position?"

"No."

"What is it about what I have said that you don't agree with?"

"Everything... you just made all that up. I never said any of it."


Another time he was trying to get me to speculate on some what-iffery entwined with a questionable analogy, finishing with something like, "Don't you agree?"

"I don't agree."

"Feigning surprise, "What don't you agree with?"

"It's speculation. You had me take an oath swearing I had to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. There is no truth in your speculation. Yet you are now asking me to violate that oath."


In another incident where he was trying to to cast doubt on the validity of our building contractor's license, the moron shifted his tone and demeanor to that of a state trooper who had just pulled me over for driving 100 mph in a school zone.

"In your deposition you stated thus and such and now you have changed your story... I must point out that perjury is a very serious offense!"

"Can you read me what I said in the deposition?" He read it. "Can you read me what your question was in the deposition?" He read it. "That's not the same question you just asked me, now is it?"

"Uhhhh... let's move on..."


Last one, and maybe the most fun. There is a section of the contract that describes the projected monthly progress of the job with an estimate of the amount of payment that would be due. It was in there because the bank asked for it to get an idea of the size and spacing of the draws so they would have sufficient cash on hand. It was possible to read it as conditions that had to be met before payment could be made, though due to many changes asked for by the client, using it as a real schedule would have been counterproductive to making progress on the job. But the opposition was desperate to spin it as a contract default (because we had done work that was listed in later phases 'out of order' as a way to keep progressing while waiting for the change orders to work through the process). So, to that purpose, the opposition was calling the phases "payment milestones" and "benchmarks for payment".

I had refused to allow Perry Mason to use those terms with objections perhaps 30 times during the depositions and the hearing, but he was determined to have one last go at it. He asked me why milestones and benchmarks weren't appropriate words. I said because they don't appear in the contract. He started to argue with me, so I stopped him and said, "Let's get out the contract and look at the actual words." There was a mountain of paper and it took him a full two minutes, in awkward silence, to find his copy. When I saw that he had it I asked him, "Do you have it in front of you?" (Lawyers do that over and over to the witnesses).

He said, "Yes."

"Can you look at page 2 and find the sentence prefacing the list of phases?"

"I see it."

"Are the words 'benchmarks' or 'milestones' written there?"

"No. But..."

The arbitrator, barely hiding a smirk, said, "I'm ready to move on."

Apparently it's actually illegal to spread misinformation about Covid-19 or the vaccines!

FTC law about spreading misinformation

A Salon contributor has filed a complaint with the FTC about Fox News violating the COVID-19 Consumer Protection Act, a December law which "​​makes it unlawful under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act for any person, partnership, or corporation to engage in a deceptive act or practice in or affecting commerce associated with the treatment, cure, prevention, mitigation, or diagnosis of COVID–19."

They have tracked them down, and just 12 people are responsible for most of the anti-vax nonsense posted on social media. Their identities are known. They should be charged under the same law. This is NOT a violation of Freedom of Speech. What they are doing is shouting "FIRE" in a thousand crowded theaters. People are dying as a direct result. LOTS of people.

Where is the legal line between free speech and lying, and how is it drawn?

NPR piece

Here is what appears to be a very interesting deep dive into the subject (I have only read about 10 pages so far).

Criminalization of Lying

Let me simplify this for you Loggy...

Legally you can say whatever the f*ck you want wherever the f*ck you want unless you swear on some outdated holy book that you will not tell a lie.

I don't really see an issue with lying, I see an issue with fools believing and repeating obvious lies.

That is not true. Freedom of Speech has always had costs. If your speech harms people, you are free to say it, but you can be held civilly or criminally liable for that harm. It's the old "Shouting FIRE in a crowded theater" legal doctrine. I think speech that costs you money or your freedom can't really be called "free". Inciting riots is "free speech", but all the courts have upheld laws punishing people for doing that.

Claiming the First Amendment allows any speech is like saying it's a free country, so swinging your fist is protected. But only until it hits me in the face: Then it's a prosecutable crime.

In theory perhaps, and there's no doubt that a lie might come back to bite you in the ass. But for the most part everybody gets away with it.

If you yell fire in a crowded theatre, your intent is mayhem and harm, if you slip out the door during the mayhem, chuckling at your clever ruse, then you will likely escape unscathed.

The internet is full of lies. Politics is full of lies. Auto sales and legal procedures are full of lies. Life is full of lies. The jails are not full of people convicted of lying. Near as I can tell the profits far outweigh the punishments where lies are concerned.

You know what George W Bush said...

"Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, won't get fooled again."

That’s one of the topics covered in the linked paper above - generally, there are very few laws making lying a criminal offense, but there is a much larger body of law where it can be a civil offense with potential damages. Intent and harm are the fundamental bases for civil damages.

Intent also appears to be a pretty standard element in most people’s definition of lying, too. Another interesting thing in the paper is a breakdown of six separate categories of lies, each of which implies a varying response, from despicable to laudable.

The authors are trying to make a case for creating a specific body of criminal law that would be used for dealing with the egregious category. The whole thing is only 47 pages, what else have you got to do with all that time on your hands?

Shuffleboard, videogames, fine food and fine herb. Long walks on the waterfront with my dog...coffee on the lanai or a frosty mug of Voodoo Ranger...my days are pretty full without reading an endless treatise on truth and fiction vs the law.