nannylumps
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2017
Cultcow Russell Greer / @ just_some_dude_named_russell29 / A Safer Nevada PAC - Swift-Obsessed Sex Pest, Convicted of E-Stalking, "Eggshell Skull Plaintiff" Pro Se Litigant, Homeless, aspiring brothel owner
- Thread starter Cryin RN
- Start date
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sharshorita
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2017
I was really hoping to confirm everything with that official audio. I can't believe that they didn't get that. We're sure about that? I have finished the transcript out from where I left off early this morning. I have to think about some things.
OK the first one here is from basicially where I left off, and the second is the whole thing from start to finish.
OK the first one here is from basicially where I left off, and the second is the whole thing from start to finish.
J: Do you have any sort of speculation upon…What’s the reason for this thing? Any speculation on that? Why are we here?
S: So he can get some attention. So he can have his 15 minutes of fame.
J: Did he think these individuals were going to be here?
S: Oh of course. He thought that he would be able to… He’s repeatedly said that all he wants is an apology. The last case we had here all he wanted was a date, and he would dismiss the case. He’s posted here that he’s going to kick my ass today in court. What kind of person does that? I would just ask your honor. Give this case… And I appreciate you being patient. You’ve been far more kind than it deserved. I would ask you to dismiss it and award us costs for defending this bad faith action.
J: Very good thank you, Mr. Skordas. Mr. Greer, I want to ask you two very pointed questions, and your answer to those questions and those questions only. How do you explain…? Stand up sir, and take the podium when I’m speaking to you. How do you explain seven days later, happy happy, emoticon people, what are those, teddy bears? I don’t know. Things. If you suffered so much, suffered this emotional trauma, an intentional infliction as you have stated. Explain this is to me.
R: Thanks. I appreciate Mr. Skordas bringing this up because that was a misunderstood event, and he completely twisted the date thing. He had…
J: I’m asking you one more pointed question, and I’m actually giving you the benefit of even asking any more questions. If I don’t get the answer, restrained, then I’ll just not have you talk anymore. So I’ll ask you one more time. Explain this post of happiness and elation if indeed what you’re telling me is you had these certain effects upon you, emotionally, after the concert. How did we get to this?
R: Can I have the bailiff…?
::He holds up some papers and points to the bailiff, trying to summon him to come over and get his papers the way he got the paper from Skordas, that time at the judge’s request of course.::
J: Explain it to me, and then I’ll look at what you got.
R: I did not want to do what happened with Taylor Swift. I did not to make this a bad situation. So yes, all that stuff happened that I told you about. It’s true. But I decided to try to make the best out of it. Yeah, it was cool. I met her. But she treated me like crap. She gave me weird looks. She… She…
J: Do you understand how that is completely different from what you’re saying to the world and all your following that you claim?
R: I do.
J: Do you understand how those two things don’t jibe? Those two things don’t make sense. And when a judge looks at evidence, we try to understand what evidence lines up with certain claims that are being made, and sir, this doesn’t line up with your claim. This sounds like, had a great time, got a nice picture. It doesn’t look like she’s looking down on you to me. “Dreams come true.” That doesn’t sort of align with, I felt very maligned and looked down upon and things, and now two to three months later, we want to sue people.
R: Actually, two weeks after I posted that post, I came out and said, You know what? ::something at the time:: I was trying to hide it. That’s all in this.
::whatever was on his papers, looked to be screenshots of messages::
J: So two weeks later you decided that this emotional expression was not an accurate one?
R: Basically.
J: Why are you making threats to attorneys and families? Why are you doing that? What do you think that’s going to get you?
R: Sir, if I ever made a threat, it wasn’t on purpose.
J: So you accidentally said you were going to be kicking someone’s ass?
R: Can I see a reference to when I said that?
J: Are you stating that that didn’t happen, sir? Because I don’t have time to be checking references. If I find a reference, and you made me go ten minutes to look for a reference, I’m going to make you spend ten minutes in the cell.
R: OK.
J: So do you remember what we’re talking about now?
R: Yes, I do.
J: Well then why are you making me go to a reference? Why would you say something like that? Where would you think that would get you some benefit in a court of law? Much less, society in general. Where would you think that would get you benefit today?
R: The only two ass references I can think of is I sent an email to Scoo-, to the manager, two days ago saying I was going to kick ass and then the other reference, I didn’t actually mean as a threat. It’s like a figure of speech. It’s like saying…
J: It’s like saying there will be blood in the courtroom today. It’s figure of speech. Is that what you mean?
R: I know how that can sound bad, but, sir, I do not pose a threat to anybody. I hold a full time job.
J: Mr. Skordas, do you have it? Let me look at it. Because if it is as blatant as it appears then I’m going to put it in evidence. Thank you, sir. Mr. Greer, I’m going to have difficulty with that. Sorry. “I’m going to knock the lawyer on his ass with my evidence.” Right?
R: I have evidence here.
J: That’s not what we’re talking about. I’ve given you the opportunity to talk about your evidence, about why you think there’s even a cause of action. Why you think this is the right courtroom. I’ve even entertained some of the basic factual allegations that you’ve made of why you may have some claim. Now what I’m asking you, and again I had two questions. One was why these posts don’t seem to align with what you’re saying. But number two, where the benefit comes, do you think, and why you don’t think that would come to light in a courtroom. About making threats to people, threats to their families, threats to what’s going to happen in a courtroom. Where you might think that might benefit you. Or maybe where you think that that would be proper. Do you think that that’s proper?
R: No I don’t. I think it’s stupid.
J: You think it’s stupid?
R: It was taken out of context.
J: So if it was in context, it’d be perfectly fine?
R: If I… Yeah. If you change the words. With my awesome evidence, I’m going to win the court case. I guess that’s…
J: You don’t see any difference between that and “I’m going to kick the lawyer’s ass with my evidence.” You don’t see any difference there?
R: I see how it looks now.
J: OK good. I’m glad that you do. And you see that there’s probably some other way of saying, “Trust me, there will be blood.” You believe me, and you agree with me, there’s probably a different way of saying that if you’re trying to say something?
R: Yeah.
J: Have a seat Mr. Greer. I’m ready to make my ruling. I’ve given all the information as much consideration as I can, spent an undue amount of time on this case. I wanted to handle it completely and accurately. In my estimation, there are four elements that are either at issue or being disputed. We start off with the matter of jurisdiction, both personal and subject matter jurisdiction. Individuals that come through town for a night, perform a concert or a rodeo or a monster truck jam are not availing themselves to our state. They are not continuous. They are not consistent. Not only is that subject matter of that event, by its very nature, not subject matter jurisdiction, the individuals that were defendants must have some personal jurisdiction, have availed themselves, have minimum contacts, at least to a consistent and stable basis, for them to avail themselves of the court system of a particular state. I don’t find that this defendant or her agent, certainly, have availed themselves to the state of Utah, much less this court, based on the subject matter of a concert coming to town, or personally, in either instance, on either defendant. Number one.
Number two, the failure to make a claim upon which relief can be granted. I’ve asked the plaintiff on multiple occasions. I think I’ve given as much latitude as I possibly can for an explanation of what cause of action there would be. I heard different things like negligence. I heard negligence per se. I heard intentional inflictions of emotional distress. I heard harassment. Based on, at least, the surface information that I continue to ask the plaintiff on, what led to that? What are you saying that led to negligence, or harassment? I heard things, that I felt if I got up, I would be threatened or I would be assaulted. Subjectively, that appeared the plaintiff believed, or was afraid or was scared. That he believed he was degraded. I’m not sure what duty the plaintiff believes that artists of international nature have, much artists of local nature have, to anyone.
As it does not appear to be in dispute, that the events or the occurrences upon which the plaintiff contracted or purchased tickets or passes or what have you. It does not appear to be a dispute that that happened. I’m looking at a picture of it happening. I’m looking at posts confirming that it happened. Mr. Greer’s own testimony about being at a Question and Answer, wanted to ask a question, meeting this artist, being sort of right on the front row of the staging. It certainly appears that, and I don’t know exactly upon which Mr. Greer contracted, but it sounds like he got what he contracted for. I don’t know that that contract is that I’ll accept your flowers or play your song. Or even be super nice. I don’t know. I don’t think so. So I don’t see negligence. I don’t see the harassment, certainly by the two defendants. Perhaps if there was a security guard, a named person, or somebody of that nature. But the vicarious nature of negligent responsibility, all the way up to a named artist, is not proper or allowed by our law. So I don’t see harassment. I certainly don’t see negligence.
I spent the time on this to go through this very carefully so that Mr. Greer understood the ruling behind this today. I’m denying Mr. Greer’s claims for relief that he’s made in his affidavit and summons, denying his reimbursements of fees, service, costs, and any other costs. Pursuant to my discretion under Utah law, I have to make a determination that this was brought in bad faith. If this was a non-meritorious claim. If this was only here to harass, to annoy, for ulterior purposes. I find that that is the case. I might understand… I have no reason to disbelieve, I don’t know Mr. Greer. If he subjectively believes he had certain rights and duties owed to him, that may be true. You might believe you do. That doesn’t mean it’s true. You don’t have those rights.
And bringing a lawsuit, and again, not that this weighs on this case, but the court certainly considers repetitive litigious nature of a plaintiff. It does appear that this is not the first time that this has happened. Based on the repeated nature of that, the claims that have been made, and unfortunately the failure to state a claim that can be even granted, even if I did believe that there was something nefarious or inappropriate that went on. I don’t find that this claim was brought in good faith. I do believe that it has no merit.
Before you came Mr. Greer, 35 minutes late, I asked Mr. Skordas the type of fees that he has incurred on this. Based on my discretion, pursuant to Utah law, I’m awarding $1500 of attorney’s fees to the defendants for their time incurred and expenses to defend this non-meritorious action. That is my ruling for the day. You might not like it Mr. Greer, but do you have any questions?
R: I understand.
J: Mr. Skordas you might not like this, do you have any questions?
S: No.
J: Very good. That will be the dismissing of this case
S: So he can get some attention. So he can have his 15 minutes of fame.
J: Did he think these individuals were going to be here?
S: Oh of course. He thought that he would be able to… He’s repeatedly said that all he wants is an apology. The last case we had here all he wanted was a date, and he would dismiss the case. He’s posted here that he’s going to kick my ass today in court. What kind of person does that? I would just ask your honor. Give this case… And I appreciate you being patient. You’ve been far more kind than it deserved. I would ask you to dismiss it and award us costs for defending this bad faith action.
J: Very good thank you, Mr. Skordas. Mr. Greer, I want to ask you two very pointed questions, and your answer to those questions and those questions only. How do you explain…? Stand up sir, and take the podium when I’m speaking to you. How do you explain seven days later, happy happy, emoticon people, what are those, teddy bears? I don’t know. Things. If you suffered so much, suffered this emotional trauma, an intentional infliction as you have stated. Explain this is to me.
R: Thanks. I appreciate Mr. Skordas bringing this up because that was a misunderstood event, and he completely twisted the date thing. He had…
J: I’m asking you one more pointed question, and I’m actually giving you the benefit of even asking any more questions. If I don’t get the answer, restrained, then I’ll just not have you talk anymore. So I’ll ask you one more time. Explain this post of happiness and elation if indeed what you’re telling me is you had these certain effects upon you, emotionally, after the concert. How did we get to this?
R: Can I have the bailiff…?
::He holds up some papers and points to the bailiff, trying to summon him to come over and get his papers the way he got the paper from Skordas, that time at the judge’s request of course.::
J: Explain it to me, and then I’ll look at what you got.
R: I did not want to do what happened with Taylor Swift. I did not to make this a bad situation. So yes, all that stuff happened that I told you about. It’s true. But I decided to try to make the best out of it. Yeah, it was cool. I met her. But she treated me like crap. She gave me weird looks. She… She…
J: Do you understand how that is completely different from what you’re saying to the world and all your following that you claim?
R: I do.
J: Do you understand how those two things don’t jibe? Those two things don’t make sense. And when a judge looks at evidence, we try to understand what evidence lines up with certain claims that are being made, and sir, this doesn’t line up with your claim. This sounds like, had a great time, got a nice picture. It doesn’t look like she’s looking down on you to me. “Dreams come true.” That doesn’t sort of align with, I felt very maligned and looked down upon and things, and now two to three months later, we want to sue people.
R: Actually, two weeks after I posted that post, I came out and said, You know what? ::something at the time:: I was trying to hide it. That’s all in this.
::whatever was on his papers, looked to be screenshots of messages::
J: So two weeks later you decided that this emotional expression was not an accurate one?
R: Basically.
J: Why are you making threats to attorneys and families? Why are you doing that? What do you think that’s going to get you?
R: Sir, if I ever made a threat, it wasn’t on purpose.
J: So you accidentally said you were going to be kicking someone’s ass?
R: Can I see a reference to when I said that?
J: Are you stating that that didn’t happen, sir? Because I don’t have time to be checking references. If I find a reference, and you made me go ten minutes to look for a reference, I’m going to make you spend ten minutes in the cell.
R: OK.
J: So do you remember what we’re talking about now?
R: Yes, I do.
J: Well then why are you making me go to a reference? Why would you say something like that? Where would you think that would get you some benefit in a court of law? Much less, society in general. Where would you think that would get you benefit today?
R: The only two ass references I can think of is I sent an email to Scoo-, to the manager, two days ago saying I was going to kick ass and then the other reference, I didn’t actually mean as a threat. It’s like a figure of speech. It’s like saying…
J: It’s like saying there will be blood in the courtroom today. It’s figure of speech. Is that what you mean?
R: I know how that can sound bad, but, sir, I do not pose a threat to anybody. I hold a full time job.
J: Mr. Skordas, do you have it? Let me look at it. Because if it is as blatant as it appears then I’m going to put it in evidence. Thank you, sir. Mr. Greer, I’m going to have difficulty with that. Sorry. “I’m going to knock the lawyer on his ass with my evidence.” Right?
R: I have evidence here.
J: That’s not what we’re talking about. I’ve given you the opportunity to talk about your evidence, about why you think there’s even a cause of action. Why you think this is the right courtroom. I’ve even entertained some of the basic factual allegations that you’ve made of why you may have some claim. Now what I’m asking you, and again I had two questions. One was why these posts don’t seem to align with what you’re saying. But number two, where the benefit comes, do you think, and why you don’t think that would come to light in a courtroom. About making threats to people, threats to their families, threats to what’s going to happen in a courtroom. Where you might think that might benefit you. Or maybe where you think that that would be proper. Do you think that that’s proper?
R: No I don’t. I think it’s stupid.
J: You think it’s stupid?
R: It was taken out of context.
J: So if it was in context, it’d be perfectly fine?
R: If I… Yeah. If you change the words. With my awesome evidence, I’m going to win the court case. I guess that’s…
J: You don’t see any difference between that and “I’m going to kick the lawyer’s ass with my evidence.” You don’t see any difference there?
R: I see how it looks now.
J: OK good. I’m glad that you do. And you see that there’s probably some other way of saying, “Trust me, there will be blood.” You believe me, and you agree with me, there’s probably a different way of saying that if you’re trying to say something?
R: Yeah.
J: Have a seat Mr. Greer. I’m ready to make my ruling. I’ve given all the information as much consideration as I can, spent an undue amount of time on this case. I wanted to handle it completely and accurately. In my estimation, there are four elements that are either at issue or being disputed. We start off with the matter of jurisdiction, both personal and subject matter jurisdiction. Individuals that come through town for a night, perform a concert or a rodeo or a monster truck jam are not availing themselves to our state. They are not continuous. They are not consistent. Not only is that subject matter of that event, by its very nature, not subject matter jurisdiction, the individuals that were defendants must have some personal jurisdiction, have availed themselves, have minimum contacts, at least to a consistent and stable basis, for them to avail themselves of the court system of a particular state. I don’t find that this defendant or her agent, certainly, have availed themselves to the state of Utah, much less this court, based on the subject matter of a concert coming to town, or personally, in either instance, on either defendant. Number one.
Number two, the failure to make a claim upon which relief can be granted. I’ve asked the plaintiff on multiple occasions. I think I’ve given as much latitude as I possibly can for an explanation of what cause of action there would be. I heard different things like negligence. I heard negligence per se. I heard intentional inflictions of emotional distress. I heard harassment. Based on, at least, the surface information that I continue to ask the plaintiff on, what led to that? What are you saying that led to negligence, or harassment? I heard things, that I felt if I got up, I would be threatened or I would be assaulted. Subjectively, that appeared the plaintiff believed, or was afraid or was scared. That he believed he was degraded. I’m not sure what duty the plaintiff believes that artists of international nature have, much artists of local nature have, to anyone.
As it does not appear to be in dispute, that the events or the occurrences upon which the plaintiff contracted or purchased tickets or passes or what have you. It does not appear to be a dispute that that happened. I’m looking at a picture of it happening. I’m looking at posts confirming that it happened. Mr. Greer’s own testimony about being at a Question and Answer, wanted to ask a question, meeting this artist, being sort of right on the front row of the staging. It certainly appears that, and I don’t know exactly upon which Mr. Greer contracted, but it sounds like he got what he contracted for. I don’t know that that contract is that I’ll accept your flowers or play your song. Or even be super nice. I don’t know. I don’t think so. So I don’t see negligence. I don’t see the harassment, certainly by the two defendants. Perhaps if there was a security guard, a named person, or somebody of that nature. But the vicarious nature of negligent responsibility, all the way up to a named artist, is not proper or allowed by our law. So I don’t see harassment. I certainly don’t see negligence.
I spent the time on this to go through this very carefully so that Mr. Greer understood the ruling behind this today. I’m denying Mr. Greer’s claims for relief that he’s made in his affidavit and summons, denying his reimbursements of fees, service, costs, and any other costs. Pursuant to my discretion under Utah law, I have to make a determination that this was brought in bad faith. If this was a non-meritorious claim. If this was only here to harass, to annoy, for ulterior purposes. I find that that is the case. I might understand… I have no reason to disbelieve, I don’t know Mr. Greer. If he subjectively believes he had certain rights and duties owed to him, that may be true. You might believe you do. That doesn’t mean it’s true. You don’t have those rights.
And bringing a lawsuit, and again, not that this weighs on this case, but the court certainly considers repetitive litigious nature of a plaintiff. It does appear that this is not the first time that this has happened. Based on the repeated nature of that, the claims that have been made, and unfortunately the failure to state a claim that can be even granted, even if I did believe that there was something nefarious or inappropriate that went on. I don’t find that this claim was brought in good faith. I do believe that it has no merit.
Before you came Mr. Greer, 35 minutes late, I asked Mr. Skordas the type of fees that he has incurred on this. Based on my discretion, pursuant to Utah law, I’m awarding $1500 of attorney’s fees to the defendants for their time incurred and expenses to defend this non-meritorious action. That is my ruling for the day. You might not like it Mr. Greer, but do you have any questions?
R: I understand.
J: Mr. Skordas you might not like this, do you have any questions?
S: No.
J: Very good. That will be the dismissing of this case
S: We filed a motion to dismiss the case based on failing to state cause of action, lack of jurisdiction, both subject and against the individuals.
J: Before we go there, any indication why this individual has opted to not appear? Have you talked with this person? Do you have any idea?
S: He’s been posting quite vigorously that he’s going to be here.
J: And I would like to speak with him about that. But he’s not here for me to do that. But you have not any indication of why he has opted to not appear?
S: No sir.
J: Also it appears that a subpoena has been issued in this case Mr. Skordas. Have you seen that? Looks like on the 11th it was issued by Mr. Greer to a S.H., general counsel of Larry H. Miller Sport Entertainment. Does not look like it was served upon him. That’s news to you?
S: Yes.
J: Do I have Mr. H here by chance? That’s OK. I have no indication that it was served.
S: He’s their attorney, where the events are alleged to have occurred.
J: Yeah.
S: I would ask the court to grant our motion to dismiss.
J: On the record, I was very interested in discussing Mr. Greer’s social media activity, for anyone else who may be listening, and for the record, those possibly constitute an electronics communications harassment, even possibly misdemeanor, if not felonious, stalking.
S: Including members of my own family.
J: But I don’t want you to have to come back Mr. Skordas because I would consider issuing a warrant for Mr. Greer to come and talk with us about these things, but I don’t imagine that that’s something that you’re seeking at the moment sir.
S: No your honor.
J: Alright. What kind of fees have you incurred through this kind of representation?
S: We put a cap on our fees of $2500. We haven’t reached that yet, so whatever you think is reasonable.
J: Thank you. We’ll grant the motion of dismissing this case with prejudice. We see no reason, no filing, nothing to the effect of Mr. Greer not appearing on this case, causing the defendants to incur a significant amount of attorney’s fees, time, I would imagine stress, apparently for either a nefarious purpose or otherwise, coupled with some of the other inappropriate social media activity. Facebook’s not just for fun. If you want to threaten someone on Facebook, it’s like you said it to their face. When you talk about blood in the courtroom, we don’t take that lightly, just in case any of you were curious about that. Right, Mr. Skordas?
S: Yes.
J: I am dismissing Mr. Greer’s claims with prejudice, ordering $1500 of attorney’s fees to the defendants, to be reduced to judgment. Anything else I can do on that case for you Mr. Skordas?
S: No your honor. Thank you very much.
J: Very good, thank you very much.
S: Are we excused?
J: Please, thank you very much. Thanks for being here today. I’m sorry that this seems to have been a waste of time.
Now ladies and gentlemen, I don’t imagine that any of my other cases will be make my ire raise like that certainly.
:: Discussion with bailiff, they got word from outside that he was there.::
Well good. Then let’s have a conversation.
::waiting for Russ::
We could do another case, but… Is he here yet?
B: Yes your honor.
J: Mr. Greer?
R: Ah, yeah.
