STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA ) IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS
COUNTY OF GREENVILLE ) FOR THE 13TH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT
)
ABC’S OF HEALTH, INC. ) 2019CP2302484
Plaintiff/Appellant ) COMMON PLEAS CASE NUMBER
)
vs.. ) 2017CV2310201837
) MAGISTRATE COURT CASE NUMBER
NEXT GEN TRADING, LLC )
Defendant/Respondent ) THE WILLOUGHBY AFFIDAVIT
) Supports Appellant’s Appeal
)
The undersigned witness, being duly sworn, states the following:
I, Lonnie E. Willoughby, Jr., make this affidavit without coercion or pressure from anyone. I am of sound mind at age 83, and I have personal knowledge of the factual evidential statements presented herein. These statements are made as being truthful to the best of my knowledge and belief under penalty of perjury.
I will be designated herein also as Lonnie Willoughby, or Lon Willoughby, or simply Willoughby. ABC’s of Health, Inc. will also be designated herein as ABC of Health or simply ABC.
ABC’s of Health, Inc.. has appealed the Final Judgment of the Magistrate’s Court in the above listed case (Fairview/Austin Summary Court, Simpsonville, SC,), to the Court of Common Pleas, in the County of Greenville.
As the president of ABC’s of Health, Inc., I personally received notice of the Final Judgment on April 2, 2019 (Tuesday). I then prepared and filed the plaintiff’s Notice of Appeal timely in this Circuit Court and served a “clocked in” copy of the document timely upon the Magistrate’s Court judge and the opposing party.
The plaintiff/appellant’s exceptions to the Magistrate’s Court’s Final Judgment were set forth appropriately in the plaintiff/appellant’s Notice of Appeal and those exceptions were explained in more detail in the complex Memorandum of Law that I personally prepared and filed timely in this Circuit Court, as the Appellate Court.
This Affidavit will report additional information about numerous problems that occurred with the unfair and unethical litigation process in the Magistrate’s Court below,
The civil action jury trial case below was between two corporate businesses with their respective business offices in the Mauldin, SC area. The litigation was about a Breach of Oral Contract Complaint, filed by ABC's of Health, Inc., a South Carolina Corporation with its natural healthcare education business office location in Mauldin, SC,
The defendant business, Next Gen Trading, LLC, is a South Carolina LLC located in Greenville County, and does business at 437 N. Main Street, Mauldin, SC 29662. Consequently, both businesses conduct their business from offices within the same Magistrate’s Court’s jurisdiction – the Fairview/Austin Summary Court.
ABC's of Health, Inc., used to own and operate a natural healthcare and wellness nutrition store in the same Mauldin location where Next Gen Trading LLC is now conducting business. (In the Golden Strip Center - a shopping center in Mauldin, SC.)
In October 2013, ABC’s of Health, Inc. timely notified the shopping center property owners that ABC’s of Health, Inc. had decided to close their health store business permanently on April 24, 2014 (Thursday at 8:00 PM) and begin moving out of that retail store facility the next day. (Friday, April 25, 2014). ABC of Health’s letter type notice stated that they would be moved out of the facility by April 30, 2014.
Prior to April 2014, Next Gen Trading, LLC had arranged with the landlord to begin leasing that same facility effective May 1, 2014, and they had informed ABC’s of Health, Inc., namely Lonnie Willoughby, that Next Gen Trading LLC wanted to move into that store facility as soon as possible (ASAP).
Several weeks prior to April 25th one of Next Gen Trading’s managing personnel, namely Chris Johnson, orally contracted with Lonnie Willoughby, as president of ABC’s of Health, Inc., to arrange for some people that Chris Johnson knew to help Lonnie Willoughby move out of the facility. The two men also discussed doing a barter arrangement where Next Gen Trading personnel might help some in the moving project and their moving manhours work time would be used as barter to offset some of the cost of equipment that they wanted to purchase from ABC’s of Health, Inc.
Chris Johnson had decided that Next Gen Trading wanted to purchase some of equipment that ABC of Health had for sale. That was an ongoing evolving decision process that gradually increased the units of equipment that Next Gen Trading wanted to purchase from ABC’s of Health. (Examples: seven tables and 33 chairs from ABC of Health’s classroom, two refrigerators, one ten feet long kitchen type counter and sink/faucet equipment, two metal storage cabinets with locking doors, a glass enclosed display case with locking doors, and some other miscellaneous units of equipment).
Those evolving purchasing oral contractual agreements were made by Lonnie Willoughby and Chris Johnson, as representatives of the two respective companies.
The moving project began on April 25, 2014 – a Friday morning, as explained in substantial detail in the plaintiff’s Complaint in the litigation case below.
Chris Johnson apparently took those oral contractual actions with Lonnie Willoughby because Next Gen Trading personnel wanted to move into the Mauldin store facility as quickly as possible and do so at minimized cost. As stated, they also wanted to purchase some equipment from ABC’s of Health and they wanted the flexible option of using bartering arrangements for their manhours of labor in helping with the moving project in order to potentially reduce their cash payments for equipment that they wanted to purchase from ABC’s of Health.
During that moving out project, Chris Johnson unilaterally decided to begin moving Next Gen Trading equipment from their Greenville, SC store location into the Mauldin store facility. They apparently wanted to vacate that Greenville location as quickly as possible by moving all of their equipment and supplies into the new Mauldin store facility as soon they could. They unilaterally began doing that after April 24, 2014 - just as soon as enough of ABC of Health’s equipment and supplies had been moved out of their way to enable them to begin moving some of their equipment and supplies into the Mauldin store facility that ABC of Health was moving out of. They also began setting up their equipment to get ready to do business in the new location ASAP.
Next Gen Trading personnel unilaterally took those additional moving actions although they had a clear and definite oral agreement (Oral Contract) with ABC of Health that they would provide the manpower that Lonnie Willoughby would need to move ABC of Health out of the facility by April 30, 2014 (by midnight was understood).
Starting on Tuesday, April 29, 2014, their efforts to move their Next Gen Trading business equipment into the new facility in Mauldin became their number one moving priority. Their manpower efforts to move ABC’s of Health. out of the facility at that point in time had become a much lower priority for Next Get Trading working personnel and other people that helped with the moving projects (three people were working in both of the moving projects – moving ABC out and moving Next Gen Trading into the same facility).
That dual moving situation occurred just as soon as enough of ABC of Health’s equipment and supplies had been moved out of their store facility to enable the moving personnel to begin moving some of Next Gen Trading’s equipment and supplies into the Mauldin facility that ABC of Health was trying to move out of by April 20, 2014. .
I, Lonnie Willoughby, realized that their desired objective was probably to get moved out of their Greenville business location by April 30, 2014, and then begin conducting business in their new store facility in Mauldin, SC on May 1, 2014 (Thursday at about 2:00 P.M. - their usual opening time for their Next Gen trading business). They typically closed their business each night at about 1:00 A.M.to 2:00 A.M.
Unforeseen problem arose with Chris Johnson’s actions that caused serious problems for ABC's of Health, as I personally explained in the plaintiff’s Complaint (detailed 28-pages containing Supplement A (23 pages), Supplements B and C (one page each), and Exhibit 1 (one page) was the last page of the Complaint.
Exhibit 1 is a very important document because it is a listing of 17 types of equipment that Chris Johnson had agreed for Next Gen Trading to purchase from ABC of Health. That written agreement was developed on July , 2014 by Lon Willoughby and Chris Johnson in their business facility.
Supplements A, B, C, and Exhibit 1 were component parts of the Complaint, and they provided a detailed report about why ABC's of Health, Inc. was entitled to a judgment for monetary relief for payment of numerous equipment units that Next Gen Trading had agreed to purchase in July 2014 (Exhibit 1) but had then arbitrarily, irresponsibly, and unethically refused to pay for during the next several years.
The Complaint also included a pleaded claim for a Rental Fee Award for nine specific itemized types of equipment that the Defendant LLC had unfairly confiscated (kept in their facility against ABC’s will for more than four years (at the time of trial), and would not allow me, Lon Willoughby, to retrieve our equipment from their facility.
