Exhausting Administrative Remedies

Leaving your emotions at the door to the temple ...

CAVEAT: The author of this post posits these ideas as a matter of research and suggests that since the subject matter should not be construed as legal advice or guarantee any kind of legal outcome or draw any conclusions of law that one may wish to conduct further research before “pulling the trigger” on pursuing any administrative remedies and/or judicial complaints.

(LATE BREAKING NEWS! — SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS) Last Friday, a 78-year-old San Antonio woman (who is also facing foreclosure) was given a five-day jail sentence and a $7,500 fine, along with a $15,000 bond in a Texas probate case for failing to comply with a judge’s order, when she thought she was “in the right” and refused to remove tax liens she placed on a property that was part of a probated estate to preserve her interest and protect her tax payments for future reimbursement when and if the property was ordered sold.

The first probate judge, Veronica Vasquez, who has been accused in prior cases of courtroom chicanery, recused herself from the case after Kay Turner’s attorney filed a motion to recuse, after the attorney quoted portions of the probate code the judge didn’t comply with. A copy of Judge Vasquez’s bond paperwork appears (again) below in the paid section of this post. The judge also filed a complaint against Turner’s attorney for quoting the law.

The key problem here is that jurisdictional issues were raised, which should have put the brakes on the case and the judge ignored that motion until last Thursday afternoon, when she denied it, claiming the court had jurisdiction to rule on the case. Prior to the judge’s recusal, Kay Turner filed a judicial complaint with the review board, which started an investigation into the matter.

The replacement probate judge (Barbie Charf-Zeldes) however, finished what Judge Vasquez was headed towards and that was to hold Kay Turner, in contempt of court. Turner was placed in handcuffs and paraded out of the courtroom. No jurisdictional hearing at all.

Turner was never properly appointed under the Texas Probate Code. This is unfortunate, because you cannot waive statutory requirements. Does this action warrant going after the new judge’s bond? We’re looking into it right now!

From all indications, after five days, Turner will be brought into court and ordered to comply with the judge’s order to remove the liens. If she declines, she could be put back in the Bexar County jail (possibly for up to 30 days). It’s anyone’s guess what will happen.

Turner claims she was forced by the court (under threat and duress) to give up her personal representative status of her late mother’s estate. According to inside sources, everything went sideways from there.

The next logical step would be to appeal the judge’s ruling, right? Appealing is part of the administrative process that needs to be exhausted FIRST!

So many of you might not leave your emotions at the door and want to sue the judge or attack her bond because the court refused to consider all the facts of the case. But then again, that has to do with the ruling, not egregious behavior of the judge. Judges have every right to cite people with contempt and haul them off to jail and it has happened multiple times across the nation … BUT … it usually has to do with non-payment of child support or denial of visitation rights, BUT NOT PROBATE!

It is also possible that on appeal to the higher court, if it finds the probate court did NOT have jurisdiction to rule on the case and tosses it out, Turner may be on the front end of a state tort claims act suit. This is where the judge’s bonds may come into question!

-30- (That number is a journalism phrase for “end of story”; but it’s really not the end, yet!)

This is a follow-up to the last post. I get these weird notions in the middle of my sleep cycle that warrant further exploration into a seldom-used method for going into “the abyss” of legal remedies, which seemingly come on the heels of unchecked emotions following a day in foreclosure court.

Those of you paid subscribers out there obviously know that I’ve been pursuing these types of matters since I started doing research into securitization and clouded titles in 2007 as the financial markets were being to show signs of a collapse. Thus, to leave out the entire process of administrative law remedies may seem nonsensical to most lay people entering the judicial processes for the first time … but I can tell you, after having been in courtroom dramas and trials, this is no place for the faint of heart.

And so … we proceed: