Justice Court Adventures

Not long before the Anderson Valley Justice Court was folded into the County Courthouse, Ukiah, a young man charged with driving on a suspended license asked to have his case postponed until the courtroom had cleared. The accused said his complicated tale of vehicular woe was “embarrassing.” The presiding judge, Jonathan Lehan, replied, “You won’t embarrass yourself any more than I usually do.”

Judge Lehan's casual informality was typical of justice court proceedings, not that those proceedings were any less efficient, or any less fair, than the much more formal, rule-bound proceedings over the hill in Ukiah.

Justice courts processed low-intensity criminal matters, mostly traffic-related, and sorted out minor civil disputes. In the Anderson Valley that meant merchants in pursuit of unpaid bills, landlord-tenant disputes and arguments among homeowner groups about payments for road maintenance. These locally-based courts were the only low-cost legal venue ordinary people had short of high-powered rifles with night scopes.

Anderson Valley's justice court had moved often over the years. Back when everything from murder to mopery was heard in Boonville, and Anderson Valley's judge was elected from a slate of locals not trained in the law but trusted by their neighbors to be fair, the valley's disputes were sorted out on the top floor of the old Farrer Building, above where the excellent Mosswood Market bakery is now. Everyone from miles around would crowd upstairs to take in the occasional legal show, perhaps lingering into the night for a dance in a space that also served as the Anderson Valley community's multi-purpose room.

A spectacular fratricide was once tried in Boonville's upstairs people's court. A Signal Ridge man had shot his brother and fed the evidence to their hogs. The hogs had failed to consume the dead man's identifying garments, as well as certain telltale body parts clothed in them. A jury of his Anderson Valley peers sent the Signal Ridge Cain off to San Quentin.

In the late 1960's, court was convened in the eponymous Mannix Building. The civically ubiquitous Homer Mannix also ran the volunteer fire department, oversaw the ambulance service — an old hollowed-out station wagon — functioned as president of the school board, and published this newspaper. And the versatile Mannix presided over the Anderson Valley Justice Court in a welcoming room in his labyrinthian, multi-story Mannix Building.

Then, suddenly it seemed, the lawyers dominant in the state legislature made their move, arguing that “lay judges” like Mannix weren't up to the justice task because they weren't trained in the law. The lay judges had to make way for the professionals which, in Mendocino County at the time, meant young men with law degrees who'd wandered north as flower children to settle in the hills for a few years of drugs and sex before reclaiming the built-in privileges of their diplomas. Shedding the hepatitis lifestyle for lifelong superior court sinecures at quadruple the pay, the new judges, who used to meet once a week as justice court solons, soon devised a Mendocino County judicial system that had the people coming to them in Ukiah rather than them coming to the people. No more would Boonville's vivid chapters of pride and passion, folly and foible; drunks and dopes, the doped and the duped, the maulers and the mauled, and the mutely uncomprehending be sorted out in the community where the dramas played out. 

Before our justice court was packed off over the hill to Ukiah in the late 2000s, it convened the last Friday of every month to hear small claims and “criminal” traffic matters, it was located north of the Boonville Fairgrounds in the sagging, battered south end of the Veteran's Hall, most of which was and still is occupied by the Anderson Valley Senior Center. 

On a warm May afternoon, in one of the Boonville justice court's last sessions, I stood before Judge Jonathan Lehan sitting in that day for Anderson Valley's Judge Eric Labowitz. I swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth about how public money in the form of legal ads was being wielded as personal revenge by a Boonville attorney named Geraldine Rose and by Mendocino County's tax-funded recycler, Mike Sweeney, the latter fresh off attempting to recycle his ex-wife via a car bomb.

Out of hostility toward this fine publication, several of the county's public bureaucrats and as many lawyers had been placing legal ads that rightly belonged in the Boonville weekly with the corporate-owned newspaper in Ukiah, a much more expensive placement for taxpayers than a locally-based weekly like mine. Private individuals can place their ads wherever they like. What they do with their money is their business. A public bureaucrat, however, or an attorney responsible for placing a Boonville probate notice for instance, should not be permitted to use tax money to punish their personal enemies.