The Complaint also pleaded for a Punitive Damages Award claim due to the extremely unfair, unethical, willful, wanton, and reckless manner that Chris Johnson and Next Gen Trading had acted toward ABC of Health (and me, Lonnie Willoughby) over an ongoing period of time of more than four years at the time of the trial on February 15, 2019.
Each of those two claims were noticed clearly in some detail in ABC’s of Health’s clearly noticed Complaint - which included Supplement A, B, C and Exhibit 1 as component parts of the plaintiff’s 28 word processed pages Complaint that I personally developed and filed appropriately and timely on October 9, 2017 in the Fairview/Austin Summary Court in Simpsonville, South Carolina.
On February 15, 2019 (Friday), the Magistrate’s Court conducted a one-day jury trial for the case which turned into an outrageously unfair, unethical, and corrupt judicial process toward the plaintiff. I personally reported that trial situation in the plaintiff’s initial Memorandum of Law in this appeal case, and I have explained that trial situation even better in the Amended Memorandum of Law that I personally filed pro se in this appeal case on 8-22-2019 (Thursday).
On February 15, 2019, the six jurors returned a verdict that was somewhat favorable to the plaintiff, but it was not nearly favorable enough for the specific complaints pleaded in the case. I recognized at the end of the trial, when the judge handed me a photocopy of two pages of jury verdict information, that the jury had apparently ignored the plaintiff’s Complaint pleading and had thereby ignored Exhibit 1. I had given each juror a complete copy of the plaintiff’s Complaint during the trial, but they apparently were too lazy to read the 28-page document.
The last page of the Complaint was Exhibit 1, making it very easy for the jurors to find that very important document. Exhibit 1 identified and itemized by type and price the 17 types of equipment that Next Gen Trading had agreed to purchase but had unfairly and unethically failed to pay for that equipment.
I realized, at the end of the trial, why that situation likely occurred. It was due to the large amount of unfair, unethical, false and fraudulent perjured testimony that the Defendant LLC’s witnesses had introduced into the trial as surprise ambush type testimony that had not been noticed in the defendant’s Answer pleading. That avalanche of improper unnoticed type testimony corrupted the trial process to an extreme degree, and large amount of improper testimony confused the jurors about the proper evidential issues in the trial.
Due to the surprise ambush nature of that type of testimony, I was denied a fair opportunity to prepare defensive argument about that testimony, and I was denied a fair opportunity to conduct responsible discovery actions regarding that kind of improper testimony during trial. It was clear to me that the trial court judge had actually enabled the Defendant LLC to ruthlessly deny the plaintiff fundamental “due process of law standards” for the one-day jury trial.
Unfortunately, compounding those improper testimony situations to a large extent, the trial court judge effectively cooperated with the Defendant LLC’s unfair, unethical, and fraudulent perjured testimony schemes and tactics. Judge Laura Saunders knowingly and willfully allowed and enabled the defendant’s witnesses to present a lot of improper unnoticed surprise ambush type testimony, without any responsible judicial actions during the trial to limit and restrict that type of improper surprise ambush testimony by the defendant’s witnesses (for hours during the trial).
The trial court judge effectively joined with the defendant’s witnesses to cause an extremely unfair “extrinsic fraud upon the court” that corrupted the trial in an outrageous manner. I have explained that deplorable judicial situation in detail in the Amended Memorandum of Law that I personally filed pro se in this appeal case this past Thursday, on 8-22-2019.
Summary Court Judge Laura M. Saunders denied plaintiff ABC of Health a fair and impartial judicial forum for the trial, and it is clear to me that she knowingly and willfully denied plaintiff ABC of Health due process of law standards in several respects during the jury trial (as shown in that Amended Memorandum of Law).
I strongly believe that Judge Laura Saunders took those unfair and unreasonable judicial actions in a knowing and willful manner. Those situations are shown clearly and convincingly in the CD ROM format audio recording of the trial – three hours of audio recording before the jury’s lunch break at 1:00 P.M. and then three additional hours of audio recording after the trial resumed at 2:00 P.M. (the three hours of afternoon recording included the jury’s short deliberation time).
I was the plaintiff’s pro se legal representative at trial, as the president of ABC’s of Health, Inc., so I am able to provide very important relevant eyewitness testimony about what happened during the one-day jury trial.
Judicial Error One – Plaintiff Was Denied Due Process of Law Standards
The trial audio recording proves conclusively that Judge Laura Saunders denied me, Lon Willoughby, adequate time during the one-day trial to present the plaintiff’s “case in chief” evidence testimony to the six jurors about very important fact issues that had been specifically pleaded (noticed) appropriately in the plaintiff’s Complaint pleadings regarding a Rental Fees Award claim and a Punitive Damages Award claim.
The trial audio recording proves that Judge Laura Saunders managed the trial time litigation activities so that the plaintiff’s pro se representative, me, Lon Willoughby, was prevented from having adequate time to complete the plaintiff’s “case in chief” evidence testimony to the jury before Judge Saunders started the jury lunch break at 1:00 P.M.
Judge Saunders willingly allowed the Defendant LLC to present a lot of unfair, unethical, false and fraudulent perjured testimony about argument issues and evidence issues that had not been noticed in the Defendant LLC’s Answer pleading. A lot of that testimony was in direct conflict with and contrary to the defendant’s Answer pleading.
Consequently, well established and long-standing “due process of law standards” should have caused Judge Laura Saunders to take quick judicial action to stop the Defendant LLC’s rather obvious efforts to corrupt the trial process with a lot of surprise “ambush” type argument issues and evidence issues.
If the judge had quickly acted to limit and terminate those improper “ambush” testimony issues, and restrict the jury from considering that improper testimony, the plaintiff would have had adequate time to complete the plaintiff’s “case in chief” evidence testimony to the jury before the jury’s lunch break at 1:00 P.M.
When the jury trial resumed at 2:00 P.M., Judge Laura Saunders began the afternoon trial time by arbitrarily and unilaterally moving the trial activities into the defendant’s “defense in chief” evidence presentation phase. That situation is proven conclusively with the trial audio recording in Part 2 as soon as the trial resumed..
Judge Saunders took that unfair and improper judicial action even though the plaintiff’s pro se representative, Lon Willoughby - me, had not given judge Saunders any reason to believe that the plaintiff had rested it’s “case in chief” evidence presentation to the jury.
At that point in the trial, I, Lon Willoughby, did not know what the judge was doing with her trial activity management actions. I did not know why the judge arbitrarily and unilaterally terminated the plaintiff’s evidence testimony to the jury, instead of allowing me to continue presenting the plaintiff’s “case in chief” evidence testimony, at the point where I was at when the jury’s lunch break time began at 1:00 P.M.
When the trial process resumed at 2:00 P.M. Judge Saunders did not ask me any questions about that situation - such as: “Have you completed your ‘case in chief’ evidence testimony? or “Do you need more time to complete your ‘case in chief’ evidence testimony? Or “How much time do you need to complete your ‘case in chief’ evidence testimony?”
Judge Saunders clearly violated Rule 13 (a) of “Your Guide to Magistrate’s Court” as shown conveniently herein with Exhibit 1. The rule clearly states that “the court shall question the parties and witnesses in order to assure that all claims and defenses are fully presented.” That is clearly a very important rule but Judge Saunders casually ignored the rule as if it did not really matter in her court.
The trial audio recording proves conclusively that Judge Laura Saunders did not question me about the completion of the plaintiff’s “case in chief” evidence presentation to the jury. She arbitrarily and unilaterally decided that it was time in the trial for the defendant’s presentation of its “defense in chief” evidence presentation to the jury. Judge Saunders apparently saw no need for any questions about that situation, and her grossly improper unilateral judicial action about that issue, combined with her grossly improper judicial action to allow and enable the defendant’s witnesses to present an avalanche of improper unnoticed surprise ambush type testimony to the jury, totally wrecked the plaintiff’s “case in chief” evidence presentation to the jury.
