[00:00:00] Speaker 02:
Good morning, Your Honors.

[00:00:02] Speaker 02:
Today, I'm asking this Court to reverse the decision made by the District Court.

[00:00:07] Speaker 02:
And the main reason I'm asking you to do that is because whatever counterclaim my clients were required to file in response to that Georgia lawsuit, it was not compulsory.

[00:00:19] Speaker 02:
The cases we cited, the Bigley case, the Meadow Springs case,

[00:00:24] Speaker 02:
I think those cases, they crystallize what the court is supposed to analyze when determining whether or not a counterclaim is compulsory.

[00:00:34] Speaker 02:
And here, in the Georgia case, the respondent's allegations in the Georgia case that my client issued two false 1099s

[00:00:46] Speaker 02:
Those allegations are totally unrelated to my client's allegations that the respondent went out on four or five different occasions and defamed my client's character.

[00:00:58] Speaker 03:
So what do we make of the fact that in the answer in the Georgia case, your client did reference some of these same defamation type allegations that we're now seeing in the complaint in this case?

[00:01:11] Speaker 02:
Right.

[00:01:12] Speaker 02:
And with respect to that, Your Honor,

[00:01:16] Speaker 02:
That's in an answer.

[00:01:17] Speaker 02:
And so our position is, and if we look at the Bigley case and the metal springs, is that my client's motivation for issuing those false 1099s.

[00:01:27] Speaker 02:
Of course, they admit, yes, we issued those false 1099s because we believe that the respondent defamed our character.

[00:01:35] Speaker 02:
That motivation for doing that doesn't somehow reconcile what the respondent wants the court to reconcile.

[00:01:44] Speaker 02:
That doesn't necessarily mean, and it doesn't eviscerate the law that says we still must independently analyze whether or not these two claims arose out of the same operative facts.

[00:01:55] Speaker 02:
So the fact that my client raised these issues in an answer

[00:02:00] Speaker 02:
but not in a counterclaim.

[00:02:02] Speaker 02:
Obviously raising the issue in an answer doesn't turn the answer into a counterclaim.

[00:02:07] Speaker 02:
We still have to analyze whether or not the counterclaim that was never brought, whether it was compulsory.

[00:02:17] Speaker 03:
What is the overall nature of the disagreement between the parties here?

[00:02:21] Speaker 03:
I mean, there seems to be a lot of stuff flying around in the Georgia case and now in this case.

[00:02:26] Speaker 03:
What's actually going on between the parties?

[00:02:30] Speaker 02:
Well, I mean, the parties obviously don't like each other.

[00:02:34] Speaker 02:
But in the end, at the end of the day, we basically have two claims.

[00:02:40] Speaker 02:
I mean, we have a claim that my client issued the false 1099s, which maybe it may have been true.

[00:02:46] Speaker 02:
And then we have four or five, six different occasions where my client says the other side went around and defamed their character.

[00:02:54] Speaker 02:
I mean, those really are the two, those are the only two issues in the case, really.

[00:02:59] Speaker 02:
I mean, two allegations.

[00:03:00] Speaker 02:
One has to do with the 1099s.

[00:03:02] Speaker 02:
The other ones have to do with false claims.

[00:03:04] Speaker 02:
And I believe that there's no connection between the two with respect to the operator of facts or when we analyze whether or not they arose out of the same transaction or occurrence, there's no, I don't see how we, based on the case law, can get to a conclusion that those two did arise out of the same transaction or occurrence.

[00:03:26] Speaker 03:
How then do we reconcile this with the answer that does seem to link these two things together?

[00:03:32] Speaker 02:
So the answer, and I understand.

[00:03:35] Speaker 03:
Was the answer pro se?

[00:03:36] Speaker 03:
Was the answer written pro se?

[00:03:38] Speaker 03:
Yes, it was.

[00:03:39] Speaker 03:
OK.

[00:03:40] Speaker 02:
And so I understand what the court is saying.

[00:03:42] Speaker 02:
But again, we get around to the fact that that's just my client's motivation.

[00:03:47] Speaker 02:
My client motivation for issuing the 1099s was the character was defamed.

[00:03:53] Speaker 02:
But if we look at the law, though, we look at my client sending two

[00:04:01] Speaker 02:
False 1099.