Which is why I became something of a regular litigant in the Anderson Valley Justice Court, suing Caltrans, the Post Office, Keep Mendocino Beautiful, Mendocino County Social Services, and Ms. Geraldine Rose and Mr. Sweeney. I'd also been sued in justice court for libel. I won those cases on appeal. Additionally, I had been unsuccessfully sued in justice court by a mercenary former colleague and, farther back, in the Arena Justice Court presided over by the berserk Vincent Lechowick, I'd fended off a young prosecutor named Eyster whose boss wanted to put me in the county jail for a year for a harmless scuffle at a school board meeting.

* * *

A pale, tense little guy with cold, blank blue eyes, Mike Sweeney, presently a resident of New Zealand, was a bundle of felonious middleage secrets. One look at Sweeney's pulsating neck veins and his throbbing cheek muscles, and one was instantly aware that the spirit of McVeigh-Kaczynski-Lecter was in the room.

Ms. Rose, another seething bundle of hostilities, may have looked like a Beanie Baby, and may have presented herself as Grandma Moses, but she ran a close second to Sweeney in the hostility sweepstakes.

Boonville people who were dying or thinking about dying, went to Ms. Rose to wrap up their affairs. As the only practicing lawyer in Boonville, she also got the local probate business that arrives every fall with the first rains as respiratory complaints besieged Anderson Valley's Vulnerable Elderly. At their first vague, winterly complaint, the heavily insured Vulnerable Elderly were packed off to Ukiah by ambulance, typically returning a week later in an expensive velvet-lined box from Eversole Mortuary, the Adventist-owned hospital having plundered the V-E's insurance carriers one last time.

If the Vulnerable Elderly hadn't expected to depart, and had left no will, the public must be notified that they are no longer with us. If there are people out there with a claim to the deceased's estate, these claimants must be informed. Ordinarily, those surviving claimants live in the same community as the departed. The notification and disposition process is called probate, and the lawyer in charge of the estate almost always places the probate notice in the newspaper of the community once home to the departed. Logical, right? 

Ms. Rose, however, chose to place Anderson Valley probate ads in the Ukiah paper (and charge the ad to the estate she was handling). She'd done it many times and, several times, with the estates of friends of mine simply to avoid having to do business with me, using other people's money to get her revenge — petty revenge, at that. Worse, by placing the probate notice in the Ukiah paper, which maintained only a token circulation in Anderson Valley so it could charge all its advertisers more money by claiming a circulation area much greater than is supported by its actual circulation, the purpose of probate — public notice that a person has died without leaving a will — is defeated because the people the deceased had lived among are not likely to know that the deceased had died “intestate,” lawyer talk for dying without a will. 

* * *

I spent that May afternoon arguing against the retaliatory placement of legal ads by Geraldine Rose and Mike Sweeney.

Sweeney, neck and cheek in full throb, was first up.

Judge Lehan asked me, “I understand your claim with Mr. Sweeney's board of directors was denied.”

“That’s right,” Sweeney promptly replied, answering the question the judge had asked me, leaning into the table like a human saw blade.

“Yes,” I said, “My claim for an ad arbitrarily denied me by Mr. Sweeney was rejected by the Mendocino Solid Waste Authority's board of directors. But Mr. Sweeney has, as of April of this year, been directed by his board to advertise in the AVA, meaning his board agreed with me that Mr. Sweeney had discriminated against me.”

“The claim was denied,” Sweeney insisted.

“Right,” I said. “My claim was denied, but as I just explained Mr. Sweeney has been ordered not to divert advertising from my paper for his personal reasons.”

“The Board voted to deny the claim,” Sweeney repeated, as if nothing else had happened.

“Mr. Anderson,” Judge Lehan asked, “you’re saying that the board’s decision was a tacit admission that ads should be placed in the AVA?

“Yes, clearly,” I said. “I wasn't retroactively awarded the money for the one ad I sued them for, but the MSWMA board has directed Mr. Sweeney to be a grown up about ad placement in the future.”

Sweeney, seriously agitated, leaned over the table to demand, “What statute requires us to advertise in a particular place? What statute limits my discretion?”

“The statute placed on you by your own board of directors not to use public money to get personal revenge on Boonville's beloved weekly,” I said.

“Is there a MSWMA board policy now or for the future about ad placement?” the judge asked.