As the plaintiff’s pro se representative, I had no opportunity during the rest of the trial to complete my evidence presentation to the jury about the plaintiff’s Rental Fees Award claim or the plaintiff’s Punitive Damages Award claim. Those grossly improper judicial actions likely cost the plaintiff more than five thousand dollars in lost award funds.
That trial situation was my first jury trial in any court of law. I had not received any instructions from the Magistrate’s Court about how the jury trial was supposed to be conducted. At that point in the trial, I presumed that Judge Laura Saunders had been trained to understand how to conduct the trial process correctly and fairly.
I was not familiar at all with the trial process procedures because I had not received any information from the court about their trial procedures process. Consequently, I did not understand why the judge had arbitrarily and unilaterally decided that the plaintiff had rested their “evidence presentation” to the jury (at the time that the judge interrupted the trial activities at 1:00 P.M. for the jury’s lunch break). .
When the trial resumed one hour later, the trial audio recording proves conclusively that judge Saunders did not ask me, Lon Willoughby, any questions of any type about that vital evidence presentation situation. She apparently assumed (without any responsible reason for doing so) that I had completed the plaintiff’s “case in chief” evidence presentation to the jury. The judge clearly violated the due process of law standards presented in Rule 13 (a) of Exhibit 1 herein.
The trial audio recording shows conclusively that I had not had any prior indication from Judge Laura Saunders that she intended to terminate the plaintiff’s “case in chief” evidence presentation phase of the trial when the jury’s lunch break began at 1:00 P.M. That “thought” did not occur to me at all during the one-hour lunch break time.
It should have been clear to Judge Laura Saunders that I had not presented any evidence information to the jury about how they should consider and calculate the plaintiff’s Rental Fees Award claim for the nine types of equipment that the Defendant LLC had confiscated from the plaintiff for more than four years (without any agreement or conversation of any type with me about those extremely unreasonable conditions).
Prior to the jury lunch break, I had directed the juror’s attention to Supplement C (listing of nine types of confiscated equipment), and I had explained to the jury that the equipment confiscation situation had gone on for more than four years. The plaintiff’s Complaint had reported fairly and honestly that the Defendant LLC management personnel had arbitrarily and ruthlessly terminated all communications between the two parties in October 2014, as explained in some detail in the plaintiff’s Complaint.
The Complaint’s affidavit styled “evidence statements” showed that the Defendant LLC personnel had ruthlessly taken advantage of the plaintiff (ABC’s of Health, Inc.) in that they had failed to pay for the equipment that they had agreed to purchase from ABC. Furthermore, they had ruthlessly denied ABC of Health any reasonable opportunity to retrieve the nine types of equipment that ABC had initially loaned to the Defendant LLC at no cost. That equipment was listed in Supplement C (one page) in the plaintiff’s Complaint. Those extremely unfair and unreasonable conditions had existed for more than four years at the time of trial (2/15/2019).
In addition to their confiscation of nine types of ABC equipment for more than four years, the Defendant LLC management personnel had also arbitrarily refused to pay the plaintiff for equipment that the Defendant LLC management personnel had agreed to purchase from ABC’s of Health, Inc., as shown in Exhibit 1 (the last page of the Complaint). That non-payment dispute situation was a central core major part of the plaintiff’s Complaint.
The itemized listing of equipment that ABC of Health had agreed to sell to the Defendant LLC is shown in Exhibit 1 in the plaintiff’s Complaint, and all of that equipment was located in the defendant’s business facility. They had full use of that equipment for more than four years without completing payment for the equipment.
The trial audio recording convincingly shows that Judge Laura Saunders was preoccupied throughout the trial with her concerns about judicial economy and efficiency for the amount of time that was being consumed by the trial process.
The trial audio recording shows that Judge Saunders allowed those time concerns to interfere with her duty to provide a fair and impartial judicial forum for litigation of the specific pleaded (noticed) argument issues in the plaintiff’s detailed Complaint (28 pages). Her judicial concerns for economy and efficiency also interfered with the litigation of legal and fact issues in the plaintiff’s Answer to Counterclaim (17 pages).
As reported above, Judge Saunders’s judicial actions arbitrarily and unilaterally terminated the plaintiff’s “case in chief” evidence presentation to the jury prematurely, and that situation clearly caused the six jurors to subsequently have to try to deliberate very important plaintiff “case in chief” evidence issues when they had not been informed adequately and completely about those factual evidence issues. (Rental Fees Award claim and Punitive Damages Award claim)
That critically improper situation occurred due to very serious unfair and unethical judicial errors during the trial. Judge Saunders mismanaged the trial badly by willingly allowing the Defendant LLC to present a lot of surprise “ambush” type testimony that was clearly outside the due process of law bounds of pleaded (noticed) fact issues in their very simple form type Answer pleading.
That extremely unfair and unreasonable situation caused the judge to deny the plaintiff adequate testimony time for me to inform the jury about very important fact issues that were properly and responsibly pleaded (noticed) for jury consideration in the plaintiff’s detailed 28 pages word-processed affidavit styled Complaint pleadings (containing Supplements A, B, and C and Exhibit 1 (as the last page of the Complaint).
The trial court audio recording provides clear and convincing conclusive proof (irrefutable evidence) that judge Laura Saunders denied the plaintiff adequate “evidence testimony time” during trial to present very important evidence issues for jury consideration that had been pleaded properly and responsibly in the plaintiff’s detailed affidavit styled 28 pages word-processed Complaint, as explained previously.
The Magistrate’s Court failed to provide due process of law standards, regarding multiple important due process of law issues, for the jury trial case that was conducted on February 15, 2019 (a one-day trial on a Friday).
The Magistrate’s Court is supposed to provide important needed information to all civil trial litigants pursuant to Rule 13 of “Your Guide to Magistrate‘s Courts.” A partial copy of those rules is presented in Exhibit 1.
I did not discover that vital Rule 13 information until many days after the jury trial had been conducted on February 15, 2019. No one at the Magistrate’s Court offered me any information about that situation, and I obviously needed to learn about the availability of those vital procedural rules before I filed the plaintiff’s Complaint on 10/9/2017. The plaintiff clearly requested a jury trial – that is shown on the first page of the Complaint document.
The plaintiff’s Complaint is located in Part 1 of the digital Record on Appeal, hereinafter designated as ROA. See page 76 through page 106 for the Complaint.
When I, Lonnie Willoughby, as president of the plaintiff Corporation and the plaintiff’s pro se representative for said litigation, inquired of the Magistrate’s Court administrative personnel about obtaining the Rules of Procedure for Magistrate Court Civil Litigation, I was told that the information was not available at the court, but it was “available on the Internet.” No additional information was provided.
I subsequently had great difficulty in trying to find that information on the Internet, and I finally communicated with a known law firm and obtained their help in locating that critically important rules information. I learned that those rules are published by the S.C. Bar and are titled “Your Guide to Magistrate‘s Courts.” Exhibit 1 presented herein is a partial copy of those very important rules.
I later learned that Rule 13 (b) explains that the Magistrate’s Court is supposed to explain the procedures of the court and also help in the preparation of papers related to a litigant’s actions, if the court determines that such help is required.
Exhibit 1 presents a partial copy of those rules so this Appellate Court will have very convenient access to a true copy of Rule 13 (as referenced above).
Pursuant to Rule 13 (b) (Exhibit 1 herein) of “Your Guide to Magistrate’s Court” the magistrate’s court personnel that I talked with initially about filing a civil case with the Magistrate’s Court in Simpsonville, SC had a clearly specified duty and responsibility to explain to me that there is some important documentary information that I may need to review before filing a civil Complaint with said court. (Rules of Civil Procedure within the Magistrate’s Court).
It is clearly not adequate helpful information to tell a litigant that the Rules of Civil Procedure for Magistrate’s Court “is available on the Internet.” That is what I was told when I inquired about purchasing or otherwise obtaining a copy of the Rules of Civil Procedures for Magistrate’s Courts in South Carolina.
