Florinaldo

I understood that the defendant used a stock picture for her Facebook page; she mentioned something about taking it from a magazine. Stock or public domain pictures are a common practice, but it is something we never do for our own Web business and we discourage our clients from doing so on their sites. If you do, you expose yourself to interpretations like the one by JJ, who probably does not have a micro-seed of an idea of what the very basic concept of stock or generic pictures represents. Plaintiffs certainly took their very petty claim to heart and went to extremes to pursue it; in the process, you could say that they made a croquembouche pièce montée out of a cookie. Who in their right mind would give kookie plaintiff a machete as a gift? Those neighbours are all PITAs and probably enjoy needling each other over trivial matters that could be resolved with just a short good faith discussion.

For all of her apparent respectable and prim appearance, I think she probably is one of those greedy shysters who always ask for ten times what the claim is really worth, just on the off-chance the judge will fall for it. Not that hard of a way since JM was overly generous in her award. I understood JM's reasoning, but I still do not see the validity of it, despite those clarifications. Anyway, my question was mostly about the arguments possibly made by defendant that the dog was within the 6 feet sanitary limit, as if animals are subject to it, and the voice-over added to the confusion.

JM called defendants "persnickety", which in this case appears to be a synonym for "acting in bad faith". No wonder the contractor and the plaintiff eventually gave up trying to come to terms with those two insufferable cheapskates. I think that's because of the "gap" issue. Which of course would not exist if defendants had been moderately reasonable people, able to come to an agreement with the plaintiff (or anyone else on this planet).

Which means the judges thought she was endearing, especially Acker.

In the dog bite case things went back and forth confusingly; were they arguing that the plaintiff was not following social distancing rules, or that his dog did not do so? JM seemed to buy the first option, even though the defendant did not seem entirely credible to me. Had she decided according to the second argument, it would have been laughable because such rules apply to humans, not to animals.

I think the plaintiff should have done that research beforehand himself in order to be ready to produce it; it was predictable that some scribbled notes at the bottom of a form would be challenged. Redundancy of evidence is always an asset when you come to a hearing. Another homeowner trying to weasel out of paying for work performed as contracted for. And another example of a litigant ready to come up at a moment's notice with outrageous lies and unbelievable claims, with no qualms about exposing herself to a national audience as the dishonest customer she truly is. Did she really believe that shots of her on a hospital bed would be be convincing proof of causality for her (probably imaginary) health complaints and of the plaintiff's culpability in attacking her house? Absolutely. It's "Bemer" and it is indeed not very credible. You can find videos on the Web where the manufacturer or inventor purports to provide sound scientific explanations and they appear to be mostly correct and detailed as far as the physiology of blood circulation through capillaries; however they are very sketchy as to the exact mechanism of their process and that what they say about how the electromagnetic waves generated are supposedly propagated through the body and have an effect contradicts most of what I have learned while studying physics. But they are expensive devices, which makes them credible in the eyes of the gullible, including the two litigants. I think that she very probably agreed to pay half, but he did not have proof, so he was left holding the bag for believing this hookum.

I laughed during the deliberations on the tiny house rental case because Corriero looked so crushed that he could not find any way to come to the rescue of the female plaintiff. And then DiMango threw him a look that I could only read as "no playing judicial Galahad today bubba!". Later he was sulking and looking down at his papers all during the announcement of the verdict.

We have seen many despicable litigants trying to stiff workers who worked on their homes (often older women), but this one may well be the most loathsome ever. She kept insisting how admirable it was that she did not sue him; as if it is more objectionable from a moral standpoint to sue someone than to deny them payment which they legitimately earned for work they performed, just because she has a problem with someone else entirely but decided to take it out on the plaintiff. I hope she gets a well deserved bad reputation among contractors in her area. A perfect encapsulation of so many litigants on court shows.