[00:04:03] Speaker 02:
That's one act, right, that happened.

[00:04:06] Speaker 02:
Now we're looking, there's no connection.

[00:04:08] Speaker 02:
We're on different days, different nights, different occasions, and the respondent is doing something totally different.

[00:04:15] Speaker 02:
They are defaming my client's character.

[00:04:17] Speaker 02:
So those are different time periods than everything else.

[00:04:21] Speaker 02:
So I don't see how we get those two together and then come to a conclusion that they arose out of the same operative effects or the same transaction or occurrence just because my client made reference to those motivations in an answer.

[00:04:37] Speaker 03:
There was just as a matter of timing.

[00:04:40] Speaker 03:
My understanding is there were some alleged wrongs that you're pointing to in this lawsuit that post-state the Georgia judgment.

[00:04:47] Speaker 03:
Is that true?

[00:04:48] Speaker 02:
Yes.

[00:04:48] Speaker 02:
There were at least two or three different statements that my client attributed to the respondent in their California lawsuit that were basically eviscerated by the court because the court decided that

[00:05:04] Speaker 02:
the my client could have brought those claims in the Georgia action.

[00:05:07] Speaker 02:
But obviously, my client could never have done that because those allegations of wrongdoings occurred after the Georgia lawsuit ended.

[00:05:15] Speaker 02:
So at the end of the day, even assuming arguing though that my client had an obligation to bring a compulsive recounted claim.

[00:05:25] Speaker 02:
Those other incidences of wrongdoing, those other defamatory statements that occurred after that Georgia lawsuit ended, should never have been, those causes of action should have been able to survive in a district court.

[00:05:37] Speaker 02:
There's no rationale with respect to why those allegations would have been wiped out because of this alleged duty to have brought a compulsory counterclaim previously.

[00:05:48] Speaker 03:
The district court seemed to reason that these were

[00:05:50] Speaker 03:
all in a series, you know, that all these different defamatory statements were sort of related to each other, including the ones that poststated the Georgia judgment.

[00:06:00] Speaker 03:
Do you believe there's a kind of logic to this one in a series point that the district court relied on?

[00:06:06] Speaker 02:
Honestly, I'm not, you know, I just don't agree with the district court.

[00:06:10] Speaker 02:
I mean, if you want to say something occurred in a series, then, you know, that's kind of like opening up a Pandora's box.

[00:06:17] Speaker 02:
How do we get there?

[00:06:18] Speaker 02:
Like, if someone defames your character on one day and then decides to defame it two months later and then do it again another month later,

[00:06:27] Speaker 02:
Do we just say, oh, those occurred in a series?

[00:06:31] Speaker 02:
And so there's no way we're going to let those acts of wrongdoing be sued upon.

[00:06:43] Speaker 02:
I don't agree.

[00:06:44] Speaker 02:
I don't understand how that rationale came to be with the district court.

[00:06:48] Speaker 02:
I just don't agree with it.

[00:06:49] Speaker 02:
And I don't see how we would ever then be able to

[00:06:55] Speaker 02:
um, have under incidences that survive a lawsuit, um, you know, be incidences that could be sued upon if we could just, with one swoop of a pen, say, well, it seems to have been ongoing, so therefore it's a series, and so you can't sue for those wrongdoings.

[00:07:11] Speaker 02:
It kinds of, it kinds of allows a party then to just, after a lawsuit has ended, just to continue acts of wrongdoing without penalty.

[00:07:20] Speaker 02:
And I, I just don't, I don't believe the law was meant to have that occur.

[00:07:24] Speaker 00:
So, Mr. Wade, you started out by saying the parties obviously don't like each other.

[00:07:29] Speaker 00:
And, you know, when you're a district judge like Judge Seaborg or like myself, you get a lot of cases, and sometimes you would just wonder, what the heck is this case doing here?

[00:07:41] Speaker 00:
Is there a personal grudge or animosity going on?

[00:07:46] Speaker 00:
Is this the best way to deal with that and to deal with

[00:07:51] Speaker 00:
the court system and Judge Kuhnauer, who was chief judge when I joined the court, had a case where one party was dial a ho and the other party was call a ho.