J: Come on up here. Court started 35 minutes ago. Raise your right hand and be sworn in.
::do you solemnly affirm … etc… under the pains and penalties of perjury?::
R: Yes I do.
J: Take a seat at one of the tables Mr. Greer. May I inquire Mr. Greer about your tardiness today?
R: I thought it was at 2 o’clock.
J: Why would you think that?
R: Um… ::unzipping bag:: I must have misread my calendar wrong. I have, if I could show you my phone...
J: I’m not going to look at your phone, and I don’t really care what’s in your phone. I’m looking at a small claims affidavit and summons. That was completed by you, correct?
R: Ah yes, sir.
J: It states pretty clearly on August 2nd, 2017 at 1:30pm is when we were going to be having our hearing. We’ve had individuals here, witnesses here, attorneys here, a whole court staff here waiting for you. If the case says it’s going to be here at 1:30 make sure you’re here at 1:30.
R: And I sincerely apologize.
J: Alright, I’ve already … We already made a ruling on your case, but I’ve now stricken that ruling since I was told by our kind staff that you had just walked in. I have read through your affidavit and summons, and as you are aware a motion to dismiss your case has been filed. It was so filed back on June 30th of this year. You’re aware of that?
R: Uh, yeah, uh huh.
J: OK. Saw no response from you. Mr. Skordas, before I go into any merits of this case, why don’t you discuss with the court the reasoning and the tenants behind your motion to dismiss please.
S: Your honor the complaint here doesn’t state a claim for relief that this court can grant. Even if you believe anything this man says, which I think would be very difficult, there’s nothing that would establish a cause of action here, and furthermore there’s no jurisdiction, both with respect to the persons or to the cause. It appears that he went to some sort of concert and felt that he was somehow neglected by one our clients. I don’t know how he gets any jurisdiction whatsoever with respect to the other, her agent. ::some legalese I didn’t understand.:: I think this case was filed in bad faith. It’s a pattern with this gentleman. We were here some time ago on another case involving another performer. That judge made fairly quick order of this. I know that that’s not wasting your time by raising this, but I do want the court to know that this man has a habit of bringing inappropriate and bad faith actions before this court, and there’s nothing in his complaint that would support a cause of action.
J: Very good. Obviously a bad faith claim has a couple of elements. Number one as I recall, is it being non-meritorious, and one without any grounds or jurisdiction. I draw from testimony of your client that both of those are present in this case?
S: Yes, your honor.
J: And have your clients incurred attorney’s fees and other costs because of this lawsuit, and would you be requesting an award for attorney’s fees because of that?
S: Yes your honor.
J: Thank you very much. Mr. Greer would you like to respond to Mr. Skordas’s and the defendants’ request to the court to dismiss the cases you brought? Prior to that Mr. Greer, I’d like to address something with you. I’ve read through your documentation. I’ve gone through the defendants’ documents. I’ve also been made aware of certain other comments, social media comments, other things of that nature directed at various individuals. I’m going to give you an opportunity to explain some of those comments made very recently to me before I take any action on those. This isn’t about the case, this isn’t about a concert, this isn’t about songs, this isn’t about anything. This is about social media content, threats, electronic communications harassment, other types of improper, inappropriate, quite illegal activity, and prior to me making commentary or acting on that, I’d like to hear what you may have to say in defense of some of the things that I have seen, some of the things I have read.
R: I would like to say that I have… A lot of stuff I post online is sarcastic.
J: Sarcastic? Like you joking around?
R: To be honest, I’m not sure which comments you’re talking about.
J: Do you want me to read some of them?
R: I mean, I’m not really sure…
J: OK. Did you mean “this I promise you, there will be blood” … sarcastically?
R: So, that’s the name of a movie, There Will Be Blood. So I was joking around with that, and I post troll-y stuff on my Facebook…
J: Do you understand that when a stream of discussions are occurring regarding a problem with another individual that may make it to a court setting with judges and bailiffs and clerks and members of society, that when someone says something to the effect that “I promise you there will be blood” that that might be taken more seriously than the title of a movie? Might you understand that?
R: Yeah, but that was never part of my… you know I never really associated that with my court case. I say stupid stuff, and I have talked to several people…
J: Hang on. When I’m reading, “So here’s the updated docket of the case. This I promise you, there will be blood.” You aren’t associating this with the case at all?
R: I wasn’t associating it with any threat whatsoever. I was saying something stupid. I was being troll-y. I have over 1000 followers on Facebook.
J: I don’t care, sir. I don’t care how many followers you have. Maybe that makes your crime worse.
R: Sir…
J: Understand, that is improper, that is illegal. If anything, it’s electronic communications harassment. It might be misdemeanor stalking, OK? That’s when people get arrested in court for making those kind of comments. You understand that?
R: I feel so stupid. I didn’t really mean that.
J: OK, I’m not here to make you feel stupid. I’m not here to make you feel any way. Well maybe I am. Not in this courtroom, not in this courthouse, and my advice would be not in any. OK? Because these gentlemen don’t take that lightly, OK? Because if there’s going to be something that happens, they don’t take that very lightly at all.
R: Yeah.
J: So you might want to watch… Facebook might be fun, it might be sarcastic, hee hee... We take this stuff seriously. When people bring this stuff to our attention, and we have to have certain people here, that’s something you should take very seriously, or you might be spending the rest of the weekend in a cement room. Why shouldn’t I dismiss this case based on the discussion that Mr. Skordas and I just had about jurisdiction, not only subject matter jurisdiction, but personal jurisdiction, and for a cause of action or a claim that I can’t really put my finger down on. Why should the court not dismiss this and maybe even find it being filed in bad faith and awarding fees, sir.
R: I filed it in good faith your honor.
J: You did what?
R: I filed it in good faith.
J: I understand that. Good faith or bad faith is a legal term. It’s not a subjective... It’s not something in your mind that “Hey, I think this is good faith, I’m going to do it.” The law has a certain criteria whether something is bad faith or good faith. Bad faith means it’s done with ulterior purposes. It’s not done with any merit, and that the person who brings that case knows or should know of that. So tell me what meritorious purpose this lawsuit has to be filed in this court today.
R: On March 21st, 2017, I went to a concert at the Energy Solutions Arena.
J: I’m going to stop you for one second. I’m going to listen to all that. But what I want to do is I’m going to ask you what cause of action, what thing happened. Causes of action are like assault, or like trespassing, or like negligence, or electronics communications harassment. Those are called causes of action, OK? So I want you to start with, what cause of action do you think the defendants did to you? And then I’m going to listen to your facts and see if they match up at all with your cause of action. Because I can’t put my finger on a cause of action. I can’t put my finger on what law, what complaint you have that has some legal basis.
R: Negligence per se.
J: Negligence per se? Tell me what negligence per se means to you.
R: From what I have read in the court books, negligence per se is when a law that protects a group of people was violated by some conduct. As a person with a disability, I was harassed, I was laughed at, I felt threatened for my life at a concert I paid $900 to $1000 to go to. It took… backstage at $500, the concert itself was $300, added to the cost of that, about $950.
J: OK, was this something that you believe happened purposefully?
R: Yes.
J: OK but negligence means it’s accidental. Negligence means someone had a duty to do something, they didn’t do something, accidentally, they cause some damage. So, like this morning, believe it or not, I wasn’t supposed to run into the car in front of me, literally, and luckily he had a ball thing at the back, but my car now has a hole about that big. I wasn’t supposed to do that. I didn’t mean to, but I had a duty not to. I breached my duty, I caused some damage. Now if I hurt his trailer hitch ball, I would have owed him some money, but I didn’t. So that’s an accidental thing. If you’re talking about someone purposely punched me, or I purposely ran into the back of my ex wife’s car, or something like that, then we have a problem. So I don’t know if you mean negligence then. You mean harassment?
R: So I say negligence on the part of Ariana your honor because they had a duty to make sure that people under them did not harass people with disabilities. I would cite a Utah state law that says a person with a disability has equal rights to advantages, places of amusement.
J: Certainly. So you’re stating that you were denied some of those equal access rights?
R: Yes sir. And I would say that under the
::He’s hard to understand sometimes::
I talked with general counsel…
J: I don’t care who you’ve talked to. If you want to bring up counsel or if you’re going to bring up the hearsay of discussing with attorneys then you should have brought an attorney with you. So either you make the statements on your own accord or don’t bring up other attorneys.
R: Actually I have the evidence right here, sir.
J: I’m not going to read through a booklet of Utah law, sir. I know the law that we’re talking about.
R: It’s an email I got from general counsel.
J: And I’m not going to read through the email that you received from another attorney. Let’s go to maybe, perhaps, a more dispositive issue sir. There’s something called jurisdiction. You can’t just sue someone anywhere you want. You have to have certain reasons to be able to sue them in certain places. There’s something called subject matter jurisdiction; there’s something called personal jurisdiction. Maybe to their names, one of them is about the subject itself. The other one’s about the person, or the defendants themselves. You need to explain to me why you believe Salt Lake City Justice Court has either personal or subject matter jurisdiction on this matter.
R: Absolutely. It has subject matter jurisdiction because the concert was held here. If I could use your car analogy, just because someone lives in Alaska, and hits your car, it doesn’t mean you can’t sue him because he lives in Alaska. Sir, I honestly looked at it, and it happened here. And it wouldn’t have made any sense… Because I don’t know where their addresses are, the defendants. I don’t know where they reside. I think in California, but I brought it in justice court because the harm happened here on March 21st, and that’s why I felt I had jurisdiction.
J: I understand sir that you are not an attorney, although it appears you are not a stranger to the litigation process. As you might well be aware, that is something that is noted. Certainly not dispositive, certainly not anything critical, but something that is noted when you have cases that are brought up maybe on multiple occasions. I understand you’re not an attorney. I’m not sure what you do for a living, but I’m sure that I don’t do that. We’re all experts in what we know. There is far more about jurisdiction than it happened here. There are certain things regarding relationships to a state. There are certain things having to do with certain contacts certain defendants have to have with certain jurisdictions for that jurisdiction to have power to hear a case. Just because it happened here, whatever those allegations are, and this is not making a determination on those merits at all, for the moment at least… It’s far more about than because a concert was here that I went to. There needs to be both personal and subject matter jurisdiction that would allow this court to handle that case against these defendants. And I’ll give you one more opportunity if you have… And if you don’t know what those elements are then it might not be a real good investment of your time to attempt this. Perhaps, maybe, counsel should have been here with you. But you’ll need to identify why you believe this court has both subject matter and personal jurisdiction, very specifically, pursuant to Utah law. Just because the concert happened here does not grant criterion.
R: I’m sure you’re familiar with the long arm jurisdiction, the long arm statute. I’ve read through that, and it says minimum of conduct, minimum contact. Even for tourist conduct, it creates the minimum contact, and I’ve relied on that statute to file in this court. I could have easily, I don’t know, I guess I could have found out where they reside and filed it in their court, but then it really didn’t make too much sense since I was relying on the long arm statute.