Several weeks after the jury trial conducted on February 15, 2019, I finally learned that the Magistrate’s Court has a two-page document titled “Jury Information – The Stages of Trial” and that vital educational document is presented herein as Exhibit 2.
It is clear that all jurors need to understand that vital educational information, but it is plainly obvious that all plaintiff and defendant trial litigants also need that vital essential educational information. All primary litigants (plaintiffs and defendants) should be provided with a copy of this very important two-page document by the Magistrate’s Court, or alternatively, those litigants should be informed responsibly by the Magistrate’s Court about the availability of that vital document (where can it be found by litigants?).
Due to the Magistrate’s Court’s major failure to inform the plaintiff about the vital information referenced above (Exhibit 2 herein), I did not discover that very important document until several weeks after the jury trial had been conducted unfairly and improperly on February 15, 2019. I fortunately discovered that very important document when I was doing additional legal research about filing an appeal for the case.
It is clear that each juror should be provided with a copy of this very important document to study before trial, and to use at trial, but it is also clear that the primary litigants (plaintiff and defendant) involved in said trial need to be informed about this vital trial process procedures document - Exhibit 2 herein.
This eyewitness Affidavit Report will show that the failure of the Magistrate’s Court to responsibly inform me, as the plaintiff’s pro se representative, about those very important vital instructional procedures helped cause some very serious problems to occur during trial. That major judicial error effectively helped cause the extremely unfair and unethical very botched-up farce and fraud of a jury trial that was conducted on February 15, 2019 by Summary Court Judge Laura Saunders.
As the plaintiff’s pro se representative in that trial, I would have objected many times to the defendant’s argument issues and evidence testimony issues during trial if I had known that the jurors had been given a copy of document shown in Exhibit 2 herein. Consequently, a lot of the serious trial court problems reported herein may have been reduced and minimized if the Magistrate’s Court had responsibly informed me timely about that critically important trial management procedures document. (Exhibit 2 herein)
Without any knowledge of that trial procedures document, as the plaintiff’s pro se representative during the one-day jury trial, I, Lonnie Willoughby, had no understanding of what Summary Court Judge Laura Saunders was doing with her trial court management procedures throughout the one-day trial. I was completely in the dark about those well-established and carefully documented vital trial procedures.
I knew nothing about the appropriate trial court procedures shown in Exhibit 2, and I later learned that the Magistrate’s Court had a clearly specified duty and responsibility to inform litigates about the court’s relevant procedures.
It is clear to me that vital trial management procedures, as shown in Exhibit 2 herein, are relevant procedures that primary litigants need to be informed about by the Magistrate Court in a timely manner prior to trial court day.
The day that we attended a jury trial selection process would have been a good time to inform the plaintiff and the defendant about the trial procedures document presented herein as Exhibit 2.
The trial court judge presiding over the jury selection process should have given the litigants a copy of the document shown in Exhibit 2 herein, and the judge should have also explained that each juror selected for participation in the trial would also receive a copy of the Exhibit 2 document to study responsibly before the trial day began.
It is not responsible to wait until the trial is beginning to give each juror a copy of said document. They will quickly have their minds busy with a lot of other important information as the trial begins, and it is then too late to expect the jurors to carefully study Exhibit 2.
It is clear that the Magistrate’s Court should have informed me in a responsible manner prior to the trial day about the document presented in Exhibit 2, That duty and responsibility is shown clearly in Rule 13 (b) of Exhibit 1 herein, and it was a serious “due process of law violation” for the Magistrate’s Court to not inform me about that critically important trial procedures document (shown in Exhibit 2 herein).
As the plaintiff’s pro se representative during the jury trial, I should have been informed about the availability of the vital trial procedures document titled “Jury Information – The Stages of Trial.” It is clear that all Magistrate’s Court’s primary litigants at trial will need to carefully study the vital document that is presented herein as Exhibit 2 prior to participating in a jury trial.
That document explains on page 1 (in paragraphs 8 and 9) that the juror’s may hear the attorneys make “objections” during the trial, and it explains how objections will be ruled on by the trial judge as “sustained” or “overruled” or the judge may order the jury to disregard some evidence completely (because it was deemed inadmissible to the jury – should not have been presented to the jury). That situation applied to almost all of the defensive testimony presented by the Defendant LLC’s witnesses below, but the judge failed to consider any of that grossly improper testimony as inadmissible. She cooperated with the unfair, unethical, improper surprise ambush type testimony by the Defendant LLC’s witnesses for hours during the one-day trial. That improper testimony corrupted the trial to an extreme degree but that was obviously fine with the judge.
Due to the Magistrate’s Court’s definite failure to inform me about that vital document (Exhibit 2 herein), as the plaintiff’s pro se representative during the trial, I was not aware of that jury instructions trial proceedings education document. Consequently, I was not aware of its very important instructions to the six jurors about “objections” during evidence presentations by litigants and/or their witnesses.
Consequently, I was very reluctant to raise “objections” during the trial regarding unfair and unethical fraudulent perjured testimony surprise “ambush” argument and/or evidence testimony that was clearly outside the bounds of the filed “Answer” pleadings of the Defendant LLC. (And there was a lot of that kind of testimony at trial.)
I understood that the trial court judge had a clear and definite responsible duty to not allow the Defendant LLC to present surprise “ambush” defensive argument or evidence issues during the trial.
Not being aware of the juror’s educational instructions about “objections” that are explained in Exhibit 2 herein, I believed that the jurors would likely think that my objections for the plaintiff during trial would appear to be self-serving efforts trying to prevent the defendants from having a fair and full opportunity to present their side of the case. I realized that such a situation might severely prejudice some of the jurors against the plaintiff’s Complaint issues if the plaintiff “objected” several times to some of the defendant’s surprise “ambush” defensive argument and/or “evidence testimony.”
I realized that the jurors were not likely familiar with pleading requirements and relevant limitations of argument issues or evidence testimony that can be presented during trial Restricted to argument issues and evidence issues that clearly fall within the boundary limits of pleaded (noticed) argument or evidence issues.
I understood that the plaintiff’s Complaint issues and the defendant’s Answer issues to those Complaint issues properly established the boundary limitations for presentation of argument issues and/or evidence testimony issues during trial to enable “due process of law standards” to be maintained during the trial.
I also understood that the trial judge had a very important duty and responsibility to responsibly maintain those “due process of law standards” throughout the jury trial and not allow the litigants to introduce new argument issues or new evidence issues into the trial – issues that had not been properly noticed in the litigant’s pleadings.
I also knew that the defendant’s “Answer” pleading had not denied any of the numerous Complaint issues that were presented in substantial detail in the plaintiff’s 28 pages word-processed affidavit styled Complaint pleadings (The Complaint includes Supplement A, B, and C and Exhibit 1 as the last page of the Complaint).
The fact that the Defendant LLC had not denied any of the numerous detailed Complaint issues should have made it easy for the trial court judge to understand when the Defendant LLC was attempting to present surprise “ambush” type defensive argument issues or “evidence testimony“ issues during the trial.
Consequently, during the jury trial conducted on February 15, 2019, I fully expected and depended upon the trial court judge to observe, monitor, and manage the trial argument issues and “evidence presentations” to responsibly prevent the Defendant LLC and their witnesses from attempting to present unfair and unethical surprise “ambush” testimony about defensive argument issues or “evidence issues” that had not been responsibly presented (noticed) in their “Answer” pleading.
EXTREMELY IMPORTANT POINT: I also realized that the six jurors would accept the trial judge’s active objections to the defendant’s surprise “ambush” argument or evidence testimony actions a lot better than the jurors would accept any “objections” that I might present for the plaintiff during trial as the plaintiff’s pro se representative.
However, the court’s trial audio recording proves clearly, convincingly, and conclusively that Summary Court Judge Laura Saunders did not responsibly provide those very important judicial trial management actions during trial.