[00:08:02] Speaker 00:
and they were suing over somebody copied the intellectual property.

[00:08:08] Speaker 00:
And you know what Judge Kuhnhauer's response was?

[00:08:10] Speaker 00:
Get the heck out of my courtroom.

[00:08:13] Speaker 00:
It's like, that's not what we're here to deal with.

[00:08:15] Speaker 00:
Are we really here to deal with the personal issues that are just gonna go on forever and ever between these two parties until someone steps in and solves the personal problem?

[00:08:29] Speaker 02:
Well, I mean, I definitely can appreciate that.

[00:08:31] Speaker 02:
And I know there are, in every lawsuit, we have these competing motivations, right?

[00:08:36] Speaker 02:
I mean, a lot of lawsuits survive and continue for the wrong reasons.

[00:08:40] Speaker 02:
And a lot of people continue lawsuits for the wrong reasons.

[00:08:43] Speaker 02:
And it's unfortunate.

[00:08:43] Speaker 02:
And they waste a lot of money.

[00:08:45] Speaker 02:
litigating over issues that ought not be litigated.

[00:08:48] Speaker 02:
I mean, that happens just all the time.

[00:08:50] Speaker 02:
And unfortunately, it's part of the system.

[00:08:53] Speaker 02:
But at the end of the day, I do believe that the rule of law should prevail.

[00:08:58] Speaker 02:
I think that even if a court doesn't like a case or doesn't want the case before the court, I still believe that we need to follow the law and then make rulings based on the law and not on personal motivations or personal dislikes about litigants.

[00:09:14] Speaker 03:
I don't think anyone's suggesting otherwise, but I do share some of the concern as to what is the end game in this lawsuit for your client?

[00:09:23] Speaker 03:
What does your client actually hope to achieve out of this realistically?

[00:09:28] Speaker 02:
Well, I don't know.

[00:09:30] Speaker 02:
Of course, I wasn't the attorney of record when the court dismissed my client's case.

[00:09:37] Speaker 02:
I was hired through the appeal.

[00:09:39] Speaker 02:
And so when you're a client and you feel you've been wronged,

[00:09:43] Speaker 02:
you know what I mean, by the court, and no disrespect, but if you feel that there's a decision that went against you that ought not have gone against you, and there are ramifications when that happens.

[00:09:52] Speaker 02:
I mean, there are obligations to pay.

[00:09:57] Speaker 03:
Have the parties tried to sit down and work this out?

[00:09:59] Speaker 03:
Whatever this disagreement is, and I have to tell you, I asked you because it's not apparent from the papers, either in Georgia or here, what anybody's actually fighting over, other than there seems to be a deep-seated family dispute,

[00:10:11] Speaker 03:
involving the sister and aunt that's causing a great deal of animosity between the parties, but has there been any effort to actually try to mediate this or somehow resolve this?

[00:10:21] Speaker 02:
Up to this point I don't believe so.

[00:10:23] Speaker 02:
I don't believe there's been any effort to do that.

[00:10:24] Speaker 02:
I think once the decision came down my client was just

[00:10:27] Speaker 02:
I'm really upset and my client wanted vindication and my client wanted to file an appeal.

[00:10:32] Speaker 02:
And that's the route that my client took at that time.

[00:10:36] Speaker 02:
Now that doesn't mean that if my client is successful with respect to the appeal that we won't then have to analyze the cost of litigation and the motivations for litigation and so forth.

[00:10:51] Speaker 02:
By no means am I saying that this case shouldn't be settled or shouldn't be resolved or anything like that.

[00:10:57] Speaker 02:
But I think after the decision came down, my client wanted vindication in court and wanted to file an appeal.

[00:11:02] Speaker 02:
But I do agree with the court that this type of case ought to be between the parties settled.

[00:11:14] Speaker 02:
Not by the court, wrongly, but by the parties, I think it should be resolved.

[00:11:18] Speaker 02:
It's the type of case that shouldn't be litigated.

[00:11:20] Speaker 03:
Do you want to save the rest of your time for rebuttal?

[00:11:22] Speaker 03:
Yes, I will.

[00:11:23] Speaker 03:
Thank you, Mr. Wade.

