IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA

ATLANTA DIVISION 

Dwight Redding,

Plaintiff,

           v.                               Civil Action No. 1:01-CV-2285-ODE

McCalla, Raymer, Padrick, Cobb, Nichols & Clark LLC,

Stanley H. McCalla,

Richard E. Raymer,

Carol Clark,

John Hudson,

NationsCredit Home Equity Services Corporation, a/d/b/a NationsCredit Home Equity Service

and NationsCredit Home Equity Services,

Bob Hodge,

The Vitalizers, Inc.,

Wanda Hamilton,

Starling Hamilton and

Herbert Hamilton,

     Defendants

 RESPONSE OF DWIGHT REDDING

 TO MCCALLA, RAYMER, et al.’s

MOTION FOR THE COURT TO RECONSIDER

 ITS JUNE 7, 2002 ORDER REMANDING THIS CASE

     As usual in this litigation, Dwight Redding opposes the relief sought in a motion brought on behalf of McCalla, Raymer, Padrick, Cobb, Nichols & Clark LLC, Stanley H. McCalla, Richard E. Raymer, John Hudson, Carol Clark (or “McCalla, Raymer, et al.”).

     The present motion of McCalla, Raymer, et al. is for the Court to reconsider and thereafter revoke its Order of June 8, 2002, which remanded this case to the State Court of Fulton County.

     The Gaylon S. Shealy and Richard Nelson (or “Gaylon Shealy, et al.”) aspect of this litigation has been resolved in its entirety between all parties to this litigation and even the dispute has been resolved as to some parties who were not identified in the litigation. There are confidentiality agreements in place and there is a dismissal with prejudice of the causes of action of Gaylon Shealy, et al. Only the Dwight Redding aspect of this litigation remains.

Present Status of this Litigation

     Presently, the dispute resolution process encompassing the remainder of the dispute, which gave rise to this litigation, is in a very fragile stage. Hopefully, the dispute is in the stage of an advanced healing process enroute to a prompt ultimate resolution. Under anticipation that the dispute is healing rather than festering and becoming more infected, this response of Dwight Redding, to the extent that it is legally prudent, will be divested of contest to McCalla, Raymer, et al.’s inappropriate application of the law and inappropriate insertions of “facts,” which comprise the totality of the McCalla, Raymer, et al. motion for the Court to reconsideration its order of remand.

     The goal at this time in perfecting a resolution of the dispute is to allow each party to develop such factual excuses for their conduct as they desire and then advance past this accusatory aspect of the dispute in order that an inking of a truce may occur. This is not the time or place for more explanations about Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance, i.e., Bob Hodge to John Hudson for McCalla, Raymer, et al., to NationsCredit.

     This response is filtered to the extent that readers should perceive and view it as a response, which seeks to depict a dove carrying a message of peace circling a battlefield looking for a place to land away from the stench, gory views and horrors of a hopefully ending, unnecessary battle. The message-bearing dove presently runs the risk of being shot for the sport-of-it by an apparently not fully informed warrior, who may be unaware that peace, dignity and a harmonious life looms for all in the message the dove attempts to deliver. This response is not intended as ammunition that can be used to kill the dove or to in any way endanger the mission of the dove. The architects of the dove’s message do not deserve that fate.

 Background of this Litigation

     Gushing on metaphorically and philosophically, this Court, with a degree of wisdom, has allowed the ship laden with the dispute of the parties to leave the Court’s harbor and continue to its home port, which hopefully will be a port of call that the parties will use to establish dignity to the embattled warriors and more importantly, renew dignity to those who both financed the ship’s voyage and those who entrusted the ship with the dispute cargo.

     During the litigation in this Court, and even before the litigation began, it has often been stated by Dwight Redding that the task of the crew is to effectively engage in dispute resolution, rather than an engagement of an expensive and useless war. Admittedly, the articulation of a goal is not enough.

     Fred Valz, a long-gone warrior, for a long-since departed litigant, was the architect of the dispute resolution involving Gaylon Shealy, et al. The work product of Fred Valz stood the test of time, both as to substance and confidentiality, even while some of the presently involved warriors apparently attempted to renew an aspect of the fight long after they benefited from, accepted and endorsed a full peace accord.

