CHRISTINA R. L. NORRIS, ATTY at LAW__________ DEFENDANT

The Court stated that the record should show that the Plaintiff refused to answer a direct question. This is questionable reasoning. Plaintiff did not wish to answer the court with a conclusion of law, but was seeking to answer the court with a series of statements of fact which would lead the court to determine its own conclusion of law. A litigant is not supposed to respond to a court with conclusory statements, as these are considered non-responsive. A statement of numbers of witnesses might well be a conclusory statement, under the circumstances of this case. [1] The Court first requested that the litigants explain what the case is all about. Before receiving any specific response from either plaintiff or defendant, the Court then asked how many witnesses the defense had. The Defendant responded that they had six witnesses. This appears to a conclusory statement, which the Court must have believed Plaintiff was obliged to answer in kind.

a) The defense was never required to identify who these witnesses were, nor what knowledge or facts these six unnamed individuals would bring before the court. Nowhere were these items stated in the pleadings. b) Plaintiff does not presume to explain any defense the defendants may have planned. however, since the case of plaintiff is based on one singular event, [as described in plaintiff's pleadings], the defense must have planned to call as witnesses the eyewitnesses to this singular event. No other testimony would serve to repudiate the case of Plaintiff. The only individuals who were eyewitnesses to the singular event are listed in the class roster. Any testimony or witnesses which might have bolstered the countersuit of defendant are part of a different matter entirely, and not part of the case before the court on that date. Therefore, Defendants witnesses must have been students from the class. Any student planned as a defense could be impeached by any student testifying for plaintiff, and defendant could not plan around the potential of testimony for plaintiff, nor plan perjury, and thus, Plaintiff must believe that even if defendant wishes to count those six unnamed students as witnesses for Defendant, this would necessarily be a conclusory statement, since Plaintiff was also a witness, and knows that no witness can repudiate the singular event herein under scrutiny, but rather only could state "I do not recall", or "I did not hear". No statement like "it did not happen" could have been the planned testimony of any of the six witnesses from the class. Any witness from the class could potentially be a witness for the Plaintiff, when the truth is exacted under penalty of perjury during cross examination. The facts may not have born out the conclusory statement of defendant that six witnesses were defense witnesses. Therefore, Plaintiff was correct in stating what the facts were, concerning the complete absence of students in the court, on that date, and at that time.

One of Plaintiff's specific goals in this case was to notify each student in this class so that no student could remain misinformed. The production of the class roster allowed this notice. Each student listed in the class roster were [excepting E.T. Kirby who left no forwarding address] notified of the date, time, and location of the trial, by Plaintiff. [see letter exhibit, which was mailed to each on 14 Sept 1994. ].

I) Plaintiff did not subpoena the class as witnesses, because: 1) The Plaintiff believed that voluntary witnesses would be vastly superior to coerced witnesses. The class was composed of paralegal students, who in studying legal research implied an interest in the actual workings of the legal system. This trial represented a unique opportunity to participate in the legal system with a first-hand situation. Plaintiff would not have reasonably predicted that no student/witness would appear. If subpoena were used to compel attendance, the probably result would be the student feeling more like a hostile witness, which makes the Plaintiff the "bad guy", rather than the injured party. [2]

2) Plaintiff did not want to be in the position of: a) having to choose which students to call from those who were present. This seems to have a potential for bias. A few witnesses would have been adequate to make plaintiff's case, leaving the remainder of the class as redundant testimony. It must be supposed that each student was listening intently as proven by the passing grade each apparently received. b) possibly causing an invasion of privacy in the life of a student due to the sensitive nature of the topic itself, or resulting from the fact of testifying. This is a realization of what might happen and should be avoided, rather than a conclusion of what absolutely would happen.

3) The students would feel free to discuss the event with their peers if they are not required to publicly go on record and become involved in the matter. This vindicates the Plaintiff's case among those same peers.

Plaintiff is not specifically addressing the issue of whether it is an abuse of discretion to elicit, allow, or demand legal conclusions, as compared to statements of facts, from a litigant.

Plaintiff would like the Court to amend the dismissal to reflect the actual events, which appear to Plaintiff to be a technical or default-type dismissal. Plaintiff would also like the judgment to indicate that this Judge had not heard the arguments which had occurred previously before a previous and satisfactory Judge in this matter.