[00:11:27] Speaker 01:
Thank you, Your Honors.

[00:11:29] Speaker 01:
I hadn't planned to add any color to this at the beginning, but I think it might be helpful.

[00:11:35] Speaker 01:
The reason that this whole dispute exists is Ms.

[00:11:41] Speaker 01:
Crittenden is the sister of Ms.

[00:11:43] Speaker 01:
Muldrow's mother.

[00:11:44] Speaker 01:
Ms.

[00:11:44] Speaker 01:
Muldrow's mother is not competent.

[00:11:47] Speaker 01:
So previously, Ms.

[00:11:48] Speaker 01:
Crittenden had been the guardian and conservator of Ms.

[00:11:52] Speaker 01:
Muldrow's mother.

[00:11:54] Speaker 01:
That has since switched over

[00:11:56] Speaker 01:
after a lengthy battle, as I understand it, in North Carolina, having nothing to do with Mr. Waiter myself, to Ms.

[00:12:03] Speaker 01:
Muldrow.

[00:12:04] Speaker 01:
So Ms.

[00:12:04] Speaker 01:
Muldrow is now the caretaker, if you will, and legal guardian of her mother.

[00:12:10] Speaker 01:
There have been a series of financial jabs that have gone back and forth between the two.

[00:12:15] Speaker 01:
And quite frankly, I don't know that these two have it in them to reconcile anything.

[00:12:23] Speaker 01:
when sitting across the table, I would hesitate to put them in a room together.

[00:12:28] Speaker 01:
The vitriol that you would see in the emails that they had previously sent each other, and I'm sure Mr. Wade would agree, is extreme.

[00:12:36] Speaker 01:
And there's just a deep hatred, which seems to be surrounding the financial benefits of having control and custody of the mother or sister, from however you look at it.

[00:12:48] Speaker 03:
This is helpful background.

[00:12:50] Speaker 03:
I guess let's let's talk about the the issue on review Why do you think at least for the later the claims that post dated the Georgia judgment?

[00:12:59] Speaker 03:
How are those?

[00:13:00] Speaker 03:
How are those precluded?

[00:13:02] Speaker 01:
Well, your honor first with regard to that

[00:13:06] Speaker 01:
I think we're all in agreement that Georgia rules of preclusion apply under the JP Morgan Chase derivative litigation matter, which was 263 F sub 3rd, 920.

[00:13:19] Speaker 01:
Our position is, and dates are important here, the first two allegedly defamatory claims were made in January of 2022.

[00:13:27] Speaker 01:
And you're honest, correct.

[00:13:29] Speaker 01:
Ms.

[00:13:29] Speaker 01:
Muldrow filed suit on February 2nd of 2022.

[00:13:32] Speaker 01:
And then under Rule 65A2,

[00:13:35] Speaker 01:
Judge Batten in the Northern District of Georgia advanced the case directly to a trial on the merits, which was March 22nd, 2022.

[00:13:44] Speaker 01:
Shortly after his decision in favor of Ms.

[00:13:46] Speaker 01:
Muldrow, the April comments were made less than a month later within the appeal deadline and certainly during the pendency of the 11th Circuit appeal.

[00:13:56] Speaker 01:
Ms.

[00:13:58] Speaker 01:
Crittenden could have amended, could have made a motion to reopen, could have made a motion to address those concerns, which were made again almost immediately after the hearing.

[00:14:09] Speaker 01:
She didn't.

[00:14:10] Speaker 01:
She didn't elect to do that.

[00:14:11] Speaker 01:
She made no such move.

[00:14:13] Speaker 01:
The matter moved through the 11th Circuit for about 11 months, and then a motion for reconsideration was filed, which itself extended the matter further.

[00:14:24] Speaker 01:
During that entire time,

[00:14:26] Speaker 01:
There was no move made whatsoever to address the single alleged comment that occurred, again, weeks after the decision that Judge Batten handed down in the Northern District of Georgia.

[00:14:39] Speaker 01:
With regard to the connection, if you will, between the claims, we think Judge Seberg is correct.

[00:14:46] Speaker 01:
They are absolutely within the same transaction.

[00:14:49] Speaker 01:
Not only does Ms.

