Stop Inconveniencing Me!

To my valued client (you know who you are):

I appreciate that you are (usually) current in paying your bills.  And I do appreciate that you always cooperate with me when I handle your legal affairs.

This time, however, you have let me down.  The package you sent me via international mail caused me lots of grief today.  You knew that the original 300+ page document is filed in the courthouse, and that I already have been e-mailed a pdf scan of it by the opposing attorney.  I do not need a the hard copy you sent me.

By sending me the COPY that was served upon you, and by sending it in a postal modality that required my signature, I had to drive all the way to the other side of town to the postal unit that handles the Israeli version of Registered Mail (I tried going yesterday, but the office was closed in the afternoons, and my commitments for the morning precluded me going when during yesterday's office hours).  Then I had to find parking; the best I could do was about 3 blocks away.  And because my name on my relevant Israeli ID documents is in Hebrew, and the package was addressed in English, the postal bureaucrat got into a shouting match with me over whether I was the real intended recipient.  (Did I mention that it took them about 15 minutes to locate the package?).

Bottom line:  What would, in the USA, amount to a 20-minute excursion at worst, took me over two hours total.

Next time, please don't send unnecessary documents in modes that require my signature!

In order to ensure that you understand the inconvenience you are causing me, my time for this (mis)adventure will be reflected on your next bill.

Crediting the Public Purse

Haven't posted in a while, preoccupied as I have been with teaching, the law practice, and some travel.


Remember how the banks were whining when Congress recently imposed more consumer-friendly restrictions on their credit card operations? Well, the solicitations from the banks for credit card accounts have continued to come to my mailbox, unabated. This includes me, the wife, kids, an alias I used a number of years ago to investigate a former client's case, and my son's pet guinea pig who passed away about 9 years ago and whose name was once used as an alias by my son. And our names are not always spelled correctly.

As much as we might despise the banking industry, I think we can all agree that the executives in that industry are, intellectually speaking, at the upper reaches of the bell curve. And I would venture to say that the industry as a whole would not continue its wholesale mail solicitation program if its upper managers believed it to be money-losing proposition.

But these solicitations, as often as not, contain a business reply envelope with the legend "no postage necessary if mailed in the United States."

So I take the envelope in which the solicitation arrived, tear off any identifying info that might be on it (oftentimes there is none), fold up the solicitation envelope and stuff it into the business reply envelope. I then put it in with my stack of outgoing mail.

In addition to the basic postage (currently 44 cents), the addressee pays a per piece fee (now 10 cents for the high volume accounts).

And because the bank's addresses are high volume addresses, the Postal Service can deliver efficiently, i.e., make some profit on each mailpiece.

Postal delivery service is one of the relatively few legitimate functions of a sovereign government (The fact that the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 transformed the postal apparatus from a Cabinet Department to a public corporation is only incidental). Giving money to failing banks is not a legitimate function of sovereign government.

And so, I recoup the TARP funds from the banking industry back into the public fisc, one half dollar at a time.

Dog-gone House Rules.

Our family lifestyle is not currently conducive to pet ownership (though, as mentioned in the posting of 12 September 2010, we do, from time to time, pet-sit). We do, however, appreciate the salutary role of pet ownership, and are all in favor of it if the pet is reasonably well behaved.

Such is the case of Charlie, the dog owned by Donata Forman. Charlie is a Chihuahua-type breed, small enough to be carried in Donata's handbag, and, as all involved agree, extremely well tempered and behaved. But the Board of Managers of the Village View Condominium in Queens, where Donata lives, insisted that Charlie's presence violates House Rule No. 1, "Positively no pets are allowed in the building for any reason."

House Rule No. 1 was enacted by the Board of Managers. The Board of Managers sued Donata Forman. Judge Lane of the Queens County Supreme Court agreed with the Board that the Board had the authority to regulate the presence of pets on the premises, and, on account of other issues of law and fact, set the case down for trial.

But Michael Mauro, Donata's attorney, noted that under New York's Condominium Law, (1) whether or not a condominium can allow or disallow pets on its premises is a subject that must be addressed in the condominium's by-laws; and (2) the by-laws require a vote of at least 66% of the condominium unit owners, at a duly noticed meeting, in order to be enacted or amended. Moreover, the Village View's own by-laws impose an 80% threshold vote for amendment.

And so, on appeal, the Appellate Division reversed Judge Lane, ruling that the Board of Managers could not enforce House Rule No. 1.

Charlie is now legally at home in Donata's condo apartment.

This is a big win for pet owners.

Not mentioned in any of the judicial opinions is the fact that Donata Forman is a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service. If a letter carrier keeps a dog for a pet, then chances are that the dog is very well behaved!