 The Missing Ingredient in the Resolution of this Dispute

     Until recently, all involved in the Dwight Redding segment of this litigation failed the course in effective dispute resolution. The scores are not yet in on their make-up exam; however, there is room for optimism.

     On one level, all who spend a large portion of their lives in the dispute resolution process know that a prime ingredient in resolving a dispute is finding a way to restore dignity to all parties. We further understand that restoring dignity is rather contradictory to the goals of litigation because during litigation the parties make concerted attempts to destroy all vestiges of dignity of their opponents in attempts to portray their opponents’ shortcomings.

     The incentives which power the economic engine in our judicial system, coupled with the gross amount of ineptness of dispute resolution skills by most participants creates an atmosphere, which allows the litigation process to often annihilate all hopes of the aggrieved parties obtaining dignity and thereby obtaining a prompt and economical solution to their disputes.

     In this case, while the dove of peace is attempting to deliver the message of finality, tranquility and harmony that can promptly and quietly restore dignity to all, it would be counterproductive and grossly unfair to the architect of the dove’s mission for the two most combative parties to this dispute to once again square-off and take pot shots at the dove in a misguided attempt to protect what these combative parties perceive to be the dignity of their sponsors, which in reality may be no more than an effort for these combative parties to nurture their own egos and cover for their failures in resolving this dispute efficiently.

 The Difficulties that Removal Cases Create

     Another caveat of explanation or excuse follows for the bloodied warriors who lay strewn around the mortar shells they hurled at each other in the media of banker’s boxes of papers. This explanation follows.

     There are numerous procedural, intellectual, political and other differences that exist between litigating in federal courts and litigating in state courts. Sometimes it is difficult for advocates, i.e., warriors, to intellectually and psychologically process these differences.[1]

     Here, in an attempt to explain these differences between the two systems, we use a musical, or, maybe more accurately stated, an entertainment analogy.

     Litigating in federal court is somewhat compared to the performance of an opera, while litigating in general jurisdiction state courts is more akin to attending a rock concert. Even more different than these two systems is litigating in lower jurisdiction courts or administrative type of proceedings, which are akin to a night at the Grand Ole Opry.

     At an opera, at least in the southern part of this country, more formality and masking in the form of extravagant costumes is expected of the cast and attendees, which can also be identified as sophisticated pretense. This degree of expected formality or stuffiness and pretense at the opera adds both to the assistance of the cast in delivering its message and the fulfillment the participants wish to receive from the performance.

     At a rock concert, the attendees do, and are expected to, take a physically active part in the performance. While not all may wish, or be allowed, to participate in the tossing in the pit, certainly, most at a rock concert expect to exercise their vocal cords, wiggle a raised arm, wobble their body a bit, shake a leg and totally loosen up. Admittedly, while most of the rock concert participants would deny it, they, like the opera goers, are costumed, only their costumes are different from the costumes of the opera goers.

     This litigation began with a chiding of the litigants who, dressed for a rock concert, unwillingly and unexpectedly had their tickets to the rock concert exchanged at the door for an entry into a performance of Aida.[2]

     During the litigation, some of the exclusively Gaylon Shealy, et al. litigants thought this dispute was best suited for a stint at the Grand Ole Opry, i.e. arbitration. The planned, what would have been a very lengthy, compulsory side trip to binding arbitration was averted. A performance of sorts at the Grand Ole Opry was not averted.

     The litigants who chose to litigate this matter in federal court and thereby have their parties’ night at the opera, often expressed their feelings while in the opera house as they audibly hummed the Tennessee Waltz. This unusual conduct of loudly expressing their feelings and humming in the opera house is somewhat understandable and may have occurred because all of “them” foreign words in the operatic performance disturbed their performance of showing their social superiority to the socially and politically lowly Plaintiffs.

     Then again, maybe this unusual conduct occurred because Defendants heard the word “kingpin” used in a movie to describe an evil character, or, who knows, maybe that they thought “RICO” was an abbreviated acronym for the conduct engaged in by the character, RICO, that Edward G. Robinson played in the 1930’s movie, Little Caesar.