The trial audio recording proves clearly and conclusively that Judge Saunders willingly allowed and actually enabled the Defendant LLC’s witnesses to say anything they wanted to say in s self-serving manner regarding the presentation of unfair and unethical surprise “ambush” defensive argument and “evidence testimony” to the six-member jury.
The combination of the Magistrate’s Court’s failure to inform me, Lonnie Willoughby, about the vital jury instructions procedures document that is presented in Exhibit 2 herein, and the trial court judge’s grossly irresponsible failure to monitor and prevent the unfair and unethical Defendant LLC from presenting an avalanche of surprise “ambush” defensive argument and “evidence testimony” to the jurors totally wrecked the integrity of the trial court “evidence presentation” actions.
The six jurors were confused to an extreme degree about what was true evidence and what was false evidence from the plaintiff and from the defendant’s multiple witnesses. That occurred due to the large amount of unfair, unethical, false and fraudulent perjured surprise “ambush” type argument and “evidence testimony” presented by the defendant’s and their witnesses- testimony evidence that was clearly outside the boundaries of their pleaded (noticed) issues. Their Answer pleading had no denials of any of the plaintiff’s numerous Complaint pleaded issues.
However, during their trial testimony, the Defendant LLC’s multiple witnesses denied essentially everything noticed in the Complaint, and Judge Laura Saunders allowed them to present that kind of grossly improper ambush testimony for hours during the trial.
An additional important point about Exhibit 2 herein is that Judge Saunders completely deleted/omitted all redirect examination of witnesses in the trial. I presume that she did that in the interest of efficiency and judicial economy, but it was wrong for her to arbitrarily decide to not allow redirect examination of witnesses. That very important feature of evidence presentation to the jury can be critically important at times.
. I would have needed that redirect examination for the three adverse witnesses that I wanted to examine, but the judge only allowed me to examine one adverse witness, and she did not allow any redirect examination (which I needed badly).
Furthermore, there is no evidence in the records of the trial court below that would indicate that each of the six jurors were in fact presented with a copy of Exhibit 2 herein. I doubt that the jurors were given a personal copy of that document, and if so, I doubt that they were encouraged to study and clearly understand the vital jury instructions presented therein?
The plaintiff and defendant litigants below were not informed about that vital document, and they were not informed that each juror had been presented with a personal copy of that document to refer to during the trial and also refer to later during their deliberation actions (after all evidence presentations were made). Those deficient Magistrate’s Court actions did great damage to the trial process as explained herein. The whole process was an irresponsible farce and fraud upon the litigants involved.
Did the jurors actually understand that the plaintiff in the case could have properly presented numerous appropriate responsible “objections” to the numerous unnoticed surprise “ambush” defensive argument issues and “evidence presentations” to the jurors? If the six jurors actually understood that situation, and if I did not object appropriately to surprise “ambush” argument issues and evidence issues by the Defendant LLC’s witnesses, the jurors might get the wrong impression. They might believe that the improper unnoticed surprise “ambush” argument and evidence testimony was apparently appropriate testimony (because neither the judge nor I had objected to any of the various presentations of ambush testimony during the trial).
I realized that the jurors would not understand which argument issues and which evidence testimony was authorized (by the pleadings) and which was unfair and unethical surprise “ambush” type testimony actions. The judge would generally know about those situations, and I would also know about those situations, and also understand which testimony was unfair, unethical, false and fraudulent perjured testimony, but the six jurors would not know how to evaluate those situations properly.
If the judge did not object appropriately to any of the improper surprise “ambush” type testimony actions by the defendant’s witnesses, and If I did not object appropriately to those improper testimony actions, the jurors would not understand how to determine when the Defendant LLC’s witnesses were presenting improper surprise “ambush” type argument and testimony actions.
I did not know that the jurors had been informed about “objections” during trial. I did not have any reasons to believe that the jurors would understand that my objections were responsible actions and also realize that I was not trying to prevent the Defendant LLC from presenting proper evidence to the jurors. I did not understand that situation at all due to the Magistrate’s Court’s grossly irresponsible and incompetent failure to inform me about those vital jury trial procedural issues. (Exhibit 2 herein)
Consequently, that exceptionally important Magistrate’s Court’s failure to inform me about Exhibit 2 helped the unfair, unethical, and extremely corrupt Defendant LLC to present an avalanche of unfair, unethical, false and perjured surprise “ambush” type argument and “evidence presentations” to the jurors during the trial without any objections from me about those actions, for the reasons explained above.
.
The audio recording for the trial proves clearly, convincingly, and conclusively that Summary Court Judge Laura Saunders made no judicial management efforts to stop the defendant’s ruthless surprise “ambush” litigation schemes and tactics during trial.
Judge Saunders effectively allowed and enabled the defendant’s multiple witnesses to succeed with their conspiratorially planned and coordinated unfair and unethical surprise “ambush” argument and evidence presentations to the six-member jury.
Fortunately, the trial court’s audio recording (CD ROM) proves clearly, convincingly, and conclusively that Judge Laura Saunders’ judicial actions and improper judicial inactions effectively joined her with the unfair and unethical Defendant LLC surprise “ambush” schemes and tactics to cause a heinous “extrinsic fraud upon the court.”
That situation was reported to the Magistrate’s Court below in some of the plaintiff’s post-trial motions (requesting a new trial) that I personally developed and filed timely, but it was reported best in the plaintiff’s Amended Consolidation of Related Motions about Order Dated 4/2/2019. That 55-page motion was filed timely on 4/22/2019, along with a related Exhibit Documents brief filed with that motion.
Those two documents are located in the digital Record on Appeal, hereinafter the DROA, in Part 1. The detailed motion is located at page 35 through page 89. The associated Exhibit Documents brief begins at page 90 and ends at page 108.
It is very clear that a primary litigant (plaintiff and/or defendant) needs to be informed about how the magistrate’s court is going to conduct a jury trial, before the trial process begins. I have shown herein with Exhibit 2 that the trial procedures are clearly defined and published in a two-page document. I have also reported above the very serious trial problems that occurred because the Magistrate’s Court failed to inform me about the vital instructions shown in the document presented herein as Exhibit 2.
The BIG QUESTION that I have is this: Why did the Magistrate’s Court fail to inform the primary litigants about that vital document? With more than 300 Magistrate’s Court judges in South Carolina, I would think that such grossly improper and inadequate and incompetent judicial actions would have been discovered and eliminated in all SC Magistrate’s Courts many years ago.
If jury trials are going to be conducted in a reasonably fair and impartial responsible manner, the plaintiff and the defendant obviously need to be informed timely about these standardized rules about jury trial management procedures. (Exhibit 2 herein)
This court’s appeal remand reversal decision can be a helpful tipping point that clarifies this situation and helps ensure that these kinds of grossly unfair and irresponsible and incompetent judicial actions in Magistrate’s Courts in South Carolina are corrected promptly.
I just had my 83rd birthday on June 5, 2019, and I must say that the jury trial that I participated in on February 15, 2019 was the most disgustingly incompetent and irresponsible government operation that I have ever experienced in my long lifetime.
It is important at this point to understand that I served four years in the U.S. Air Force and served 19 years in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) so I have 23 years of government service.
In all of those years, I never experienced anything so disgustingly unfair, unethical, and so corrupt and incompetently presented as the jury trial conducted on February 15, 2019. A large amount of those problems was due to the fact that the Magistrate’s Court failed to inform me about the document presented herein as Exhibit 2. Yes, that one two-page document is incredibly important to understand for a plaintiff or a defendant before they attempt to participate in a jury trial in the Magistrate’s Court.
Normally I would be patient, understanding, and empathetic toward the Magistrate’s Court’s duties and responsibilities because I have some very limited understanding that the court’s assigned duties include a very broad range of complex legal issues.
I also understand that trial court judges generally have very broad complex legal responsibilities that require special intellectual and emotional abilities that are way beyond what ordinary American citizens would be able to perform successfully.