J: Well, again, the long arm statue is a common law that is very old and has many, many additions and different factors to it. Sir, we’re talking about things of substantial activity, continuous activity. Allegations that would cause a defendant to believe that they might be pulled into a lawsuit in this state, not only because of the subject matter of the allegations, which, again I’m not really sure what the allegations are. I understand what you’ve said. I have not really narrowed that down very well. But also, to the people you’re suing themselves, in your documents, you need to make specific allegations and specific facts that would lend the court to determine that both personal and subject matter jurisdiction are proper in the case. Now, as far as the failure to state a claim, what that means is we haven’t identified this cause of action that we’re talking about. You started with negligence per se, which I don’t really think that’s what you meant. You discussed some elements of negligence. You talked about harassment. You talked about some other activity that may have happened. Sir, I’m still failing to understand exactly what law you believe, that you’re relying on, or what common law, or what cause of action you believe occurred that would cause a court to rule in… to be honest, for a court to even continue with discussing a case. If a defendant doesn’t know or can’t identify, especially if a court doesn’t know or can identify, what are you complaining about? What law are you saying we did wrong? What common law practice do you believe we did wrong? It’s very difficult to be making those decisions. That’s why it’s incumbent upon the complainant to make very clear what their causes of action that they’re claiming are. So I’m going to give you one more opportunity to try to explain to me… Again, I don’t need facts. I don’t need that right now. I need to understand what you’re complaining about to see if the facts even go there. If I can’t figure out what that is, then Mr. Skordas’s motion about failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, is going to be very difficult not to grant. So I’m going to give you one more opportunity, then I’m going to hear from Mr. Skordas. Please continue.
R: ::long pause, ums:: I’m just trying to think of how to say it correctly. ::long pause:: So Ariana Grande held a concert here, and she is in charge of all of her staff…
J: Let me remind you, I didn’t ask you for any facts of this, and I’m not even going into all of that until I understand under what title you’re believing those facts violate. If you’re going to say negligence… Is that what you’re going to rely on? Negligence? That someone had a duty, they breached that duty and it caused you some harm, and those actions caused negligence. Is that the cause of action you’re relying on?
R: Negligence and violation of Utah code.
J: OK and that Utah code is the right and access for any individuals with disabilities, equal access and right to services or locations as anyone else. Correct?
R: Yeah, and it says equal rights to advantages, and that contains not to be harassed, not be threatened when you’re going to a concert that you paid for. And not feel threatened. I understand you don’t care about the general counsel, but I talked to him, the guy over the Vivint Home Arena. He said he had no other complaints of it. And he said that the people I encountered worked for Ariana Grande.
J: OK good. Then tell me about in what manner did you … what exact issues and facts occurred that made you feel threatened?
R: OK, absolutely.
J: Bullet points. Quick bullet points.
R: When I was at the Question and Answer, I was sitting in the third row. There were three guards looking right at me. They were laughing, and they were like, “Is he dumb or is he drunk?”
J: How did that make you feel threatened? Threatened means you feel you are going to be hurt, you’re going to be assaulted, you’re going to be in some way… How did you feel threatened by that if that indeed occurred?
R: They kept looking at me. They kept talking amongst themselves. They didn’t get too much closer to me, but I felt they were going to come over to me. And Ariana was sitting on the stage, and just going through her hearts, and I wanted to ask her a question. And I felt that if I stood up because I appear to be a certain way, they would apprehend me because I look intoxicated or whatever. And that is the honest truth. Later on, at 10 o’clock at night, I was filming. I have the video on my phone. I was right next to the stage. The stage was like in the form of an i :: (or eye?) ::. So like far end, catwalk, i, and I was at the far end of the i. And I was filming and a guard grabbed my shoulder, and he was like, “Where’s your seat at?” And I was trying to tell him that that was my area, and he turned me around, and finally the guards… So there was another guard standing in front of the stage. He basically had to say, “Look, this is the guy’s seat.” It was a very hurtful, threatening…
J: Someone asking you where your seat was and another person saying, “This is his seat,” that was hurtful and threatening to you?
R: Because he grabbed me, sir. I felt threatened. I was terrified. What made it worse is it was so loud. Like, there was this random guy grabbing me, like, what did I do to you to grab me? And also, when I met Ariana Grande, I felt as if she looked down upon me. I had dressed in a suit. I had really nice hair. And I told her about her flowers.
J: What cause of action would you say that that would be violating? She had some duty to do something different than how you felt she was treating you?
R: Intentional infliction of emotional distress.
J: Oh.
R: I felt that it was outrageous conduct for her to basically degrade someone who paid all that money. See, here’s the thing. I heard her interactions before I even met her. Like, she said to one guy, “Oh, you’re so handsome.” And just, nice to all these other people and I walked in there, and… I have evidence in my bag of medicine I take for me to help my depression. Honestly, do you want to know why I post such whacky stuff to my Facebook? Because I’ve been having a meltdown. It’s been going on. It just hurts.
J: Alright, so I understand what you’re stating. There’s the security guard situation about your seat. There was something to the effect of while you were at the Question and Answer. And at the time that you met the artist, you felt that she looked down upon you. Anything else that you’d like to add that would support these… It appears negligence. It also appears intentional affliction of emotional distress, and perhaps harassment. Any other facts that you’d like to add before Mr. Skordas so I can make a ruling on the case?
R: Absolutely. So I know Mr. Skordas is going to say…
J: Don’t worry about what Mr. Skordas is going to say. He’ll say what he wants to say. I want you to tell me what you’re going to say.
R: Two aggravating factors that help my case.
::missed a bit here::
So harm that usually wouldn’t matter that much to a regular person really screwed me up, and second of all there’s exceptions on emotional distress. I know in case law it says that usually mere insults aren’t enough for a claim of emotional distress. But with innkeepers, common carriers, and… ::missed:: to allow business people who act in an insulting manner to have a claim of emotional distress. For instance, as I was researching this case, there was a really famous law professor who said that, for instance, a passenger goes into a taxicab and the taxi driver says to them… In any other situation, the passenger wouldn’t have a claim, but since it’s a common carrier, that’s aggravating. There’s also another exception. It was repeated conduct. When conduct is repeated, mere insults is enough to state a claim of emotional distress.
J: So you would state that this was some sort of repeated conduct that happened to you?
R: Yes sir. With the hearts..,
J: Excuse me?
R: With the people that worked for her, yes.
J: :: I missed almost the entire thing. Asking some sort of clarifying question::
R: Yes.
J: Alright very good. Why don’t you have a seat Mr. Greer. Mr. Skordas, I’ve given Mr. Greer as much latitude as I can to try to understand the cause of action upon which to act, as well as discussing jurisdictional criteria that are necessary and only if I get past those three considerations, some surface, factual matters. I would like you to, if you would please, reply to at least the responses that were included in your motion, the failure to state a claim and the lack of personal and subject matter jurisdiction.
S: I’d like to do one other thing your honor. I’d like the court to take a look at a post that Mr. Greer made seven days after the concert. And I’ll indicate that it says,
“Russell Greer: smiley face, (whatever they’re called), emoticons. Feeling happy, dreams do come true, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point, all caps. Smiley face, smiley face, smiley face. I met Ariana Grande. I gave her my flowers and my song. I’m just waiting for her to say yes.”
And in the picture is the two of them together, with her smiling and him standing next to her. So for him to come in here today, your honor, and say that he felt threatened a week earlier, that he felt demeaned by her or anyone in her staff a week earlier is absolutely negated by his own writings one week later.
J: Mr. Greer, have you seen this? Do you know what this…
R; I have, and I …
J: OK have a seat sir. You had your time to talk. You won’t talk unless I ask you to. Thank you sir. Go ahead Mr. Skrodas.
S: I mean I don’t know what else to say. This case was brought in bad faith. There’s no truth to these allegations. There’s no substantiation to these allegations. He enjoyed the benefit of the concert. I’m sorry he has a perceived disability, and I’m sorry that he has suffered through that. I’m sure that that’s been difficult for him in life. But none of that has to do with our client. There’s been no claim here with respect to her agent even being in Utah. It appears that she gave him everything that he paid for, a backstage pass, a personal picture with him, a very good concert, an opportunity for him to, a week later, describe how absolutely overjoyed he was by the entire experience, and then coming in here months later and deciding that he somehow has a cause of action against her, I think, your honor, it’s just ridiculous.
J: Can you tell me, through Mr. Greer’s discussion, did you identify… did his discussion with us alleviate or answer your questions about what claim he’s making on relief he’d like? Were you able to glean that?
S: I don’t think that he’s articulated any claim.
J: He says something about negligence, that there was some duties that were perhaps breached.
S: He went on to the concert, he got everything he asked for. And he hasn’t described anything that relates to either of the clients here. He went to some pre-concert event, felt that he was somehow disrespected by that, but not by anyone that’s being sued today, or, and in fact, immediately after the concert he says what a great time he had. It’s just absurd to me your honor for him to come in here today and say that somehow something happened at that event that caused him distress.
J: Do you have any sort of speculation upon…What’s the reason for this thing? Any speculation on that? Why are we here?
S: So he can get some attention. So he can have his 15 minutes of fame.
J: Did he think these individuals were going to be here?
S: Oh of course. He thought that he would be able to… He’s repeatedly said that all he wants is an apology. The last case we had here all he wanted was a date, and he would dismiss the case. He’s posted here that he’s going to kick my ass today in court. What kind of person does that? I would just ask your honor. Give this case… And I appreciate you being patient. You’ve been far more kind than it deserved. I would ask you to dismiss it and award us costs for defending this bad faith action.
J: Very good thank you, Mr. Skordas. Mr. Greer, I want to ask you two very pointed questions, and your answer to those questions and those questions only. How do you explain…? Stand up sir, and take the podium when I’m speaking to you. How do you explain seven days later, happy happy, emoticon people, what are those, teddy bears? I don’t know. Things. If you suffered so much, suffered this emotional trauma, an intentional infliction as you have stated. Explain this is to me.
R: Thanks. I appreciate Mr. Skordas bringing this up because that was a misunderstood event, and he completely twisted the date thing. He had…
J: I’m asking you one more pointed question, and I’m actually giving you the benefit of even asking any more questions. If I don’t get the answer, restrained, then I’ll just not have you talk anymore. So I’ll ask you one more time. Explain this post of happiness and elation if indeed what you’re telling me is you had these certain effects upon you, emotionally, after the concert. How did we get to this?
R: Can I have the bailiff…?
::He holds up some papers and points to the bailiff, trying to summon him to come over and get his papers the way he got the paper from Skordas, that time at the judge’s request of course.::
J: Explain it to me, and then I’ll look at what you got.
R: I did not want to do what happened with Taylor Swift. I did not to make this a bad situation. So yes, all that stuff happened that I told you about. It’s true. But I decided to try to make the best out of it. Yeah, it was cool. I met her. But she treated me like crap. She gave me weird looks. She… She…
J: Do you understand how that is completely different from what you’re saying to the world and all your following that you claim?
