What is this case about?

In re: Marriage Of Fong is an instructional case for civil litigation, and therefore is famous among family attorneys.  But what does this mean for the lay person going through a divorce, and why is it important to know about?

Here's my two cents:  watch what your attorney is doing.  So many parties going through litigation blindly trust their attorneys, without trying to verify their work.  The internet is a great place to search for any topic regarding your case.  And if you search for "discovery" rules in divorce cases, chances are you'll wind up with a search result of "In re: Marriage Of Fong".

What happened to Marci is huge.  I can't say whether she was watching over what her attorney was doing, but had her attorney been working for me, I would've caught the simple error that made the case so famous.  Her attorney neglected to file mandatory disclosure forms (typically just a few pages) and this wound up costing Marci $200,000.

A San Jose law firm (almadenvalleylawyers.com) posted the following for couples on their law blog:

Selecting an attorney is a very important decision, and in my experience - I've found it quite common that attorneys tend to overpromise and do more talking and bluffing than prudently and carefully practicing good law.  My attorney, Casey Olsen, is very fastidious, and with nearly 30 years of practice as a trial lawyer, he did a great job and deserves his prestigious reputation.

But it doesn't take an exceptional lawyer to fill out the simple disclosure courts that are required by the courts.  This is a basic requirement that any practicing attorney should know.  And just because an attorney has passed the bar or talks up a good storm doesn't mean you shouldn't watch what he/she is doing.  In this case, it cost the client $200,000.

"Totally Unreasonable Settlement Demands" - ruling by Judge Mark A. Juhas

When reading the published "in re: Marriage of Fong" opinion for the first time, one thing popped out at me as a huge error - that I had not responded to settlement offers.

While it's not clear as to what I did to frustrate settlement, in Judge Mark A. Juhas written ruling, he clearly shows that our settlement offers were reasonable, while Marci Kington's settlement offers were "totally unreasonable".  The complete ruling from the judge is available in PDF format by clicking HERE.

When Marci sought a settlement of 2.4 million dollars, when the judge ruled that the marital estate back then was only 1.125 million, her settlement offer was 5 times too high.  Ours was a little lower than the ruling, but not much.  Which shows that what we were offering was very close to the authentic number.

So what this left me with was this - either pay five times more than you need to, or show the court how unreasonable their number is.  

Barbara Hammers, the attorney representing Marci, shared with one of my witnesses (who then testified in a sworn declaration) that she was "clearly frustrated at my unwillingness to settle merely to avoid legal fees" and then pondered in an email to Ken Scott (who is a Vice President of Paralegal Services at Bank of America) "why can't people approach divorce like a business?"

Approaching this situation as a business, though I spent about a million dollars defending myself against this unreasonable settlement offer, I'm still ahead a million dollars from their unreasonable settlement offer.

My opinion is that Barbara Hammers smelled a big jackpot.  With her belief that the "one with the most money pays all of the legal fees in a divorce" she probably thought she could do anything she wanted, and I'd have to pay for what she was doing.