An examination of Mr. Fine's Farr demand shows him engaging in cheap self-serving lawyering by deliberately distorting the facts to his own advantage. Fine cites Judge Yaffe's grounds for continuing the coercive confinement, but clipped out his admission supra that he would comply after all his legal remedies were exhausted:
The February 3, 2010 Minute Order at pages 1 and 2 affirms: 'Fine stated to the Court that he would not answer questions put to him at a Judgment Debtor Examination until he exhausts his right to petition for Habeas Corpus'. This concession and admission by Judge Yaffe, who is also Fine's direct adversary in this case (as he appeared personally in the writ proceedings), shows that there was 'no substantial likelihood' on March 4, 2009, or any time thereafter, that the March 4, 2009 Judgment and Order of Contempt would serve its 'coercive' purposes.
Mr. Fine's reasoning is defective even vis-Ã -vis the clipped quote, since that quote implies the omitted portion, viz., that he would comply once his habeas corpus writs were exhausted. Surely in his pleading for such a hearing Fine should have argued that he had changed his mind and that now nothing would make him cooperate with the debtor's examination.
If your reporting is accurate, then the courts do not appear to be acting fairly. According to your May 28, 2010 video update, Judge Yaffe reportedly told his clerk not to schedule a Farr hearing until such time as Fine complied with a debtor examination. I hope that this reporting is more accurate that other claims you make in that same video update, e.g., that
1) Mr. Fine has been imprisoned over a year and a half (his incarceration began March 4, 2009);
2) Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas established five days as the maximum incarceration for civil contempt. (COMMENT: Leslie, you are making up sheer fiction. Justice Douglas ordered a stay of execution for reporter Farr after he had served 45 days of imprisonment, pending the disposition of his review in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Before the Ninth Circuit acted, the Court of Appeals of California, Second Appellate District, Division One "suggested that a proceeding be had in the superior court to determine whether there was a substantial likelihood that Farr's continued incarceration under the order would serve its purpose of supplementing the Manson record on appeal and assisting the court in the effective discipline of the offending attorneys of record in that case; and stated that once it was established that there was no substantial likelihood that such contempt order would serve its coercive purpose the commitment would become punitive in nature and thus subject to the statutory limitation. (P. 584.) [64 Cal.App.3d 612]."
In other words, only because a proceeding had determined that coercive confinement would not serve its purpose with Farr did his confinement become punitive and hence subject to statutory limitations of five days.
What are Fine's grounds for refusing to supply the required information? By his own admission, Fine missed a 90-day deadline to file for a hearing in a major real estate civil lawsuit. In order not to prejudice his client's rights to proceed, Fine admitted his error and then was forced to withdraw as counsel from the case because the State Bar ordered him inactive. His client was permitted time to obtain another counsel. By law, missing such a deadline makes Mr. Fine personally liable for reasonable compensatory legal fees and costs sustained by the opposing party. Judge Yaffe imposed compensatory legal fees and costs of circa $47,000 on Fine and ordered him to participate in a judgment debtor's examination, which is standard procedure. Fine refused -- wrong on the facts, wrong on the law. How so?
Before the amount of the compensatory award was finalized, Fine demanded that Judge Yaffe recuse himself on the grounds of conflict of interest (since Yaffe, like all other Superior Court judges, had taken recompense, in a manner prohibited by the State Constitution, in the form of health and retirement benefits provided by Los Angeles County). Fine was wrong on the facts and the law again. First he was no longer counsel to the case; second he was never a party to the case; therefore he had no standing at that point to demand Yaffe's recusal even if Yaffe had improperly received such benefits. Yaffe rejected the motion and advised Fine that his rejection was not subject to appeal, but he also took the trouble to instruct Fine that his proper and sole legal remedy was to file timely a writ of mandate, which Fine did not do, making Yaffe's rejection of the recusal request final. Third: it was far too late -- both morally and legally -- in the proceedings for Fine to make the recusal demand, since the grounds for recusal had been known to Fine before the case-in-chief began but he had never used them until he objected to a particular action by Judge Yaffe. Thus, instead of wielding his cudgel against corruption from the start as someone crusading on principle, Mr. Fine held it back like an ace-in-the-hole to be used in case he did not like what Judge Yaffe did. It is difficult to imagine a more self-destructive strategy.
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