It certainly took a long time for the plaintiff to understand that she would have to make a final choice regarding lawyer's fees and that she would not get multiple bites at the apple. But the message finally got through. The husband half on the defendant side was very confused and it seemed clear that the person who really knows what is going on with the business is his wife. Another ninny plaintiff, but a younger one. She had a total misunderstanding of her obligations under the contract and of her duty of care towards the animal. It was all about her, as the kitten was bought to keep her company because of COVID and at one point she asked why would she now get a replacement kitten from them, as if her need had now passed and she was ready to move on. I may be harsh, but as a non-cat person I say the little beast may be better off dead than having to live under that narcissist's rule. She was another run-of-the mill neglectful new pet owner who did not make the effort to go to a vet and for whom the pandemic was just a convenient excuse for her laziness.

That customer (and her aggressive husband) is one major reason I would never get into that kind of business; the risk of encountering such determined kooks is too high. On the other hand, I was annoyed with the defendant coming up with the lame excuse he did not have some of the alleged evidence with him "at this time". That is not even excusable when you have to get your keister over to a real courtroom, but he was at home, which is also his place of business! I though JM was overly generous with the plaintiff; considering her relentless pursuit of the defendant, her lies on various Web sites and her going into overdrive because he did not respond immediately to her texts on Easter Sunday, she got too much money as a refund. I was also surprised that JM did not pursue the "My husband decided not to allow me to open up a daycare". She did allude to the husband being a contributing factor to the escalation. It's the idea of the grandiose wedding that happens only once in your life that has been sold (to brides especially) by the media and popular culture; you have to pursue it no matter the risks and the costs. Fines for everyone should have happened, I agree. I understand the fustration of the defendants who abided by the public health rules and then saw a competitor violating them, with their former customer as an accomplice. And I like your idea of JM awarding the money to a charity, but I do not know if she has the latitude to do that since that would be a third party with no standing in the case.

Predictably, JM agreed with the whiny bride and rewarded her for ignoring and violating her State's COVID guidelines.

She also was very dismissive towards the whole proceedings, probably because whatever monetary award will not come out of her pocket so she does not care. Then again, she also does not care about what harm her "gentle" pet does. He is much better employed responding to concrete and specific inquiries than trying to elicit an intelligent contribution from the peanut gallery.

In their case it's because the litigants appear in person in the courtroom and their voices are picked up by microphones, whereas JJ is in a remote location. If her contributions were heard through a loudspeaker they could be picked up by the mikes and then we might get some annoying echo or even the dreaded Larsen effect (i.e. feedback). Yes, we got a clear idea of how this works in today's episode with the plaintiff putting up one sheet at a time and asking when she could present the next one. The cameras are off-screen and unseen; they may think that it would shatter the illusion if viewers caught sight of them, but I do not believe it would really hurt. I also think it would not be bad to see Byrd in the same shots as litigants, at a safe social distance of course, because right now every component (JJ, Byrd, litigants) seems disembodied or disconnected from the others. Defendant was one of the most off-putting we have seen in a long time with her scornful attitude and her challenging every turn in the other people's story and even JJ's instructions. I could barely follow the case as I was distracted the P's mesmerising case of exophthalmia. Not quite up to the level of Warren Oates in that episode of The Outer Limits, but still quite fascinating.

I meant to say that JJ probably feels her abilities are wasted on such piffling matters as those that come before her and that she is worthy of handling more consequential and headline-generating cases, like the OJ one. But she took her present gig and has no problem cashing the checks. Although perhaps she, understandably, is tired of hearing the same matters over and over after 25 years. So they have now switched to their new COVID set-up. I missed part of it so I am not sure if Byrd drew the short stick and is the only one in the courtroom with the litigants or if he is filmed from a remote set. If he is in the courtroom, how will he handle escorting out witnesses and litigants when JJ throws them out, while maintaining social distancing?

In this instance, the issue raised by @configdotsysis not figuring out what belongs to whom. It is that she often refuses to just consider compensating for small losses, even when ownership is not in question and there are receipts involved; so there is no issue of figuring out who had custody of the crockpot, the Playstation, the toaster oven, etc. She is a judge in a small claims arbitration forum, so of cause the amounts will at times appear trivial. I often think she suffers from Judge Ito envy: she feels she would have done a much better job in the OJ trial and that it was unfair that she could not be considered for the job.