As reported herein, the jury trial conducted on February 15, 2019 was conducted in such an extremely unfair, unethical, and corrupt manner that it is sickening to think back about those appalling litigation conditions - as this affidavit work required me to do.
I will now refer the court to specific documents contained in the digital “Record on Appeal” (DROA) and to the Magistrate’s Court’s very important CD ROM format trial audio recording of that extremely unfair and unethical corrupted jury trial process.
In order to save time and effort for this Circuit Court, I will limit most of my referrals to the DROA to one major post-trial motion document that was titled “Amended Consolidation of Related Motions About Order Dated 4/2/2019.” That exceptionally important motion is located in the digital ROA in Part 1 beginning at page 35 and going to page 89. That motion was filed timely with the Magistrate’s Court on 4/22/2019.
That very complex 55-page motion also has a separate Exhibit Documents brief component that is titled “Exhibits For Amended Consolidation of Related Motions about Order dated April 2, 2019.” That document contains 12 relevant exhibit documents that provide very important evidential documents that support various argument issues presented in the 55-pages motion. That Exhibit Document brief in located in the digital ROA (Part 1) beginning on page 90 and going to page 108.
That very complex motion (with 12 relevant exhibit documents) was my final post-trial motion effort to try to persuade Summary Court Judge Laura M. Saunders that she should provide a new trial, to replace the extremely unfair and unethical fraudulent jury trial that was conducted by her on February 15, 2019. That motion presented ten (10) separate argument issues showing a very strong cumulative basis for the judge to grant a new trial due to the badly botched up manner in which the trial was conducted on February 15, 2019, as clearly reported in that complex motion in some detail.
Judge Saunders’ Order denying that motion is found in the digital ROA in Part 1 at page 34. I had spent hundreds of hours since the trial in trying to prepare and file responsible motions that moved the court for a new trial, and it was apparently all a big waste of time. Judge Saunders had summarily denied each motion that I had filed, although I had provided a very responsible basis for the court to grant a new trial.
From that point in the case, the plaintiff had no viable recourse except to file its Notice of Appeal due to judge Saunders Final Order decision to not grant a new trial.
Judicial Error – Failure to Compel Production of Evidence Documents
The plaintiff’s 17 pages Answer to Counterclaim pleading document responsibly moved the magistrate court to compel the Defendant LLC to produce important evidential business sales record documents that would provide business sales activity records evidence during trial (if needed by plaintiff). See pages 15 and 16 of that document for the plaintiff’s motion action moving the court to compel Next Gen Trading LLC to produce specific business sales records to be used by the plaintiff herein during trial. The plaintiff anticipated that those sales records would likely be needed as evidence documents during trial to prove conclusively that Next Gen Trading’s business sales had been reasonably good in their new location in Mauldin during May and June of 2014.
The plaintiff’s motion therein responsibly anticipated, more than a year before trial, that those business records evidence documents would likely be essential business sales record evidence during the plaintiff’s requested jury trial.
Events during trial proved conclusively that the Magistrate’s Court’s inaction of improperly ignored the plaintiff’s very responsible timely actions in that regard enable the Defendant LLC’s management witnesses to corrupt the jury trial to an extreme degree. The Magistrate’s Court apparently did not conduct a responsible review of the plaintiff’s 17-page Answer to Counterclaim pleading at any time for more than 12 months prior to the final established trial date on February 15, 2019.
The digital ROA documents provide clear and conclusive proof that the magistrate’s court did not take any judicial action that would compel the Defendant LLC to produce the detailed itemized business sales activity records that the I had personally requested in the plaintiff’s motion that had moved the court to compel production of documents.
The plaintiff’s motion also requested that those business sales records be compelled for use by the Magistrate’s Court as evidential proof that the Defendant LLC had filed a Counterclaim that contained unfair, unethical, false and fraudulent perjured self-serving argument that falsely claimed that their business sales had been interfered with due to some ABC of Health equipment being in their way (in their Mauldin store).
I, Lon Willoughby, realized that the defendant’s argument in that respect was false and fraudulent perjured testimony, and I wanted the Magistrate’s Court to also have those compelled business sales records for probable use as important evidence for an investigation about unethical false perjured argument by the Defendant LLC in their grossly fraudulent Counterclaim document (filed as a Reply – not a Counterclaim). . Those business sales activity records were requested timely by me in the plaintiff’s Answer to Counterclaim, where the plaintiff’s defensive argument testimony showed important reasons why those business sales records would very likely be needed during trial and also showed that those record documents could prove that serious perjured argument was contained in the defendant’s unfair fraudulent Counterclaim argument.
Due to the extremely unfair, false, and fraudulent perjured testimony presented in the defendant’s alleged Counterclaim pleading, the plaintiff anticipated properly, more than a year before the trial conducted on February 15, 2019, that those specific itemized business sales record documents would likely be very important essential evidence documents during the trial to require the Defendant LLC to be honest about their allegations about diminished business sales that they blamed on ABC of Health..
The Magistrate’s Court’s failure to compel production of the requested business sales record documents was a major evidence flaw in the jury trial conducted on February 15, 2019. That major judicial error essentially wrecked the trial process because the Defendant LLC was thereby enabled to present some very unfair and unethical perjured testimony during trial related to those specific business sales activities.
Prior to the trial, the Defendant LLC’s management personnel knew that the plaintiff’s pro se representative during trial (me) would not be able to produce any documentary sales records evidence during trial to prove convincingly and conclusively that the alleged “inadequate business sales activities” reported by the Defendant LLC’s managing personnel in their Counterclaim testimony during trial was in fact unfair and unethical grossly false perjured testimony about their business sales activities in May and June of 2014.
Their unfair, unethical, and grossly perjured testimony in their Counterclaim had informed me that their “evidence testimony” during trial about those sales issues would likely blame the plaintiff’s health store moving actions and the lack of their own moving completion actions for the “alleged handicapped and diminished sales activities” that was falsely reported in their Counterclaim with very serious perjured testimony.
I, Lon Willoughby, knew, and the Defendant LLC’s management personnel also knew, that those ABC of Health reported moving activities did not materially interfere with their sales activities. Any equipment that was still in their facility in May 2014 Hs been moved out of their operational sales area. However, during trial, the Defendant LLC’s management witnesses unfairly, unethically, and fraudulently claimed that the plaintiff’s unfinished moving actions had interfered greatly with their business sales in May and also in June of 2014. All of our equipment had been moved out in May.
Their trial “evidence testimony” about those fact issues were extremely unfair, false, and fraudulent (perjured testimony), but without the business sales records documents that the plaintiff had timely requested the court to compel the Defendant LLC to produce, I realized that I would have no evidence to prove that the defendant’s “alleged deficient sales activities” were in fact unfair, unethical, and false severely perjured complaints.
Consequently, without those business sales activity records being placed in evidence, the court’s deficient actions in that regard enabled the Defendant LLC personnel to present unfair and unethical extremely perjured testimony during trial about their “lack of sales activities” during the months of May and June of 2014. (Allegedly causing the Defendant LLC to lose a lot of money in diminished sales for those months).
Their two management witnesses, Chris Johnson and his grown son Christopher Johnson, ruthlessly presented unfair, unethical, and grossly fraudulent perjured testimony about their alleged inability to make business sales during May and June of 2014. They claimed ABC of Health still had some equipment in their new facility and they falsely claimed that it had prevented them from making sales in their new store location). Their extremely unfair, unethical, false and perjured testimony in that respect blamed all of their alleged “reduced ability to make business sales” on the plaintiff during the jury trial below.
It is very important to understand at this point that the Defendant LLC did not produce any sales activity records documents as evidence during the trial to attempt to prove that their sales activities were substantially reduced from what their previous business sales activity had been producing at their previous business location in Greenville, SC - prior to their business being moved to the Mauldin facility.
I, Lon Willoughby, knew that Next Gen Trading had a much better facility and a much better parking lot and a much better location in their Mauldin facility (very easy to find). My personal observations of their business activities in several visits to their business in May and June in 2014 had found that they were apparently doing good business.