R: I do.
J: Do you understand how those two things don’t jibe? Those two things don’t make sense. And when a judge looks at evidence, we try to understand what evidence lines up with certain claims that are being made, and sir, this doesn’t line up with your claim. This sounds like, had a great time, got a nice picture. It doesn’t look like she’s looking down on you to me. “Dreams come true.” That doesn’t sort of align with, I felt very maligned and looked down upon and things, and now two to three months later, we want to sue people.
R: Actually, two weeks after I posted that post, I came out and said, You know what? ::something at the time:: I was trying to hide it. That’s all in this.
::whatever was on his papers, looked to be screenshots of messages::
J: So two weeks later you decided that this emotional expression was not an accurate one?
R: Basically.
J: Why are you making threats to attorneys and families? Why are you doing that? What do you think that’s going to get you?
R: Sir, if I ever made a threat, it wasn’t on purpose.
J: So you accidentally said you were going to be kicking someone’s ass?
R: Can I see a reference to when I said that?
J: Are you stating that that didn’t happen, sir? Because I don’t have time to be checking references. If I find a reference, and you made me go ten minutes to look for a reference, I’m going to make you spend ten minutes in the cell.
R: OK.
J: So do you remember what we’re talking about now?
R: Yes, I do.
J: Well then why are you making me go to a reference? Why would you say something like that? Where would you think that would get you some benefit in a court of law? Much less, society in general. Where would you think that would get you benefit today?
R: The only two ass references I can think of is I sent an email to Scoo-, to the manager, two days ago saying I was going to kick ass and then the other reference, I didn’t actually mean as a threat. It’s like a figure of speech. It’s like saying…
J: It’s like saying there will be blood in the courtroom today. It’s figure of speech. Is that what you mean?
R: I know how that can sound bad, but, sir, I do not pose a threat to anybody. I hold a full time job.
J: Mr. Skordas, do you have it? Let me look at it. Because if it is as blatant as it appears then I’m going to put it in evidence. Thank you, sir. Mr. Greer, I’m going to have difficulty with that. Sorry. “I’m going to knock the lawyer on his ass with my evidence.” Right?
R: I have evidence here.
J: That’s not what we’re talking about. I’ve given you the opportunity to talk about your evidence, about why you think there’s even a cause of action. Why you think this is the right courtroom. I’ve even entertained some of the basic factual allegations that you’ve made of why you may have some claim. Now what I’m asking you, and again I had two questions. One was why these posts don’t seem to align with what you’re saying. But number two, where the benefit comes, do you think, and why you don’t think that would come to light in a courtroom. About making threats to people, threats to their families, threats to what’s going to happen in a courtroom. Where you might think that might benefit you. Or maybe where you think that that would be proper. Do you think that that’s proper?
R: No I don’t. I think it’s stupid.
J: You think it’s stupid?
R: It was taken out of context.
J: So if it was in context, it’d be perfectly fine?
R: If I… Yeah. If you change the words. With my awesome evidence, I’m going to win the court case. I guess that’s…
J: You don’t see any difference between that and “I’m going to kick the lawyer’s ass with my evidence.” You don’t see any difference there?
R: I see how it looks now.
J: OK good. I’m glad that you do. And you see that there’s probably some other way of saying, “Trust me, there will be blood.” You believe me, and you agree with me, there’s probably a different way of saying that if you’re trying to say something?
R: Yeah.
J:Have a seat Mr. Greer. I’m ready to make my ruling. I’ve given all the information as much consideration as I can, spent an undue amount of time on this case. I wanted to handle it completely and accurately. In my estimation, there are four elements that are either at issue or being disputed. We start off with the matter of jurisdiction, both personal and subject matter jurisdiction. Individuals that come through town for a night, perform a concert or a rodeo or a monster truck jam are not availing themselves to our state. They are not continuous. They are not consistent. Not only is that subject matter of that event, by its very nature, not subject matter jurisdiction, the individuals that were defendants must have some personal jurisdiction, have availed themselves, have minimum contacts, at least to a consistent and stable basis, for them to avail themselves of the court system of a particular state. I don’t find that this defendant or her agent, certainly, have availed themselves to the state of Utah, much less this court, based on the subject matter of a concert coming to town, or personally, in either instance, on either defendant. Number one.
Number two, the failure to make a claim upon which relief can be granted. I’ve asked the plaintiff on multiple occasions. I think I’ve given as much latitude as I possibly can for an explanation of what cause of action there would be. I heard different things like negligence. I heard negligence per se. I heard intentional inflictions of emotional distress. I heard harassment. Based on, at least, the surface information that I continue to ask the plaintiff on, what led to that? What are you saying that led to negligence, or harassment? I heard things, that I felt if I got up, I would be threatened or I would be assaulted. Subjectively, that appeared the plaintiff believed, or was afraid or was scared. That he believed he was degraded. I’m not sure what duty the plaintiff believes that artists of international nature have, much artists of local nature have, to anyone.
As it does not appear to be in dispute, that the events or the occurrences upon which the plaintiff contracted or purchased tickets or passes or what have you. It does not appear to be a dispute that that happened. I’m looking at a picture of it happening. I’m looking at posts confirming that it happened. Mr. Greer’s own testimony about being at a Question and Answer, wanted to ask a question, meeting this artist, being sort of right on the front row of the staging. It certainly appears that, and I don’t know exactly upon which Mr. Greer contracted, but it sounds like he got what he contracted for. I don’t know that that contract is that I’ll accept your flowers or play your song. Or even be super nice. I don’t know. I don’t think so. So I don’t see negligence. I don’t see the harassment, certainly by the two defendants. Perhaps if there was a security guard, a named person, or somebody of that nature. But the vicarious nature of negligent responsibility, all the way up to a named artist, is not proper or allowed by our law. So I don’t see harassment. I certainly don’t see negligence.
I spent the time on this to go through this very carefully so that Mr. Greer understood the ruling behind this today. I’m denying Mr. Greer’s claims for relief that he’s made in his affidavit and summons, denying his reimbursements of fees, service, costs, and any other costs. Pursuant to my discretion under Utah law, I have to make a determination that this was brought in bad faith. If this was a non-meritorious claim. If this was only here to harass, to annoy, for ulterior purposes. I find that that is the case. I might understand… I have no reason to disbelieve, I don’t know Mr. Greer. If he subjectively believes he had certain rights and duties owed to him, that may be true. You might believe you do. That doesn’t mean it’s true. You don’t have those rights.
And bringing a lawsuit, and again, not that this weighs on this case, but the court certainly considers repetitive litigious nature of a plaintiff. It does appear that this is not the first time that this has happened. Based on the repeated nature of that, the claims that have been made, and unfortunately the failure to state a claim that can be even granted, even if I did believe that there was something nefarious or inappropriate that went on. I don’t find that this claim was brought in good faith. I do believe that it has no merit.
Before you came Mr. Greer, 35 minutes late, I asked Mr. Skordas the type of fees that he has incurred on this. Based on my discretion, pursuant to Utah law, I’m awarding $1500 of attorney’s fees to the defendants for their time incurred and expenses to defend this non-meritorious action. That is my ruling for the day. You might not like it Mr. Greer, but do you have any questions?
R: I understand.
J: Mr. Skordas you might not like this, do you have any questions?
S: No.
J: Very good. That will be the dismissing of this case.
J: Before we go there, any indication why this individual has opted to not appear? Have you talked with this person? Do you have any idea?
S: He’s been posting quite vigorously that he’s going to be here.
J: And I would like to speak with him about that. But he’s not here for me to do that. But you have not any indication of why he has opted to not appear?
S: No sir.
J: Also it appears that a subpoena has been issued in this case Mr. Skordas. Have you seen that? Looks like on the 11th it was issued by Mr. Greer to a S.H., general counsel of Larry H. Miller Sport Entertainment. Does not look like it was served upon him. That’s news to you?
S: Yes.
J: Do I have Mr. H here by chance? That’s OK. I have no indication that it was served.
S: He’s their attorney, where the events are alleged to have occurred.
J: Yeah.
S: I would ask the court to grant our motion to dismiss.
J: On the record, I was very interested in discussing Mr. Greer’s social media activity, for anyone else who may be listening, and for the record, those possibly constitute an electronics communications harassment, even possibly misdemeanor, if not felonious, stalking.
S: Including members of my own family.
J: But I don’t want you to have to come back Mr. Skordas because I would consider issuing a warrant for Mr. Greer to come and talk with us about these things, but I don’t imagine that that’s something that you’re seeking at the moment sir.
S: No your honor.
J: Alright. What kind of fees have you incurred through this kind of representation?
S: We put a cap on our fees of $2500. We haven’t reached that yet, so whatever you think is reasonable.
J: Thank you. We’ll grant the motion of dismissing this case with prejudice. We see no reason, no filing, nothing to the effect of Mr. Greer not appearing on this case, causing the defendants to incur a significant amount of attorney’s fees, time, I would imagine stress, apparently for either a nefarious purpose or otherwise, coupled with some of the other inappropriate social media activity. Facebook’s not just for fun. If you want to threaten someone on Facebook, it’s like you said it to their face. When you talk about blood in the courtroom, we don’t take that lightly, just in case any of you were curious about that. Right, Mr. Skordas?
S: Yes.
J: I am dismissing Mr. Greer’s claims with prejudice, ordering $1500 of attorney’s fees to the defendants, to be reduced to judgment. Anything else I can do on that case for you Mr. Skordas?
S: No your honor. Thank you very much.
J: Very good, thank you very much.
S: Are we excused?
J: Please, thank you very much. Thanks for being here today. I’m sorry that this seems to have been a waste of time.
Now ladies and gentlemen, I don’t imagine that any of my other cases will be make my ire raise like that certainly.
:: Discussion with bailiff, they got word from outside that he was there.::
Well good. Then let’s have a conversation.
::waiting for Russ::
We could do another case, but… Is he here yet?
B: Yes your honor.
J: Mr. Greer?
R: Ah, yeah.
J: Come on up here. Court started 35 minutes ago. Raise your right hand and be sworn in.
::do you solemnly affirm … etc… under the pains and penalties of perjury?::
R: Yes I do.
J: Take a seat at one of the tables Mr. Greer. May I inquire Mr. Greer about your tardiness today?
R: I thought it was at 2 o’clock.
J: Why would you think that?
R: Um… ::unzipping bag:: I must have misread my calendar wrong. I have, if I could show you my phone...
J: I’m not going to look at your phone, and I don’t really care what’s in your phone. I’m looking at a small claims affidavit and summons. That was completed by you, correct?
R: Ah yes, sir.
J: It states pretty clearly on August 2nd, 2017 at 1:30pm is when we were going to be having our hearing. We’ve had individuals here, witnesses here, attorneys here, a whole court staff here waiting for you. If the case says it’s going to be here at 1:30 make sure you’re here at 1:30.
R: And I sincerely apologize.