Sweeney, lying in a context that makes no sense to lie in, pretended he hadn't just been ordered by MSWMA's board to advertise with me, answered, “They gave me the discretionary authority to advertise on the basis of cost-effectiveness. We put signs at the Boonville Fairgrounds, at the Boonville transfer station, we distribute handbills, we give notices to school children, we advertise on KZYX that we are coming to Boonville. We don’t discriminate against anyone. We have never advertised in the Press Democrat. We have advertised in the Ukiah shopper, Farm Bureau News, The Mendonesian, Round Valley News, Pennysaver, the MEC Newsletter, Parents Magazine, and other publications. There is no policy on advertising or on newspaper advertising. There is no basis for this claim, no basis for the costs alleged. There is no statute that requires us to advertise.”

“The AVA,” the judge asked, “is a newspaper of general circulation, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “The AVA is a certified newspaper of general circulation, a fact of local life many people find distressing, but a fact of life nonetheless. The publications cited by Mr. Sweeney weren't publications of general circulation. In fact, several of them no longer exist. And it is untrue that the appearances of MSWMA Hazmobile are regularly announced in Anderson Valley anywhere but on KZYX. I’d never seen leaflets at the dump and I go there almost every weekend. I’d never seen the signs of forthcoming Hazmobile visits at the Boonville Fairgrounds except for a placard placed in the Fairgrounds parking lot the actual day of the visit, which isn't to say that they haven't been posted somewhere in the valley. But this isn't the point: I'm saying that Mr. Sweeney uses public money to reward his friends and penalize his critics. The MSWMA board obviously agrees with me since they've directed Mr. Sweeney to advertise in the AVA from now on. Their directive is tacit agreement that Mr. Sweeney has indeed used public money to discriminate against people he doesn’t like and to reward people he does like.

“For instance, Sweeney rewarded his crackpot allies at KZYX with public recycling money for faithfully propagating his version of the murderous event related to his ex-wife in a pending federal matter. Additionally, as I've often pointed out in my paper, his garbage agency is the second of two in the county; it's redundant. Mr. Sweeney is advancing a personal agenda with public money and he has no ethical or legal right to do that. These are public monies he's spending.”

“There is no law requiring us to advertise anywhere,” Sweeney insisted. “The board directed non-payment of the claim.”

“We're going in circles here,” I said. “Mr. Sweeney's board has ordered him to advertise with me from now on. That fact is not in dispute, but Mr. Sweeney pretends it doesn't exist. And claiming that there’s no law telling him to advertise or not advertise in a specific newspaper is silly. There's no law telling me not to blindfold myself and run across highway 128's weekend traffic either.”

“The claim,” Sweeney declared, neck veins throbbing and now wholly into Captain Queeg's psychic territory, “that he runs a newspaper of general circulation is not relevant. There is no basis for the claim.”

Claim? Like the existence of my paper is as dubious as UFO's?

“There’s obviously a clear basis for my claim,” I answered, “and that basis is the decision of Mr. Sweeney's employers to instruct him to place ads with me from now on.”

From next door at the Senior Center, someone was playing “My Happiness” on the piano. Sweeney's nervous twitches seemed to dance to the music.

I handed the judge a copy of a letter I'd written to Sweeney's board of directors at MSWMA.

Judge Lehan took time out to read it, smiling at the paragraph that said Sweeney uses public money to divert attention from himself in the pending federal matter having to do with the car bomb he placed in his former wife's Subaru.

“This is more interesting than I thought,” the judge chuckled, prompting Sweeney's entire head and shoulders to vibrate in a sort of epileptic shudder. “Mr. Sweeney’s discretion is not limited here. I can’t rule on personal reasons. Or the fact that his board has directed Mr. Sweeney to advertise in the AVA cannot be considered evidence of a wrongful denial of the claim. Are there any requirements for advertising which are part of grants or mandates?

“No,” Sweeney said. “Not of any kind.”

“I'm not aware of any,” I said.

Judge Lehan wrapped things up. “I can’t rule on personal circumstances. I will make this addendum Mr. Anderson has written part of the court file. I see nothing in the law that Mr. Sweeney has anything but individual discretion in placing ads. I find for the defendant.”

Sweeney won. Kinda. But he half-won, really, because his bosses told him to advertise with me from now on.

Sweeney bolted for the door and was gone. 