     Anyway, while some of the litigants were appearing in cameo performances and overtly humming the Tennessee Waltz at the opera house, and otherwise engaging in tactics to preserve their request to “save the last dance for [them],” there were other participants who were attempting to read the libretto.

     The bouncer at the opera house, if there is such a person and if the law will allow us to compare it with a bouncer, often became offended during this performance, as did other participants, because the parties forcing the crowd to the opera, instead of the rock concert that they paid their tax to attend, wished, at times, to honky-tonk around and act as if they were at the Grand Ole Opry, while the other litigants, for the most part, were left to squirm in their seats as they attempted to follow the program with a libretto.[3]

Only a Party Wishing to Derail Settlement would Engage in a Factual Dispute about the Status of a Resolution to the Dispute in this Litigation

      Dwight Redding would be less than wise to venture an opinion about a forthcoming resolution to the dispute, which brought him into litigation. To make the point, here he seeks proverbial assistance.

     A person wishing to depart his superior intelligence to a person whom he thought to be mentally inferior, engaged in the following inquiry.

  Can you tell me if the very small bird, which I have in my hand is alive or dead?

     The response from the person perceived to be intellectually inferior, which follows was quite unexpected by the party making the inquiry.

   First, I do not know if you have a bird in your hand.

  Next, I expect the reason for your question is to show that I cannot answer your question correctly.

  If I say that the bird is alive, you will squeeze it to death.

  If I say that the bird is dead, you will open your hand and allow it to fly away.

  Now, the answer, my friend, is in your hand.

     To dispute the validity of the statement in the affidavit or the subsequent modification of the statement in the Local Rule 7.4 violating letter to the Court, which until now is not filed with the clerk of court, would be a self-defeating task for Dwight Redding. The validity of the statement, as a matter of law and as a practical matter, is irrelevant. To serve the goals of dispute resolution, McCalla, Raymer, et al. may “have it [their] way.”

 Memorandum of Law

     Because, now is the hour that we must say bye-bye, as the rules require, here is a point of law.

     The letter of counsel for McCalla, Raymer, et al., which is Attachment 1 to this response and the affidavit of counsel attached to the motion is outside the ambiance of these proceedings, both as to their factual content, which is used as the basis for the requested relief and as to the manner in which the content of the letter is presented to the Court. See Local Rule 7.4.[4]

     The most basic point of law and devastating fact to Defendants, which allows Plaintiffs to withstand the financial toughness of the Defendants throwing money at this case like they would throw doubloons from a Mardi Gras float, is that the Plaintiffs had their property stolen in furtherance of the debt collection process by McCalla, Raymer, et al.

     This type of conduct has been illegal and unconstitutional conduct since around the time that General Washington crossed the Delaware.

     The purpose of having laws is to provide society and thereby the courts assistance in resolving disputes for members in our society. When the courts fail in its dispute resolution responsibility, it prices the common people out of the market of being able to promptly resolve their disputes within the framework of our justice system and thereby encourages street resolutions that often involve illegal physical encounters.

     McCalla, Raymer, et al. refused to engage in conduct designed to recover the personal property of Plaintiffs before the Complaint was filed in the State Court of Fulton County, thereby making it necessary to file the Complaint to even identify all of the persons involved in the conduct with McCalla, Raymer, et al.

     In spite of criminal conduct, which was an initiating factor in the wrongdoing, Plaintiffs have been often attacked during this litigation for their representative’s word usage, which identified the conduct of Defendant, and Plaintiffs were even told that there is not a cause of action against Defendants for stealing, a decision they laughed about even with their very scant, formal educations.

     Regardless of the mistreatment suffered by Plaintiffs that gave rise to this litigation, they have been willing to forgive, not tell and move on.

     As much as this response is designed to protect the flight of the dove and allow this matter to be resolved, all should know that Dwight Redding has reason to feel that tens of thousands of dollars have been added to the cost of a resolution to his dispute, because, in his perception, Defendants’ political and social status tainted his opportunity to protect his personal belongings from debts collectors that used the courts to assist them in permanently depriving him of the last vestiges of physical attachments to his daughter, who was killed in an unfortunate car accident.