J: Alright, I’ve already … We already made a ruling on your case, but I’ve now stricken that ruling since I was told by our kind staff that you had just walked in. I have read through your affidavit and summons, and as you are aware a motion to dismiss your case has been filed. It was so filed back on June 30th of this year. You’re aware of that?
R: Uh, yeah, uh huh.
J: OK. Saw no response from you. Mr. Skordas, before I go into any merits of this case, why don’t you discuss with the court the reasoning and the tenants behind your motion to dismiss please.
S: Your honor the complaint here doesn’t state a claim for relief that this court can grant. Even if you believe anything this man says, which I think would be very difficult, there’s nothing that would establish a cause of action here, and furthermore there’s no jurisdiction, both with respect to the persons or to the cause. It appears that he went to some sort of concert and felt that he was somehow neglected by one our clients. I don’t know how he gets any jurisdiction whatsoever with respect to the other, her agent. ::some legalese I didn’t understand.:: I think this case was filed in bad faith. It’s a pattern with this gentleman. We were here some time ago on another case involving another performer. That judge made fairly quick order of this. I know that that’s not wasting your time by raising this, but I do want the court to know that this man has a habit of bringing inappropriate and bad faith actions before this court, and there’s nothing in his complaint that would support a cause of action.
J: Very good. Obviously a bad faith claim has a couple of elements. Number one as I recall, is it being non-meritorious, and one without any grounds or jurisdiction. I draw from testimony of your client that both of those are present in this case?
S: Yes, your honor.
J: And have your clients incurred attorney’s fees and other costs because of this lawsuit, and would you be requesting an award for attorney’s fees because of that?
S: Yes your honor.
J: Thank you very much. Mr. Greer would you like to respond to Mr. Skordas’s and the defendants’ request to the court to dismiss the cases you brought? Prior to that Mr. Greer, I’d like to address something with you. I’ve read through your documentation. I’ve gone through the defendants’ documents. I’ve also been made aware of certain other comments, social media comments, other things of that nature directed at various individuals. I’m going to give you an opportunity to explain some of those comments made very recently to me before I take any action on those. This isn’t about the case, this isn’t about a concert, this isn’t about songs, this isn’t about anything. This is about social media content, threats, electronic communications harassment, other types of improper, inappropriate, quite illegal activity, and prior to me making commentary or acting on that, I’d like to hear what you may have to say in defense of some of the things that I have seen, some of the things I have read.
R: I would like to say that I have… A lot of stuff I post online is sarcastic.
J: Sarcastic? Like you joking around?
R: To be honest, I’m not sure which comments you’re talking about.
J: Do you want me to read some of them?
R: I mean, I’m not really sure…
J: OK. Did you mean “this I promise you, there will be blood” … sarcastically?
R: So, that’s the name of a movie, There Will Be Blood. So I was joking around with that, and I post troll-y stuff on my Facebook…
J: Do you understand that when a stream of discussions are occurring regarding a problem with another individual that may make it to a court setting with judges and bailiffs and clerks and members of society, that when someone says something to the effect that “I promise you there will be blood” that that might be taken more seriously than the title of a movie? Might you understand that?
R: Yeah, but that was never part of my… you know I never really associated that with my court case. I say stupid stuff, and I have talked to several people…
J: Hang on. When I’m reading, “So here’s the updated docket of the case. This I promise you, there will be blood.” You aren’t associating this with the case at all?
R: I wasn’t associating it with any threat whatsoever. I was saying something stupid. I was being troll-y. I have over 1000 followers on Facebook.
J: I don’t care, sir. I don’t care how many followers you have. Maybe that makes your crime worse.
R: Sir…
J: Understand, that is improper, that is illegal. If anything, it’s electronic communications harassment. It might be misdemeanor stalking, OK? That’s when people get arrested in court for making those kind of comments. You understand that?
R: I feel so stupid. I didn’t really mean that.
J: OK, I’m not here to make you feel stupid. I’m not here to make you feel any way. Well maybe I am. Not in this courtroom, not in this courthouse, and my advice would be not in any. OK? Because these gentlemen don’t take that lightly, OK? Because if there’s going to be something that happens, they don’t take that very lightly at all.
R: Yeah.
J: So you might want to watch… Facebook might be fun, it might be sarcastic, hee hee... We take this stuff seriously. When people bring this stuff to our attention, and we have to have certain people here, that’s something you should take very seriously, or you might be spending the rest of the weekend in a cement room. Why shouldn’t I dismiss this case based on the discussion that Mr. Skordas and I just had about jurisdiction, not only subject matter jurisdiction, but personal jurisdiction, and for a cause of action or a claim that I can’t really put my finger down on. Why should the court not dismiss this and maybe even find it being filed in bad faith and awarding fees, sir.
R: I filed it in good faith your honor.
J: You did what?
R: I filed it in good faith.
J: I understand that. Good faith or bad faith is a legal term. It’s not a subjective... It’s not something in your mind that “Hey, I think this is good faith, I’m going to do it.” The law has a certain criteria whether something is bad faith or good faith. Bad faith means it’s done with ulterior purposes. It’s not done with any merit, and that the person who brings that case knows or should know of that. So tell me what meritorious purpose this lawsuit has to be filed in this court today.
R: On March 21st, 2017, I went to a concert at the Energy Solutions Arena.
J: I’m going to stop you for one second. I’m going to listen to all that. But what I want to do is I’m going to ask you what cause of action, what thing happened. Causes of action are like assault, or like trespassing, or like negligence, or electronics communications harassment. Those are called causes of action, OK? So I want you to start with, what cause of action do you think the defendants did to you? And then I’m going to listen to your facts and see if they match up at all with your cause of action. Because I can’t put my finger on a cause of action. I can’t put my finger on what law, what complaint you have that has some legal basis.
R: Negligence per se.
J: Negligence per se? Tell me what negligence per se means to you.
R: From what I have read in the court books, negligence per se is when a law that protects a group of people was violated by some conduct. As a person with a disability, I was harassed, I was laughed at, I felt threatened for my life at a concert I paid $900 to $1000 to go to. It took… backstage at $500, the concert itself was $300, added to the cost of that, about $950.
J: OK, was this something that you believe happened purposefully?
R: Yes.
J: OK but negligence means it’s accidental. Negligence means someone had a duty to do something, they didn’t do something, accidentally, they cause some damage. So, like this morning, believe it or not, I wasn’t supposed to run into the car in front of me, literally, and luckily he had a ball thing at the back, but my car now has a hole about that big. I wasn’t supposed to do that. I didn’t mean to, but I had a duty not to. I breached my duty, I caused some damage. Now if I hurt his trailer hitch ball, I would have owed him some money, but I didn’t. So that’s an accidental thing. If you’re talking about someone purposely punched me, or I purposely ran into the back of my ex wife’s car, or something like that, then we have a problem. So I don’t know if you mean negligence then. You mean harassment?
R: So I say negligence on the part of Ariana your honor because they had a duty to make sure that people under them did not harass people with disabilities. I would cite a Utah state law that says a person with a disability has equal rights to advantages, places of amusement.
J: Certainly. So you’re stating that you were denied some of those equal access rights?
R: Yes sir. And I would say that under the
::He’s hard to understand sometimes::
I talked with general counsel…
J: I don’t care who you’ve talked to. If you want to bring up counsel or if you’re going to bring up the hearsay of discussing with attorneys then you should have brought an attorney with you. So either you make the statements on your own accord or don’t bring up other attorneys.
R: Actually I have the evidence right here, sir.
J: I’m not going to read through a booklet of Utah law, sir. I know the law that we’re talking about.
R: It’s an email I got from general counsel.
J: And I’m not going to read through the email that you received from another attorney. Let’s go to maybe, perhaps, a more dispositive issue sir. There’s something called jurisdiction. You can’t just sue someone anywhere you want. You have to have certain reasons to be able to sue them in certain places. There’s something called subject matter jurisdiction; there’s something called personal jurisdiction. Maybe to their names, one of them is about the subject itself. The other one’s about the person, or the defendants themselves. You need to explain to me why you believe Salt Lake City Justice Court has either personal or subject matter jurisdiction on this matter.
R: Absolutely. It has subject matter jurisdiction because the concert was held here. If I could use your car analogy, just because someone lives in Alaska, and hits your car, it doesn’t mean you can’t sue him because he lives in Alaska. Sir, I honestly looked at it, and it happened here. And it wouldn’t have made any sense… Because I don’t know where their addresses are, the defendants. I don’t know where they reside. I think in California, but I brought it in justice court because the harm happened here on March 21st, and that’s why I felt I had jurisdiction.
J: I understand sir that you are not an attorney, although it appears you are not a stranger to the litigation process. As you might well be aware, that is something that is noted. Certainly not dispositive, certainly not anything critical, but something that is noted when you have cases that are brought up maybe on multiple occasions. I understand you’re not an attorney. I’m not sure what you do for a living, but I’m sure that I don’t do that. We’re all experts in what we know. There is far more about jurisdiction than it happened here. There are certain things regarding relationships to a state. There are certain things having to do with certain contacts certain defendants have to have with certain jurisdictions for that jurisdiction to have power to hear a case. Just because it happened here, whatever those allegations are, and this is not making a determination on those merits at all, for the moment at least… It’s far more about than because a concert was here that I went to. There needs to be both personal and subject matter jurisdiction that would allow this court to handle that case against these defendants. And I’ll give you one more opportunity if you have… And if you don’t know what those elements are then it might not be a real good investment of your time to attempt this. Perhaps, maybe, counsel should have been here with you. But you’ll need to identify why you believe this court has both subject matter and personal jurisdiction, very specifically, pursuant to Utah law. Just because the concert happened here does not grant criterion.
R: I’m sure you’re familiar with the long arm jurisdiction, the long arm statute. I’ve read through that, and it says minimum of conduct, minimum contact. Even for tourist conduct, it creates the minimum contact, and I’ve relied on that statute to file in this court. I could have easily, I don’t know, I guess I could have found out where they reside and filed it in their court, but then it really didn’t make too much sense since I was relying on the long arm statute.
J: Well, again, the long arm statue is a common law that is very old and has many, many additions and different factors to it. Sir, we’re talking about things of substantial activity, continuous activity. Allegations that would cause a defendant to believe that they might be pulled into a lawsuit in this state, not only because of the subject matter of the allegations, which, again I’m not really sure what the allegations are. I understand what you’ve said. I have not really narrowed that down very well. But also, to the people you’re suing themselves, in your documents, you need to make specific allegations and specific facts that would lend the court to determine that both personal and subject matter jurisdiction are proper in the case. Now, as far as the failure to state a claim, what that means is we haven’t identified this cause of action that we’re talking about. You started with negligence per se, which I don’t really think that’s what you meant. You discussed some elements of negligence. You talked about harassment. You talked about some other activity that may have happened. Sir, I’m still failing to understand exactly what law you believe, that you’re relying on, or what common law, or what cause of action you believe occurred that would cause a court to rule in… to be honest, for a court to even continue with discussing a case. If a defendant doesn’t know or can’t identify, especially if a court doesn’t know or can identify, what are you complaining about? What law are you saying we did wrong? What common law practice do you believe we did wrong? It’s very difficult to be making those decisions. That’s why it’s incumbent upon the complainant to make very clear what their causes of action that they’re claiming are. So I’m going to give you one more opportunity to try to explain to me… Again, I don’t need facts. I don’t need that right now. I need to understand what you’re complaining about to see if the facts even go there. If I can’t figure out what that is, then Mr. Skordas’s motion about failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, is going to be very difficult not to grant. So I’m going to give you one more opportunity, then I’m going to hear from Mr. Skordas. Please continue.