[00:14:50] Speaker 01:
Crittenden state in her answer

[00:14:54] Speaker 01:
and apparently in her appellants brief, that the decision to send out these 1099s was motivated by the defamation.

[00:15:02] Speaker 01:
But if you read through the actual answer, it says in numerous places that there is a damage related to these statements.

[00:15:12] Speaker 01:
And at the end of the answer, there is a line, and again, this was drafted by a pro se, and I understand that some

[00:15:21] Speaker 01:
reading of it should be liberally applied.

[00:15:24] Speaker 01:
There's a line that says, motion to demand Plaintiff Muldrow to remove the harassing, malicious, defaming Facebook and Google posts against defendants.

[00:15:36] Speaker 01:
And that's in the record on page 56 of the record.

[00:15:40] Speaker 01:
The motion to demand, if you will, is seeking something.

[00:15:44] Speaker 01:
It's seeking relief from the court in the Northern District.

[00:15:47] Speaker 01:
It's saying, we want the Northern District

[00:15:50] Speaker 01:
to force her in an injunction to remove those posts.

[00:15:54] Speaker 01:
And of course, this entire case from Ms.

[00:15:56] Speaker 01:
Muldrow's standpoint was also a case for an injunction seeking the removal or correction of the fraudulent 1099 to the $0.

[00:16:06] Speaker 01:
So there are competing counterclaims if you read the actual answer.

[00:16:10] Speaker 01:
It's just not termed a counterclaim.

[00:16:12] Speaker 01:
Again, it should be liberally applied, but it says motion to demand.

[00:16:16] Speaker 03:
Let's go back to the claims that are post-dating the Georgia judgment, which are the ones that I'm more concerned about.

[00:16:23] Speaker 03:
I mean, you make the argument that they should have essentially done something more in the district court there or the 11th Circuit.

[00:16:29] Speaker 03:
Maybe they could have done that.

[00:16:30] Speaker 03:
But is there any authority that says they had to do that in order to avoid preclusion of a claim that hadn't actually arisen by the time of the Georgia judgment?

[00:16:38] Speaker 01:
There's not a case directly on record, Your Honor.

[00:16:40] Speaker 01:
No.

[00:16:40] Speaker 01:
Not that I've seen.

[00:16:42] Speaker 01:
Directly on point, rather.

[00:16:44] Speaker 01:
The argument would be,

[00:16:46] Speaker 01:
that they flow from the same series of events.

[00:16:49] Speaker 01:
It's not a unique defamatory claim.

[00:16:53] Speaker 01:
It's not something that says that she works as a prostitute or that she's a terrible caretaker of her own children.

[00:17:00] Speaker 01:
It's strictly related to the same tax transactions.

[00:17:06] Speaker 01:
And of course, all of this is setting aside the likelihood that having filed false tax returns

[00:17:14] Speaker 01:
which has already been adjudicated, it's actually true.

[00:17:18] Speaker 01:
But we're not here to discuss truth.

[00:17:20] Speaker 01:
We're here to discuss the complaint in the confines and four walls of the complaint.

[00:17:24] Speaker 01:
But to the point the court made earlier, at some point this needs to end.

[00:17:29] Speaker 01:
This has been through the Northern District of Georgia, the 11th Circuit, the Northern District of California, and now it's here.

[00:17:36] Speaker 01:
I hope it never reaches the Supreme Court.

[00:17:39] Speaker 01:
I think that would be a little ridiculous.

[00:17:42] Speaker 01:
These people just need to go their separate ways and end this.

[00:17:46] Speaker 01:
No one's going to be collecting damages for anything.

[00:17:49] Speaker 01:
Ms.

[00:17:49] Speaker 01:
Crittenden puts all throughout her answer that her damage and the reason she's entitled to send out 1099s, which quite frankly benefit her massively on her own taxes that reduces her own taxable income, is because somebody said something bad about her.

[00:18:08] Speaker 01:
That's self-help at best.

[00:18:10] Speaker 01:
That's jumping ahead of the court system to say, now that I'm ahead of the court system, I'm going to issue a 1099 and try to create a pathway to avoid any sort of litigation over my own claims that something defamatory has been said, especially when those statements were made in accordance with the 1099s.