Without the badly needed sales activity business records being placed into evidence during the trial by me for the plaintiff therein, there was no documentary evidential proof that the testimony presented by the Defendant LLC’s management personnel was in fact unfair, false, and grossly perjured testimony about their alleged “reduced sales activities” during the first two months of their business in the Mauldin, SC facility.
Some of the defendant’s personnel had worked in a “barter arrangement” with ABC’s of Health, Inc. to help move the ABC of Health store equipment and products out of the retail store location that Next Gen Trading wanted to move into ASAP.
As explained previously, they also wanted to purchase many units of ABC of Health store equipment, Consequently, those numerous equipment units were left in the facility for purchase by Next Gen Trading LLC. (Those17 types of equipment are listed and priced in Exhibit 1, the last page of the plaintiff’s Complaint). That very important Exhibit 1 document is located in the digital ROA in Part 1 at page 94.
I, Lon Willoughby, was aware that Next Gen Trading appeared to be doing good business in their new Mauldin location, but without those requested business sales activities records, I would not have any evidence to present during trial to prove that the Defendant LLC’s witnesses were presenting unfair and unethical grossly perjured testimony about those alleged diminished business sales fact issues.
It is also important to understand that those same business sales activity records can still be used by the Magistrate’s Court and SLED to initiate a responsible investigation about perjury, and then prove that very important argument and evidence testimony presented during trial by the Defendant LLC’s management witnesses was unfair and unethical criminal-minded grossly perjured testimony (by father Chris Johnson and his older grown son Christopher Johnson).
Those business sales records can still be used to prove conclusively that very serious perjury occurred about those alleged Counterclaim issues and argument and evidence testimony issues during the extremely corrupted jury trial.
Judicial Error – Plaintiff Was Unable to Examine Key Defendant Witnesses
It is also important to understand that grown son Christopher Johnson provided most of the funding to purchase the Next Gen Trading business from its previous owner. Consequently, he was the primary owner of the Defendant LLC. The trial court audio record proves conclusively that trial judge Laura Saunders adamantly refused to allow me to call Christopher Johnson for examination during the trial.
That situation is reported well in the plaintiff’s Amended Consolidation Motions document in Problem Issue Three (page 27 of said document). That evidence is found in the digital ROA in Part 1 at page 61. During the trial, I was also not allowed to call the younger grown son Bradley Johnson for examination during the trial. Both of those Defendant LLC personnel were critically important adverse witnesses that I needed to examine carefully (for the plaintiff), but judge Laura Saunders improperly prevented me from calling for examination either of the two brothers during trial.
The two brothers were in the courtroom for participation in the trial, but trial judge Laura Saunders wrecked the plaintiff’s case during trial by not allowing the plaintiff to call each of those essential adverse witnesses for examination by me as the plaintiff’s pro se representative during the trial. The referenced motion below provides vital citations of audio tape locations to prove these complaint issues.
Special Request for This Appellate Court
At this point in this Affidavit, I, Lon Willoughby, request that this Appellant Court make a careful and responsible review of the entire Amended Consolidation of Related Motions About Order Dated 4/2/2019 document (55-pages) and its associated Exhibit Documents titled Exhibits For Amended Consolidation of Related Motions About Order Dated 4/2/2019.
Those two timely filed documents provide a vital detailed report about the core argument issues for the appellant’s appeal case, and they prove that those appeal issues were properly presented to the trial judge below for consideration, prior to this subsequent appeal action.. Those two documents have previously been identified herein and their location within the digital ROA has previously been identified, but I will duplicate that information below for convenience of this appellate court.
That exceptionally important motion document is located in the digital ROA (DROA) in Part 1 beginning at page 35 and going to page 89. It was filed timely with the Magistrate’s Court on 4/22/2019.
That very complex 55-page motion also has a separate Exhibit Documents with a filing title of “Exhibits for Amended Consolidation of Related Motions about Order dated April 2, 2019.” That documents contains 12 relevant exhibit documents that provide very important evidential documents that support various argument issues presented in the 55-pages motion. That Exhibit Document legal brief is also located in Part 1 of the digital ROA beginning on page 90 and going to page 108.
The arguments presented in that very important motion and the associated Exhibits Documents presented with that motion comprise the core argument issues in the appellant’s appeal case, and those documents also present some of the vital documentary evidence for this very important appeal.
Consequently, the recommendation above will make it much easier and quicker for this appellate court to accomplish a competent and responsible appeal review of the core argument issues in this appeal. I will continue presenting information about appeal argument issues below, but most of these argument issues are duplicate issues of those presented in the two vital documents referenced above. Consequently, the information that I present below will not contain as much references to the ROA and citations of the trial court’s audio recording evidence locations as that provide in the motion above.
The Amended Consolidation of Related Motions document that is referenced above provides detailed citations for evidence locations in the trial court audio recording and that complex detailed motion also provides relevant argument about those audio recording “evidence” locations. Consequently, I will not duplicate below the detailed information that I presented in the reference motion above.
I will depend upon this honorable Appellant Court to carefully review the 55-page motion cited above and the 12 exhibit documents that are associated with that motion as a major portion of this very important Affidavit report about trial court actions.
That situation will greatly simplify the remainder of this Affidavit and thereby provide substantial benefits to the court in saving time and effort n the process of conducting a competent and responsible review of the appellant’s core argument issues on appeal.
Judicial Error – Allowing Defendants to Present a Lot of Improper Testimony
It was clear to judge Saunders or should have been clear to her that the defendant’s surprise “ambush” type argument issues and evidence testimony during trial was severely wrecking the integrity of the pleaded fact issues for the jury trial. The judge should have known that testimony during trial should be strictly limited to testimony in support of the fact issues that were noticed in each litigant’s pleadings documents.
That is an absolutely essential requirement for preservation of “due process of law standards” during the trial. Judge Laura Saunders’ judicial actions during the trial improperly ignored her responsibility to provide this essential “due process of law standard” during the trial.
Her judicial actions during the trial had willingly allowed and helped enable the Defendant LLC’s management personnel to present a lot of surprise ambush type argument and “evidence testimony” that was in direct conflict with and clearly contrary to the defendant’s very simple Answer pleading (contained no denials).
The plaintiff’s progressive post-trial motions that I developed and filed timely (each requesting that a new trial be provided) had proven conclusively that Summary Court Judge Laura M. Saunders did not appear to be the least bit concerned about the large amount of obviously unfair and unethical surprise ambush type argument and testimony that the Defendant LLC’s witnesses presented to the six jurors.
Judicial Error – Plaintiff was denied adequate time to present evidence to jury
Further complicating those judicial errors during trial, Summary Court Judge Laura Saunders also deceptively denied me, as the plaintiff’s pro se representative, adequate time to present “evidential testimony” to the jury about the plaintiff’s proper and responsible pleading for a Rental Fees Award claim.
Judge Saunders allowed the Defendant LLC to take up a lot of time during trial with presenting surprise “ambush” type argument and evidence testimony to the jury (alleged fact evidence issues that had not been noticed in the Defendant’s Answer pleading). However, Judge Laura Saunders did not allow me (Lon Willoughby) to have 15 minutes of time after the jury’s one-hour lunch break at 1:00 PM to present “case in chief“ evidence testimony about the plaintiff’s pleaded Rental Fees Award claim.
The trial court judge also summarily prevented me, as the plaintiff’s pro se representative during trial (Lonnie Willoughby), from having adequate “case in chief” evidence testimony time with the jury regarding the plaintiff’s proper and responsible pleading claim for a Punitive Damages Award.
After the jury lunch break, the plaintiff needed 10 to 15 minutes of evidence testimony time to report to the jury how the plaintiff was ruthlessly damaged for more than four continuous years by the defendant’s grossly improper ruthless, willful, wanton, and reckless actions towards the plaintiff Corporation and me as its president.
