motion day

i had a motion hearing today -yesterday? what time is it? is it already past midnight?- okay, yesterday- i mean friday. my client and i can't find one of our repondents (we have three) so we moved that we be granted permission by the court to issue Summons through publication.

funny thing, this mode of service. the Rules of Court say that the primary mode of serving Summons is "personally". the process server has to hand it to the respondent himself. in lieu of that, the Courts allow you to serve Summons by substituted service.

there are two modes of substituted service. the first is by leaving the Summons at the place of residence with anyone of sufficient age and discretion or by leaving the Summons at the place of work. the second mode is by publishing the summons. we're asking that we be allowed to publish. saves us the trouble of having to ask for the bailiff to serve the Summons again. (we have to pay for his "transportation expenses".)

of course, if the court allows us to publish, we'll be looking for some obscure newspaper that charges peanuts, so we can go on with our lives with our moneys intact.

a friend of mine was telling me that there was this newspaper that thrived on publishing Summons. (what's the plural of "Summons"? Summonses?) as if the news articles were only put there so that they can be classified as a newspaper.

go figure. i don't know if publishing in a newspaper that no one's ever heard of is going to inform anybody. but those are the rules. it's allowed, so go do it.

what was my point again?

ah, the motion hearing.

i was expecting stiff opposition from adverse counsel, so i took care to reMemorize the pertinent provisions in the Rules and bone up on recent jurisprudence on the topic. i was prepared for a fight.

what do you know. when i arrived at the courtroom, the staff told us that the judge was away on a Supreme Court function, and that the roll would just be called.

after the roll, i was made to sign an attendance sheet, and promptly told that i can go. my motion is already submitted for resolution. without need of argument. i didn't even get to see if my opposing counsel made his appearance.

i didn't know if i would be happy that they didn't ask me to wait for the judge (who was ostensibly going to be late) or if i would rather be throwing a fit for the time i wasted. go figure.