[00:18:31] Speaker 01:
And apparently, the 1099s are in response to them.

[00:18:34] Speaker 01:
So we don't think that one comment that was allegedly made in April of 2022

[00:18:41] Speaker 01:
a few weeks after the actual case was adjudicated in the Northern District of Georgia on March 22, are so far apart and outside of the transaction that they shouldn't be considered to be part of the transaction.

[00:19:02] Speaker 03:
I'm not sure there's any further questions for you.

[00:19:04] Speaker 03:
Do you want to go ahead and sum up?

[00:19:06] Speaker 01:
Well, Your Honors, actually, I, to some degree, stuck my

[00:19:11] Speaker 01:
summary in there, I think it's time for this matter to end.

[00:19:14] Speaker 01:
And if we affirm the decision of the Northern District of California, I think Judge Seberg did a great job of analyzing this.

[00:19:21] Speaker 01:
If we affirm that, hopefully this is over.

[00:19:23] Speaker 01:
And I can't imagine the US Supreme Court would pick this up.

[00:19:29] Speaker 00:
Only on the shadow docket, yeah.

[00:19:33] Speaker 01:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:19:35] Speaker 01:
And we have a rare circumstance where there is not a split between the 11th and the 9th Circuit, which is helpful.

[00:19:42] Speaker 03:
Thank you, Mr. Podesta.

[00:19:43] Speaker 03:
Mr. Wade, we'll hear from you.

[00:19:45] Speaker 02:
I know the court knows this, but every court has procedures.

[00:19:57] Speaker 02:
in filing a counterclaim.

[00:19:59] Speaker 02:
It has to look a certain way.

[00:20:00] Speaker 02:
It has to be submitted on its own.

[00:20:04] Speaker 02:
There are requirements for a counterclaim.

[00:20:06] Speaker 02:
There is no court that's going to turn an answer by a pro se litigant and make it a counterclaim.

[00:20:14] Speaker 02:
So counsel is referencing something that a pro se litigant stated in an answer and wants this court to deem that as a counterclaim.

[00:20:23] Speaker 02:
And that would be inappropriate, I believe.

[00:20:24] Speaker 02:
But the main thing I'm trying to say is the district court in Georgia didn't

[00:20:31] Speaker 02:
take my client's answer as a counterclaim.

[00:20:34] Speaker 02:
There was no adjudication of my client's whatever they were asking for, motion for whatever.

[00:20:40] Speaker 02:
There was no adjudication of that.

[00:20:42] Speaker 02:
The only thing that was adjudicated in the Georgia case were the allegations made by the respondent.

[00:20:49] Speaker 02:
So even assuming somehow that we should turn that answer into a counterclaim, the Georgia court never adjudicated it, and I will submit on that.

[00:20:59] Speaker 03:
Can I ask you just before you sit down, on the April alleged misconduct, was it just one statement or is there more to it than that post stated the Georgia judgment by the allegations?

[00:21:12] Speaker 02:
Yes, in our brief we do cite three other incidences of making false statements to the police and I know those statements have certain protections and so forth, but there are three other statements that were made at different times.

[00:21:24] Speaker 02:
to the police that were also in the complaint in California.

[00:21:29] Speaker 03:
So that's in April of 2022?

[00:21:30] Speaker 02:
Those were, no, I believe, I don't have to check the brief, I believe there were not only in April, I believe there were some after April.

[00:21:42] Speaker 03:
What was all of these false, allegedly false police reports made after April of 22?

[00:21:47] Speaker 03:
It's either in April of 2022 or thereafter.

[00:21:49] Speaker 02:
Yes, that's what I'm claiming.

[00:21:50] Speaker 02:
Yes.

[00:21:50] Speaker 03:
Okay.

[00:21:50] Speaker 03:
Were there other defamatory statements that post state of the Georgia judgment on social media?

[00:21:55] Speaker 03:
No.

[00:21:56] Speaker 03:
Okay.

[00:21:59] Speaker 03:
Okay.

[00:22:00] Speaker 03:
Thank you, Mr. Wade.

[00:22:01] Speaker 03:
Thank you.

[00:22:02] Speaker 03:
Thank you both.

[00:22:03] Speaker 03:
This matter is submitted.