R: ::long pause, ums:: I’m just trying to think of how to say it correctly. ::long pause:: So Ariana Grande held a concert here, and she is in charge of all of her staff…
J: Let me remind you, I didn’t ask you for any facts of this, and I’m not even going into all of that until I understand under what title you’re believing those facts violate. If you’re going to say negligence… Is that what you’re going to rely on? Negligence? That someone had a duty, they breached that duty and it caused you some harm, and those actions caused negligence. Is that the cause of action you’re relying on?
R: Negligence and violation of Utah code.
J: OK and that Utah code is the right and access for any individuals with disabilities, equal access and right to services or locations as anyone else. Correct?
R: Yeah, and it says equal rights to advantages, and that contains not to be harassed, not be threatened when you’re going to a concert that you paid for. And not feel threatened. I understand you don’t care about the general counsel, but I talked to him, the guy over the Vivint Home Arena. He said he had no other complaints of it. And he said that the people I encountered worked for Ariana Grande.
J: OK good. Then tell me about in what manner did you … what exact issues and facts occurred that made you feel threatened?
R: OK, absolutely.
J: Bullet points. Quick bullet points.
R: When I was at the Question and Answer, I was sitting in the third row. There were three guards looking right at me. They were laughing, and they were like, “Is he dumb or is he drunk?”
J: How did that make you feel threatened? Threatened means you feel you are going to be hurt, you’re going to be assaulted, you’re going to be in some way… How did you feel threatened by that if that indeed occurred?
R: They kept looking at me. They kept talking amongst themselves. They didn’t get too much closer to me, but I felt they were going to come over to me. And Ariana was sitting on the stage, and just going through her hearts, and I wanted to ask her a question. And I felt that if I stood up because I appear to be a certain way, they would apprehend me because I look intoxicated or whatever. And that is the honest truth. Later on, at 10 o’clock at night, I was filming. I have the video on my phone. I was right next to the stage. The stage was like in the form of an i :: (or eye?) ::. So like far end, catwalk, i, and I was at the far end of the i. And I was filming and a guard grabbed my shoulder, and he was like, “Where’s your seat at?” And I was trying to tell him that that was my area, and he turned me around, and finally the guards… So there was another guard standing in front of the stage. He basically had to say, “Look, this is the guy’s seat.” It was a very hurtful, threatening…
J: Someone asking you where your seat was and another person saying, “This is his seat,” that was hurtful and threatening to you?
R: Because he grabbed me, sir. I felt threatened. I was terrified. What made it worse is it was so loud. Like, there was this random guy grabbing me, like, what did I do to you to grab me? And also, when I met Ariana Grande, I felt as if she looked down upon me. I had dressed in a suit. I had really nice hair. And I told her about her flowers.
J: What cause of action would you say that that would be violating? She had some duty to do something different than how you felt she was treating you?
R: Intentional infliction of emotional distress.
J: Oh.
R: I felt that it was outrageous conduct for her to basically degrade someone who paid all that money. See, here’s the thing. I heard her interactions before I even met her. Like, she said to one guy, “Oh, you’re so handsome.” And just, nice to all these other people and I walked in there, and… I have evidence in my bag of medicine I take for me to help my depression. Honestly, do you want to know why I post such whacky stuff to my Facebook? Because I’ve been having a meltdown. It’s been going on. It just hurts.
J: Alright, so I understand what you’re stating. There’s the security guard situation about your seat. There was something to the effect of while you were at the Question and Answer. And at the time that you met the artist, you felt that she looked down upon you. Anything else that you’d like to add that would support these… It appears negligence. It also appears intentional affliction of emotional distress, and perhaps harassment. Any other facts that you’d like to add before Mr. Skordas so I can make a ruling on the case?
R: Absolutely. So I know Mr. Skordas is going to say…
J: Don’t worry about what Mr. Skordas is going to say. He’ll say what he wants to say. I want you to tell me what you’re going to say.
R: Two aggravating factors that help my case.
::missed a bit here::
So harm that usually wouldn’t matter that much to a regular person really screwed me up, and second of all there’s exceptions on emotional distress. I know in case law it says that usually mere insults aren’t enough for a claim of emotional distress. But with innkeepers, common carriers, and… ::missed:: to allow business people who act in an insulting manner to have a claim of emotional distress. For instance, as I was researching this case, there was a really famous law professor who said that, for instance, a passenger goes into a taxicab and the taxi driver says to them… In any other situation, the passenger wouldn’t have a claim, but since it’s a common carrier, that’s aggravating. There’s also another exception. It was repeated conduct. When conduct is repeated, mere insults is enough to state a claim of emotional distress.
J: So you would state that this was some sort of repeated conduct that happened to you?
R: Yes sir. With the hearts..,
J: Excuse me?
R: With the people that worked for her, yes.
J: :: I missed almost the entire thing. Asking some sort of clarifying question::
R: Yes.
J: Alright very good. Why don’t you have a seat Mr. Greer. Mr. Skordas, I’ve given Mr. Greer as much latitude as I can to try to understand the cause of action upon which to act, as well as discussing jurisdictional criteria that are necessary and only if I get past those three considerations, some surface, factual matters. I would like you to, if you would please, reply to at least the responses that were included in your motion, the failure to state a claim and the lack of personal and subject matter jurisdiction.
S: I’d like to do one other thing your honor. I’d like the court to take a look at a post that Mr. Greer made seven days after the concert. And I’ll indicate that it says,
“Russell Greer: smiley face, (whatever they’re called), emoticons. Feeling happy, dreams do come true, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point, all caps. Smiley face, smiley face, smiley face. I met Ariana Grande. I gave her my flowers and my song. I’m just waiting for her to say yes.”
And in the picture is the two of them together, with her smiling and him standing next to her. So for him to come in here today, your honor, and say that he felt threatened a week earlier, that he felt demeaned by her or anyone in her staff a week earlier is absolutely negated by his own writings one week later.
J: Mr. Greer, have you seen this? Do you know what this…
R; I have, and I …
J: OK have a seat sir. You had your time to talk. You won’t talk unless I ask you to. Thank you sir. Go ahead Mr. Skrodas.
S: I mean I don’t know what else to say. This case was brought in bad faith. There’s no truth to these allegations. There’s no substantiation to these allegations. He enjoyed the benefit of the concert. I’m sorry he has a perceived disability, and I’m sorry that he has suffered through that. I’m sure that that’s been difficult for him in life. But none of that has to do with our client. There’s been no claim here with respect to her agent even being in Utah. It appears that she gave him everything that he paid for, a backstage pass, a personal picture with him, a very good concert, an opportunity for him to, a week later, describe how absolutely overjoyed he was by the entire experience, and then coming in here months later and deciding that he somehow has a cause of action against her, I think, your honor, it’s just ridiculous.
J: Can you tell me, through Mr. Greer’s discussion, did you identify… did his discussion with us alleviate or answer your questions about what claim he’s making on relief he’d like? Were you able to glean that?
S: I don’t think that he’s articulated any claim.
J: He says something about negligence, that there was some duties that were perhaps breached.
S: He went on to the concert, he got everything he asked for. And he hasn’t described anything that relates to either of the clients here. He went to some pre-concert event, felt that he was somehow disrespected by that, but not by anyone that’s being sued today, or, and in fact, immediately after the concert he says what a great time he had. It’s just absurd to me your honor for him to come in here today and say that somehow something happened at that event that caused him distress.
J: Do you have any sort of speculation upon…What’s the reason for this thing? Any speculation on that? Why are we here?
S: So he can get some attention. So he can have his 15 minutes of fame.
J: Did he think these individuals were going to be here?
S: Oh of course. He thought that he would be able to… He’s repeatedly said that all he wants is an apology. The last case we had here all he wanted was a date, and he would dismiss the case. He’s posted here that he’s going to kick my ass today in court. What kind of person does that? I would just ask your honor. Give this case… And I appreciate you being patient. You’ve been far more kind than it deserved. I would ask you to dismiss it and award us costs for defending this bad faith action.
J: Very good thank you, Mr. Skordas. Mr. Greer, I want to ask you two very pointed questions, and your answer to those questions and those questions only. How do you explain…? Stand up sir, and take the podium when I’m speaking to you. How do you explain seven days later, happy happy, emoticon people, what are those, teddy bears? I don’t know. Things. If you suffered so much, suffered this emotional trauma, an intentional infliction as you have stated. Explain this is to me.
R: Thanks. I appreciate Mr. Skordas bringing this up because that was a misunderstood event, and he completely twisted the date thing. He had…
J: I’m asking you one more pointed question, and I’m actually giving you the benefit of even asking any more questions. If I don’t get the answer, restrained, then I’ll just not have you talk anymore. So I’ll ask you one more time. Explain this post of happiness and elation if indeed what you’re telling me is you had these certain effects upon you, emotionally, after the concert. How did we get to this?
R: Can I have the bailiff…?
::He holds up some papers and points to the bailiff, trying to summon him to come over and get his papers the way he got the paper from Skordas, that time at the judge’s request of course.::
J: Explain it to me, and then I’ll look at what you got.
R: I did not want to do what happened with Taylor Swift. I did not to make this a bad situation. So yes, all that stuff happened that I told you about. It’s true. But I decided to try to make the best out of it. Yeah, it was cool. I met her. But she treated me like crap. She gave me weird looks. She… She…
J: Do you understand how that is completely different from what you’re saying to the world and all your following that you claim?
R: I do.
J: Do you understand how those two things don’t jibe? Those two things don’t make sense. And when a judge looks at evidence, we try to understand what evidence lines up with certain claims that are being made, and sir, this doesn’t line up with your claim. This sounds like, had a great time, got a nice picture. It doesn’t look like she’s looking down on you to me. “Dreams come true.” That doesn’t sort of align with, I felt very maligned and looked down upon and things, and now two to three months later, we want to sue people.
R: Actually, two weeks after I posted that post, I came out and said, You know what? ::something at the time:: I was trying to hide it. That’s all in this.
::whatever was on his papers, looked to be screenshots of messages::
J: So two weeks later you decided that this emotional expression was not an accurate one?
R: Basically.
J: Why are you making threats to attorneys and families? Why are you doing that? What do you think that’s going to get you?
R: Sir, if I ever made a threat, it wasn’t on purpose.
J: So you accidentally said you were going to be kicking someone’s ass?
R: Can I see a reference to when I said that?
