Legal Question in Civil Litigation in New York
we were issued an appearance ticket for dog at large. we went to the appearance date to plea not guilty and the judge stated" he has not decided that yet, what was our case" we informed him we were not prepared we thought this was an initial appearance. He gave us another court date. at the next court date we went prepared and were told that due to conflict of interest they were sending us to another court. this is a small town and the town clerk made the complaint.
first question could they have told us this in writing, we missed two half days of work.
Next we went to court again with all of our info and found out this was again an initial appearance.(another 1/2 day of work)
finally we had our last court date, the judge dismissed the case because the town attorney was not present, and sent the dog control officer, case dismissed.
Today we received a letter in the mail from the town attorney to the judge allowing the dog control officer to prosecute and to set yet another court date. Have not heard what the judges response is.
Final question can we submit our own statement to the judge(from our lawyer if needed) stating our case, this will be a fifth court date. We would not pursue if we were quilty.this is the shortened version of what has been happening since 5/2012. Thank you.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Writ of prohibition is your best remedy: you sue the Town Attorney in the Appellate Division (the same people that revoke law licenses). Next best is to come into the next court date with an out-of-town attorney on a mission to make the Town Attorney regret ever having gone to law school.
And a suit against the Town Attorney personally for malicious prosecution, abuse of process, and fulminating halitosis. :-)
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