     The dove of peace should be given a chance to deliver its long overdue message. Hopefully, dignity can be restored to all who both witnessed and participated in this arduous attempt at dispute resolution. The time has arrived for this matter to conclude.

Conclusion

     While the Plaintiffs wish to attend a rock concert, and the original Defendants wish a night at the opera house, in reality, both attempt to convert this forum into a night at the Grand Ole Opry. In Grand Ole Opry style, the Plaintiffs attempted to explain their complaints against Defendants with the same type of explicit words that allow the Grand Ole Opry tunes to be so expressive. At the same time, the Defendants attempted to showcase their defenses and power in the splendor of the fancy mobile vehicles used by many of the Grand Ole Opry performers to enter into the side doors of the arenas.

     Regardless of the accuracies of the comparisons, in the terms of vintage Grand Ole Opry comparisons, a few flashbacks make an appropriate reflection for the conclusion to this response. Here goes.

     While the Saturday night crowd of over three thousand enthusiastic show-goers packed into the old Ryman Auditorium is about to complete their dream evening of entertainment after hearing their favorite Grand Ole Opry performers, it is becoming later in the evening. The late night radio signal of WSM is just beginning to come in clear and strong without the frequent crackle and pop that accompanies the broadcast earlier in the evenings. The old WSM clock on the wall is telling the story that this Saturday’s performance is about to end.

     The performance is about to end for those who paid nearly the entirety of a week’s wages to travel to Nashville to be at the Grand Ole Opry and it is ending for the tens of thousands more listeners who gathered around their home radios to end the week with their greatest listening pleasure.

     While there are miles to drive before they rest, this evening of listening pleasure is also about to end for all of the truckers who listened as WSM faded in and out. It is also about to end for an extremely few happy truckers who planned all week to be coming through Nashville on Saturday night so they could blast their air horns as they passed outside the Ryman Auditorium and a few seconds later enjoyed the pleasure of hearing the sound of their horns come in on their truck radios.

     After hearing from the wonders of Martha White Flour, Prince Albert Tobacco and Purina during numerous breaks and hearing all of the evening performers, the time always comes for the Grand Ole Opry to sign off the air and the Ryman Auditorium to empty.

     When the show nears its end, Earnest Tubb could be seen wiping down the sweat from his face, which is covered with a smile, as he knows he gave the crowd their money’s worth as they got to hear his immortal words about “Walkin' The Floor Over You . . .” Minnie is putting back on her hat to once again go out and tell the crowd, howdeeee, thank-you and good-bye. Hank will put aside his prescription of Dr. Jack Daniels long enough to make it back to the edge of the stage; just the sight of him will make the crowd yell and yearn for to hear a few more lines about the “love sick blues.” Bill Monroe, as the other Blue Grass Boys, is still attired in his string bowtie and ten gallon hat. He will bow to the crowd with his mandolin close to his chest, while Earl Scruggs and the other Blue Grass Boys give him front stage. Everyone wants Patsy to sigh again, oh, what they would give to hear just a few more lines from “Crazy” or, “I Fall to Pieces.”

     Regardless of the yearning, all know that the WSM clock, not their applause, controls the ending of the Opry. The Little Jimmy Dickens fans are politely yearning for just one more, but it is not to be. Not even Roy Acuff, or Chet Atkins could stop the hands on the WSM clock. For over seventy continuous years it has been done the way that the “the solemn old judge,” George Hay, started the show – every show had a predetermined time for finality.

     Like a Saturday night at the Grand Ole Opry, this show too has an end. Let’s all hope it is near. Excepting an extended performance, certainly none of us brought to this show what Uncle Jimmy Thompson brought to George Hay and the millions who have enjoyed the Grand Ole Opry.

     Again, to borrow from this scribe’s all-time favorite, Lewis Carroll,      

“The time has come the walrus said,” with dignity and respect to submit,

                                                          s/Millard Farmer    

                                                                        Millard Farmer

                                                          Georgia Bar No. 255300

                                                          P.O. Box 1728

                                                          Atlanta, GA  30301-1728

                                                          (404) 688-8116

                                                           Counsel for Dwight Redding