* * *

Judge Lehan called out case number 1717 as Ms. Rose, more than twice the size of Sweeney, replaced him beside me at the table in front of the judge. Lehan offered to disqualify himself because he had often worked with Ms. Rose. I magnanimously allowed the judge to stay on, seeing as how my chances in the matter ranged from zero to zilch, whoever the judge was.

“The facts are not contested,” the judge said. “It's a second claim by Mr. Anderson of misplaced ads. Placed in other papers, the Ukiah Daily Journal in this case. What does the law require? Government Code section 6041 says legal advertising should be advertised in a newspaper of general circulation of the County. 6042 says if none exists in the city where the death took place, then a publication in the nearest city in the county should be used.” 

Exactly. But one exists that Ms. Rose deliberately pretends does not exist. 

Ms. Rose, in the pious voice of a third grade milk monitor, and referring to the judge as either “Sir” or “Your honor” throughout, reached for the in-county collegiality Mendocino's legal apparatus uses to wall itself off from responsibility for its ongoing war against the rest of us.

“Probate code section 8121 says the city must be in the area where the person lived. I don’t understand Mr. Anderson's claim of money for services he didn’t provide. His letter describing his case is largely irrelevant. I am not required to publish in his newspaper. The advertising for probate is not just for the heirs and general public but for creditors. Mr. Morgan spent his last weeks at UVMC on emergency stuff. There’s probably lots of credit he received from doctors and health care providers.”

“It seems that distant creditors come before Ms. Rose's clients,” I said. “Who's she representing in these things, her customers or her customers’ creditors? And by her logic The Wall Street Journal could be considered a newspaper of general circulation both in Anderson Valley and in the county generally.”

Basically, I argued, this case was about a vindictive outback lawyer using the small change of dead people to get at me. Screwing me is one thing, but Geraldine Rose shouldn't be allowed to screw me by putting at risk the interests of the family of the deceased. Why was there an argument about something this clear?

“What would prevent her from advertising in Willits or in the Beacon, Mr. Anderson? I’m not aware of any legal requirement that ads be put in more than one paper. Are you?”

“No,” I said, “I’m not aware of any law, but I think small independent papers should get the public ads. It's logically and implicitly promised in its status of legal adjudication as the community newspaper for a designated area. Besides which, probate ads for a person who lived in Boonville belong in Boonville, not Willits, because the people the deceased lived with are here, not there. Ukiah newspapers rightly get the legal ads that arise out of that community, I should get the ones that come out of here. Also, in a time of media consolidation into mammoth information conglomerates if a free press is going to survive in the United States, fair distribution of legal ads should be a priority of the court. The point here is that Ms. Rose routinely announces probate of local estates — including the estates of friends of mine — in the Ukiah paper to avoid my paper, her odd disclaimer that she does it to protect the deceased's last creditors notwithstanding. I can’t blame her for her hostility to me, but…”

Ms. Rose, in full lawyer mode, declared, “Objection. Relevance.”

“Legal advertising should not be dispensed to pursue personal vendettas,” I continued. “I’m tired of her doing it, and I'm revolted by her nicklenosing pettiness in doing it the way she does it, which she does without admitting her motives. If she does it again we’ll both be back here soon.”

“All irrelevant, your honor,” Ms. Rose said. “Nothing other than legal issues here. Probate code 8122 has a fail-safe provision. Mr. Anderson’s statements are irrelevant.”

Judge Lehan pulled out a big law book, mumbling that he was looking up the probate laws.

Ms. Rose suddenly claimed, “There’s also the 15 day notice requirement which can make no time available for probate notice to appear in a weekly paper in a timely manner.”

Judge Lehan shot that one down, noting that the county's “other weeklies don’t have a problem with timing probate ads.... The Beacon and Advocate, for example.”

“The AVA never sleeps,” I said. “I live on the premises and offer my advertisers 24-hour service.”

Ignoring me and, looking up from holy writ, Judge Lehan dispatched Anderson v. Rose with, “This is a simple matter on the face of it. Well, maybe not that simple. I can’t decide on issues of personal animosity or perceived animosity. I don’t know how I would do that. It’s not the court’s job. The law gives her complete discretion. I find for the defendant. I appreciate the way you both have presented your cases.”

Afterwards, the bailiff, my neighbor Paul Titus, told me, “I think you won both of 'em, Anderson, but that's the way it goes.”