Probably because if a crock pot breaks down at her home, she just yells at her little people "go buy an new one and don't bother me!" (assuming such trivial matters are brought to her divine attention). As I have said before, she does not seem to grasp that for some people who don't receive millions in revenue every year, such items as small appliances, pots, pans, etc. can represent a significant dent in the household budget. She may believe that their portion of the award kitty is already more than sufficient compensation for their losses. and damn the fairness of her judgment. When she does that, she comes across as the caricature of a cartoon character.

Another Instant Celebrity who has an over-inflated idea of the value of her image... sorry, her "brand". Of course, there's always PR professionals on the market ready to profit from such delusions. When the defendant was describing what the plaintiff wanted to be promoted, I lost count of the number of things she was "passionate" about. With so much passion going on, I am surprised she found time to embezzle money, twice! But he did not seem willing to put in the work and effort necessary to actually put in application whatever PR plan the defendant put together.

I sometimes suspect she had inclinations to be a party girl in her youth, but that this got thwarted by her family and she is still frustrated at never being able to be the bad girl, something she certainly cannot do now as a judge, except by vicariously living through the misbehaviours of some litigants, of various ages. That might explain why her moral compass is sometimes off in situations like this one (I am a practicing member of the Lucy Van Pelt school of booth psychiatry). That can happen to any of us at any age. I remember putting an upside-down pineapple cake in the oven and then as soon as I closed the door finding the pineapple slices still on the counter. I simply pushed them down immediately through the batter; I liked the results because the fruit was a little deeper into the cake than usual and have been aiming for it ever since each time I make an upside-down cake with any fruit; it is important to learn from one's mistakes.

I also thought this was quite improper for a judge, even a TV court show one. It could be seeen as approving of the defendant's resentful and vindictive attitude towards her ex-husband, who apparently gets much more action than she does, something she feels he must be pubished for. I think her witness was there just to elicit sympathy by giving credence to her story of having a cognitive impairment because of an accident. The supidity of some people knows no bounds: admitting on TV to bribing a civil servant is such an obvious no-no that he must be totally oblivious to do it so readily.

Defendant's attitude was so dickish that it added to the impression that he decided not to pay simply because his mailing did not get the response he expected. That's a risk you take with such campaigns, especially since his material did not seem very convincing from the little we heard about it. I also tend to believe that he lied when he said he did not receive some e-mails and documents P sent him; at the very least, he did not examine them thoroughly enough like you said, perhaps because he suspected the contents would undermine his justifications for not paying.

Plaintiff came across as one of those people who manipulate others by habitually playing the victimest victim who ever was victimized. Defendant seem like a not-too-bright poor sap, whose bad behaviour paled in comparison to that of his despicable former mate. We now know why JJ hates all teenagers; her own offspring were rowdy potential juvenile delinquents.

You have to live with the consequences of your life choices. If you decide to keep a dog who chews every object around because he has "anxiety", you have to expect veterinary expenses and repeated surgeries. Don't try to blame others, especially when there is no way to establish that the blockage was due only to the Belt Buckle of Doom or if other objects he chewed at home when plaintiff was present would have contributed to his condition, either before or after the incident with the dog walker. After the sorry spectacle of the two "rough crackheads" in the first case, the kooky crone who brought the complaint in this one was a form of comic relief.

I thinkk that is a consequence of taking most (if not all) of the new cases from direct applications since their usual source, real-life small claims courts, has dried up because of COVID-19. People who bother going through the small claims process are probably more serious and there's a higher probablility (though no certainty) that their claims are more substantive than claims from those who simply fill out the application form on the show's Web site.

As I wrote last week, I believe this is very likely a set: just two wall sections brought together to form a corner with some non-descript paint and curtains. Plus the gigantic Scales of JUSTICE. They do that all the time on TV and film, create the impression of a whole room from just a small fake section of it; the tight framing maintains the illusion.

She was also very arrogant to think that as an employee, she could decide where she should be posted and what her shifts would be. That is management's prerogative. Too bad the plaintiff did not keep more extensive records, he would have deserved more.