Swayze Alford agreed to the Agreed Order for Independent Medical Exams on January 28th, 2022 with my attourney at the time, Brad Golman. Brad sent the order to Swayze immediately. Swayze had agreed to the terms of the order to for go the hearing scheduled for January 31st, 2022.
Swayze Alford would not sign the order until February 8th, 2022. During the interim time I asked Brad why Swayze had not signed it, and Brad said he did not know why. Typically, attorneys sign agreed orders that they agreed to within a day of recieving from opposing counsel.
After recieving the medical opinion of Dr Hobbs, which was signed on the February 7th, we found out why he had not signed the order. He had not signed the order he had verbally agreed to unitl the day after he got a favoarble Dr. Hobb’s. The opinion stated SR was compentant enought to manage his affairs. It was our contention that Swayze held off on signing the order until he got back the opinion and it was favorable. Swayze knew Dr. Hobbs and so did the Judge per Brad.
On February 7th, Sr was examined for mental compentancy at Dr. Hobb’s office. Dr Hobb’s assistant administered the Mental-Mini State Assessment (MMSE). Link to Hobb’s report. This assement is not close to adequate to qulaify as an evaluation per the GAP act.
It should be noted that about a year earlier, Dr. McIntosh in the same practice with Dr. Hobbs, administered the Mini-Mental State Assessment and concluded that SR could not manage his own affairs and stated he would sign off on a conservatorship, and further stated to me that he would have his parnter sign off also. At the time, I decided not to proceed with the execution of a conservatorship for SR.
A reasonable person would conclude that the Mini-Mental State Assessment is not an adequate test for a conservatorship. It is eleven questions, and takes a bout 5 minutes to administer. [Click here to see actual exam and responses] A six year old could answer the questions, as SR did. Except for one. Question number 11. Number 11 asked the participant to copy a geometric diagram depicted on the question. This would take some analytical cognitive ability, but not much. A six year old might not get it, but a 14 year old would. SR refused to answer number 11. That SR could not answer the only cognitive skill question should have indicated to Dr. Hobbs that further examination is necessary.
In my opinion and in Brad’s, the facts that Dr. Hobbs relied on a MMSE, and that SR could not answer the only critical thought question was reason enough to strike the Dr. Hobb’s opinion as a IME to be used for the question of conservatorship.
Brad and I decided to file a motion to strike Dr. Hobbs. Although Brad never got around to writing, much less filing a motion to strike Hobb’s, my next attorney, Mitchell Driskell, did write and filed the Motion to Strike or Exlclude the Opinion of Dr. Hobbs on June 20th, 2022.
The Motion to Strike or Exclude the Opinion of Dr. Hobbs would not be set to heard until August 30th, althogh Mitchell had sent an email to Swayze on June 29th with over two months of available dates before August 30th. In my opinion Swayze wanted to postpone the hearing as long as possible to prejudice me. Delaying two months once opposing counsel ask to set a motion for hearing is irregular, since there were so many available days on the calender. Swayze will do this agian later. Seems if he does not want to set a motion for hearing one has to wait an unreasable amount of time for no good reason. By the way, there are explicit rules in the Code of Professional Conduct against this practice.
As we approached August 30th, I told Mitchell that Swayze will probably call the day before the hearing, and want to negotiate. Also, I told Mitchell that I would need a signed agreed order in hand before dimissing the hearing to hear the motion. This was for good reason, as told above, we have seen Swayze delay in signing a order until he got a favorable medical opinion. History was to repeat itself.
The hearing was to be on a monday, and friday before had come and gone. I assumed we would be having a hearing. I tried to contact Mitchell to get details on the hearing, as I was planning on attending. I did not hear back from Mitchell during normal work hours. That is did not hear until sunday night.
On sunday night (August 28th) Mitchell sent me a text stating “we won!”. Swazye had called him that sunday night and said he would agree to striking the Hobb’s testimony and finally would provide the truck sales docs that I requested in April. I was not excited. Why? I had required Mitchell to get signed order before cancelling a hearing, as Swayze has used not signing orders that he said he would to give himself an illicit advantage before. Again there is specific language in the Code of Professional Conduct, and will discuss this soon in a blog about a bar complaint agianst Swayze.
That monday (August 29th) Mitchell sent Swayze this email with a draft order attached. It is customary for attorneys to get agreed orders for the hearings they wanted to cancel out by the next day of receiving.
The bogus Hobbs’s opinion had been lingering for about 6 months now. Swayze, again was failing on his word to a fellow bar member just to abuse the process and cause me predjudice. Striking Hobb’s a mission critical step, and the overall strategy could not move foward until it was resolved. Although, Mitchell was engaged and paid quite well to manage the process professionally, he was failing, and it my responsibility to hold Mitchell accountble. I sent Mitchell this email on September 7th inquiring about the status of the delayed order.
To cut to the chase, Mitchell failed in his professional responsibilities and did not handle ‘professionally’ being held accountable by the client. I will cover more in future blog: The Firing of Mitchell. Mitchell said if I was not happy with his service, I should fire him, so did. He didn’t handle that professionally either, but again, thats for another blog.
Now, I am Pro Se, which is legal latin for representing myself. Then it was on me to get the order signed, and I did, and also got the truck purchase documentation.
Here we sit some 9 months after the agreed order for IME’s had been signed, and the only IME we have per the February 8th order for two is the one I arranged. Swayze once agian openly and overtly breaks the rules of court procedures. My counsel refuses to hold Swayze accountable, which is their duty to the profession and me, so I have to fire them to keep the profession honest and accountable. It’s the Oxford Lawyer Code of Condcut, which is the supreme authority of how lawyers in Oxford conduct their practice, which is more like a Cosa Nostra code. This story get worse, way worse.
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