Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Florida
Preparing myself for trial pro-se and have strong arguments to
prepare for an appeal in the event that I lose.
My FTC Civil case is on July 20th.
I would like to appeal based on jurisdiction and other violations.
1. My LLC company who transacted business never acted outside the
scope of the corp. and the FTC is holding me personally liable.
2. I never waived my rights the a jury trial, but when I requested
a jury trial in front of the judge I was denied this right. My previous lawyer
may have screwed up this chance for me.
3. I was never properly served the court documents. I was living
out of the country with my wife and was notified by my bank manager
who told me that all of my bank accounts were frozen before ever getting
any notification from the courts to respond.
4. Also, the FTC's entire investigation was based around "hearsay"
and violated my rights to due process.
As you can see the FTC are sharks and they go after the small guys the
same way they go after anyone else and now I am at the point where I am
tired of there lies and all they want me to do is to settle, but I know
that if I settle I lose and there would be no chance of winning an appeal
later on.
Do you have anybody that I can call that may be able to give me any advice?
I can only afford a budget of about $100 an hour at a time.
1 Answer from Attorneys
You should not be doing this pro se, since it seems you misunderstand much of the applicable law.
Take your first point, for example. Business entities cannot act on their own; they can only act through individuals. If an individual breaks the law while conducting the company's business, both he and the business may be liable. For example, if a company is set up to import goods from overseas and one of its officers decides to import cocaine, he can't escape prosecution by arguing that he was merely conducting the company's affairs. The company can also be prosecuted, but that does not mean the officer would escape punishment.
Your fourth point also shows a very basic misunderstanding of the law. There is no rule against using hearsay in an investigation. There are rules that limit its use in court, but most hearsay is admissible even there due to numerous exceptions to the hearsay rule.
Even if there are good arguments you could offer in your defense, it doesn't sound like you understand the law well enough to make them -- or perhaps even to recognize them. You should get a lawyer if at all possible. With so little time left before your trial, though, it may be too late to do that.
Good luck.
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