J: Are you stating that that didn’t happen, sir? Because I don’t have time to be checking references. If I find a reference, and you made me go ten minutes to look for a reference, I’m going to make you spend ten minutes in the cell.
R: OK.
J: So do you remember what we’re talking about now?
R: Yes, I do.
J: Well then why are you making me go to a reference? Why would you say something like that? Where would you think that would get you some benefit in a court of law? Much less, society in general. Where would you think that would get you benefit today?
R: The only two ass references I can think of is I sent an email to Scoo-, to the manager, two days ago saying I was going to kick ass and then the other reference, I didn’t actually mean as a threat. It’s like a figure of speech. It’s like saying…
J: It’s like saying there will be blood in the courtroom today. It’s figure of speech. Is that what you mean?
R: I know how that can sound bad, but, sir, I do not pose a threat to anybody. I hold a full time job.
J: Mr. Skordas, do you have it? Let me look at it. Because if it is as blatant as it appears then I’m going to put it in evidence. Thank you, sir. Mr. Greer, I’m going to have difficulty with that. Sorry. “I’m going to knock the lawyer on his ass with my evidence.” Right?
R: I have evidence here.
J: That’s not what we’re talking about. I’ve given you the opportunity to talk about your evidence, about why you think there’s even a cause of action. Why you think this is the right courtroom. I’ve even entertained some of the basic factual allegations that you’ve made of why you may have some claim. Now what I’m asking you, and again I had two questions. One was why these posts don’t seem to align with what you’re saying. But number two, where the benefit comes, do you think, and why you don’t think that would come to light in a courtroom. About making threats to people, threats to their families, threats to what’s going to happen in a courtroom. Where you might think that might benefit you. Or maybe where you think that that would be proper. Do you think that that’s proper?
R: No I don’t. I think it’s stupid.
J: You think it’s stupid?
R: It was taken out of context.
J: So if it was in context, it’d be perfectly fine?
R: If I… Yeah. If you change the words. With my awesome evidence, I’m going to win the court case. I guess that’s…
J: You don’t see any difference between that and “I’m going to kick the lawyer’s ass with my evidence.” You don’t see any difference there?
R: I see how it looks now.
J: OK good. I’m glad that you do. And you see that there’s probably some other way of saying, “Trust me, there will be blood.” You believe me, and you agree with me, there’s probably a different way of saying that if you’re trying to say something?
R: Yeah.
J:Have a seat Mr. Greer. I’m ready to make my ruling. I’ve given all the information as much consideration as I can, spent an undue amount of time on this case. I wanted to handle it completely and accurately. In my estimation, there are four elements that are either at issue or being disputed. We start off with the matter of jurisdiction, both personal and subject matter jurisdiction. Individuals that come through town for a night, perform a concert or a rodeo or a monster truck jam are not availing themselves to our state. They are not continuous. They are not consistent. Not only is that subject matter of that event, by its very nature, not subject matter jurisdiction, the individuals that were defendants must have some personal jurisdiction, have availed themselves, have minimum contacts, at least to a consistent and stable basis, for them to avail themselves of the court system of a particular state. I don’t find that this defendant or her agent, certainly, have availed themselves to the state of Utah, much less this court, based on the subject matter of a concert coming to town, or personally, in either instance, on either defendant. Number one.
Number two, the failure to make a claim upon which relief can be granted. I’ve asked the plaintiff on multiple occasions. I think I’ve given as much latitude as I possibly can for an explanation of what cause of action there would be. I heard different things like negligence. I heard negligence per se. I heard intentional inflictions of emotional distress. I heard harassment. Based on, at least, the surface information that I continue to ask the plaintiff on, what led to that? What are you saying that led to negligence, or harassment? I heard things, that I felt if I got up, I would be threatened or I would be assaulted. Subjectively, that appeared the plaintiff believed, or was afraid or was scared. That he believed he was degraded. I’m not sure what duty the plaintiff believes that artists of international nature have, much artists of local nature have, to anyone.
As it does not appear to be in dispute, that the events or the occurrences upon which the plaintiff contracted or purchased tickets or passes or what have you. It does not appear to be a dispute that that happened. I’m looking at a picture of it happening. I’m looking at posts confirming that it happened. Mr. Greer’s own testimony about being at a Question and Answer, wanted to ask a question, meeting this artist, being sort of right on the front row of the staging. It certainly appears that, and I don’t know exactly upon which Mr. Greer contracted, but it sounds like he got what he contracted for. I don’t know that that contract is that I’ll accept your flowers or play your song. Or even be super nice. I don’t know. I don’t think so. So I don’t see negligence. I don’t see the harassment, certainly by the two defendants. Perhaps if there was a security guard, a named person, or somebody of that nature. But the vicarious nature of negligent responsibility, all the way up to a named artist, is not proper or allowed by our law. So I don’t see harassment. I certainly don’t see negligence.
I spent the time on this to go through this very carefully so that Mr. Greer understood the ruling behind this today. I’m denying Mr. Greer’s claims for relief that he’s made in his affidavit and summons, denying his reimbursements of fees, service, costs, and any other costs. Pursuant to my discretion under Utah law, I have to make a determination that this was brought in bad faith. If this was a non-meritorious claim. If this was only here to harass, to annoy, for ulterior purposes. I find that that is the case. I might understand… I have no reason to disbelieve, I don’t know Mr. Greer. If he subjectively believes he had certain rights and duties owed to him, that may be true. You might believe you do. That doesn’t mean it’s true. You don’t have those rights.
And bringing a lawsuit, and again, not that this weighs on this case, but the court certainly considers repetitive litigious nature of a plaintiff. It does appear that this is not the first time that this has happened. Based on the repeated nature of that, the claims that have been made, and unfortunately the failure to state a claim that can be even granted, even if I did believe that there was something nefarious or inappropriate that went on. I don’t find that this claim was brought in good faith. I do believe that it has no merit.
Before you came Mr. Greer, 35 minutes late, I asked Mr. Skordas the type of fees that he has incurred on this. Based on my discretion, pursuant to Utah law, I’m awarding $1500 of attorney’s fees to the defendants for their time incurred and expenses to defend this non-meritorious action. That is my ruling for the day. You might not like it Mr. Greer, but do you have any questions?
R: I understand.
J: Mr. Skordas you might not like this, do you have any questions?
S: No.
J: Very good. That will be the dismissing of this case.
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- Jan 8, 2016
This is the best part IMHO.
RussMeDaddy
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2017
@sharshorita was saving the best for last. I have seen some weird pathetic shit in a courtroom, but this? This has them all beat.
Wow, Skordas just went scorched earth.
cringe
He still tried to bring his dumb fucking evidence! His situational awareness is non-existent.
Props to the judge at the end for the way he very carefully explains the law. I've seen judges just say, "fuck it," but that just encourages the bastards. This kind of dressing down is going to, at the very least, give Russ pause.
Holy shit, this is better than non-commercial sex. I need a smoke...
Wow, Skordas just went scorched earth.
cringe
He still tried to bring his dumb fucking evidence! His situational awareness is non-existent.
Props to the judge at the end for the way he very carefully explains the law. I've seen judges just say, "fuck it," but that just encourages the bastards. This kind of dressing down is going to, at the very least, give Russ pause.
Holy shit, this is better than non-commercial sex. I need a smoke...
ln18
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- May 21, 2015
It seems like the judge went out of his way to try to discourage future lolsuits, hopefully his efforts will have been in vain because this shit is too funny (and I also think that his fixation on a legal recourse when he gets mad keeps him from really hurting people).
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- May 22, 2017
That final exchange and ruling is perhaps the greatest moment in the history of te United States judicial system.
I literally saved it to read again in the future.
I literally saved it to read again in the future.
- Joined
- May 7, 2014
That really was a grand finale. What an utter verbal beat down Greer got. This is what happens when someone with an extremely firm grasp of the law faces off against someone with next to no understanding of it. You could tell Greer was trying to "legalese" his way through some of the judges questions, and it absolutely backfired every time.
I can't imagine the facial expression he would have made during this, had he the ability. It sounds like the judge was setting a precedent that Greer is on the path to be considered a vexatious litigant.
Thank you for your hard work @sharshorita, to go to this and transcribe all these notes.
I can't imagine the facial expression he would have made during this, had he the ability. It sounds like the judge was setting a precedent that Greer is on the path to be considered a vexatious litigant.
Thank you for your hard work @sharshorita, to go to this and transcribe all these notes.
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- Dec 28, 2014
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- May 7, 2014
I'm sure this isn't the last time ol' Saggyface will try to pull this shit. Next time though I think he'll go for lower hanging fruit. I'm sure he thinks this is all because of Arianna's powerful legal influence that this didn't go his way, never mind the fact that no judge in the country would have ruled in his favor.
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- Nov 16, 2015
Russ is lucky he only got hit for $1500 after clearly pissing off the judge.
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- Jun 13, 2016
I think I read this three times it made me so happy. A cow getting called out like that, with repercussions on the line, for lying and his stupid fucking bullshit.
I would have been shushed many times by this judge for trying to give him numerous standing ovations. He got to do what we've all dreamed of doing to Russhole, lay the smackdown from on high.
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- Dec 28, 2014
He could have tried suing someone actually in Utah and where there might have been personal jurisdiction.
He can also thank Skordas for capping his fees at $2,500 and not even asking for all of that. Skordas could easily have charged his normal rates, which are certainly more than that, and then demanded all of it, not just some. Slam-dunking a dimwit like Greer for super cheap was very nice of him and, of course, smart too, since he can look forward to future business if ever needed for something more important and time consuming.
ln18
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- May 21, 2015
How much time would you estimate he spent on this, outside of court? Ten minutes?
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- Dec 28, 2014
I haven't read the papers, but even responding to completely frivolous crap takes longer than filing completely frivolous crap. I wouldn't be surprised if he spent 10 minutes for every minute actually in court.
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- May 23, 2017
Now I'm kinda sorry this wasnt covered by the news, would have been EPIC
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- Jun 12, 2017
However long it took to incorrectly input the court date into his phone calendar.
If there wasn't photographic evidence of this event, I would think this thread was some weird fanfic of an exceptionally exceptional individual. How do you yammer on and on about how you're gonna win and spend your spoils on hookers, yet never even double check the time of your "trial of the century"?
I mean, shit, I double check my calendar for stupid things like "make sure to remember snacks for work" to ensure I don't fuck up, yet he doesn't even bother for something that was gonna change his life.
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- Dec 28, 2014
This absolutely flabbergasted me. We all got the time right, and we don't even give a fuck about it except as an opportunity to laugh at some mongoloid midget with a paralyzed face who drools on himself and fails to score with a hooker after paying her thousands of dollars.
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- Apr 25, 2015
I doubt he actually got the time wrong. I think it's more likely he knew the correct time, but overslept or was late for some other reason. Then his hamster-in-a-wheel of a brain started working and he thought that showing an alarm for the wrong time would prove that he really tried his best to be on time, or something.
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2013
No he showed the alarm on Facebook. It was always set to 2.