Judge Saunders was so concerned about judicial “efficiency and economy” during the trial that she did not allow me to complete the presentation of the plaintiff’s “case in chief” evidence presentation to the jury about those two very important pleaded special damage awards. She severely violated Rule 13 as shown in Exhibit 1 herein.
Judicial Error – Inadequate and Improper Jury Instructions
Complicating those judicial errors further, Judge Laura Saunders gave no jury instructions about the plaintiff’s pleading for a Rental Fees Award claim, and she gave improper judicial instructions and also inadequate instructions to the jury about the plaintiff’s proper and responsible pleading for a Punitive Damages Award claim.
That situation is reported herein briefly because I have referred this honorable appellate court to argument and trial court audio recording evidence identification that is contained in the digital format ROA record for the complex Amended Consolidation of Related Motions document, which will be identified hereinafter as the ACRM.
As explained previously herein, that improper “defective jury deliberation situation” was enabled and orchestrated by Summary Court Judge Laura M. Saunders in an extremely unfair, unethical, and corrupt judicial manner. These serious harsh complaints about her judicial actions are proven clearly, convincingly, and conclusively by the CD ROM audio recording of the six-hour long jury trial that is a part of the ROA. That specific evidence is identified and referenced in the ACRM explained above.
Relevant citations of evidence locations on the trial court audio tape is presented on pages 43 – 46 of the ACRM. That report information is located in the digital ROA in Part 1, beginning at page 77.
I realized at the end of the jury trial on February 15, 2019 that the trial had been a serious failed attempt for the Magistrate’s Court to provide a fair, impartial, and responsible jury trial.
The jury award in favor of the Plaintiff was about 600 dollars lower than the minimum amount that it should have been for the equipment that was supposed to be purchased by the Defendant LLC (equipment that was shown in Exhibit 1.as the last page of the 28 page Complaint).
The information provided to me by Judge Saunders when she handed me a photocopy of two-pages of information about the verdicts rendered by the jury did not provide any information that would show how the jury had calculated their jury awards – one for the Plaintiff and one for the Defendant LLC regarding their alleged Counterclaim. I needed that calculations information so I could understand how the jury had miscalculated their jury award to the plaintiff, and maybe understand how they calculated their award for the defendant’s alleged Counterclaim. I reported my need for that calculation’s information in a series of post-trial motions that move the court for a new trial, but judge Saunders did not provide any additional information about the jury’s calculations of awards.
Judicial Error – Allowing Defendant to Severely Corrupt the Jury Trial
The trial audio recording shows that Judge Laura Saunders casually and willfully allowed and enabled the unfair, unethical, and extremely dishonest Defendant LLC to ruthlessly present an avalanche of unfair, unethical, false, and fraudulent surprise ambush type testimony during the six-hour trial (ambush type testimony about alleged evidence issues that were not noticed in the defendant’s Answer pleadings).
I recognized that a lot of the defendant’s testimony was criminal-minded perjured surprise ambush type testimony actions that were clearly corrupting the integrity of the jury trial. Those defendant actions caused a ruthless denial of American due process of law standards for trial procedures that affected the Plaintiff very badly during the one-day jury trial.
The Defendant LLC’s management witnesses (Chris Johnson and grown son Christopher Johnson) introduced a lot of alleged “evidence testimony” that had not been noticed in any manner in the defendant’s Answer pleadings.
Consequently, the plaintiff was ruthlessly denied a fair opportunity to conduct discovery about those non-pleaded fact issues, and the Plaintiff was ruthlessly denied an opportunity to prepare competent defenses for those surprise claims.
That situation is proven convincingly and conclusively by the plaintiff’s Complaint pleadings and the defendant’s Answer pleadings and also proven with the six-hours of audio recording of the trial (CD ROM format). There were three hours of audio recording in the morning session of the trial - before the jury lunch break at 1:00 PM, and then there were three additional hours of audio recording in the afternoon trial session that resumed recording at 2:00 P.M and stopped at about 5:00 P.M.).
The Defendant LLC had filed an ANSWER to the plaintiff’s COMPLAINT that presented no denials of the plaintiff’s detailed COMPLAINT issues (as reported in SUPPLEMENTS A, B, and C and Exhibit 1 - 28 pages total of detailed pleadings).
In essence, the Defendant LLC apparently agreed with all of the plaintiff’s Complaint issues which were clearly and specifically identified in adequate detail. Consequently, the Defendant LLC had already lost in the litigation action before the trial began – except for an extremely unfair, unethical, and grossly perjured COUNTERCLAIM pleading that the Defendant LLC filed against the plaintiff Corporation (ABC’s of Health, Inc.).
I personally developed and filed timely the plaintiff’s Answer to Counterclaim pleading which was 17 pages long, word-processed single spaced, type font size 12. That very important document showed clearly and convincingly that there was no legal basis for the defendant’s Counterclaim complaint issues because there was no agreement or duty by the plaintiff to comply with any of their unfair, unethical, and criminal-minded grossly perjured Counterclaim issues.
The Counterclaim was one-page of hand-written extremely unfair, unethical, and deceitful grossly perjured false statements. It is very important for this appellate court to understand that there was no competent evidence presented during the trial that could have shown that the plaintiff had any agreement or duty obligations with the Defendant LLC regarding their alleged Counterclaim issue complaints.
However, contrary to the substantial competent evidential documentary affidavit styled 17-page word-processed Answer to Counterclaim that was filed by the plaintiff, the jury irresponsibly ignored the “preponderance of evidence rule” by awarding the Defendant LLC a monetary award for their grossly perjured unfair and unethical Counterclaim complaint issues.
As stated herein previously, as the plaintiff’s pro se representative during the jury trial, I had given each juror a copy of the plaintiff’s Complaint pleading and also a copy of the plaintiff’s Answer to Counterclaim pleading (17-pages in length) That evidentiary document presented a detailed word-processed argument that showed clearly that the plaintiff had no duty and no responsibility to comply with the Defendant LLC’s unfair and unreasonable Counterclaim allegations. . .
The grossly unfair and unethical perjured testimony presented at trial about their Counterclaim issues could have been easily proven to be totally false and fraudulent “evidence testimony” if the magistrate’s court had responsibly compelled the Defendant LLC to produce their business sales activity records as the plaintiff’s pre-trial motion clearly requested in the plaintiff’s Answer to Counterclaim.
It is very important to understand that a copy of that very important 17-page evidential affidavit styled document was given to each of the six jurors by me, Lon Willoughby, during the plaintiff’s case in chief “evidence testimony” to the jury about the defendant’s unfair, unreasonable, and perjured Counterclaim complaint issues.
The Final Judgment rendered for the case shows that the jury improperly ignored the plaintiff’s 17-page word-processed evidential affidavit styled Answer to Counterclaim that proved clearly and convincingly that the plaintiff had no duty or responsibility of any kind toward the Defendant LLC regarding their grossly unfair and unethical perjured alleged Counterclaim complaint issues.
It is clear to me that that the jury irresponsibly ignored their duty to comply with the “preponderance of evidence” rule regarding the Counterclaim evidence. The jury apparently wanted to play “Santa Clause” (everyone gets a gift) by awarding the Defendant LLC several hundred dollars for their grossly unfair false perjured Counterclaim complaint issues. The jury found in the Defendant LLC’s favor regarding their alleged Counterclaim, in spite of the major “preponderance of evidence standard” that was applicable to plaintiff’s Answer to Counterclaim 17-page affidavit styled evidential document plus my testimony during trial .
Almost all of the competent evidence presented during trial regarding the defendant’s alleged Counterclaim was presented in the plaintiff’s affidavit styled evidential document Answer to Counterclaim. I don’t believe that any of the jurors read even the first three pages of that very important “evidential document.”
The defendant’s witnesses did not even try to show that the plaintiff owed any duty or responsibility to the Defendant LLC about their alleged Counterclaim, and there was no duty or responsibility for ABC of Health to comply with their unfair, unethical, fraudulent and grossly perjured Counterclaim allegations.
The jury’s award of several hundred dollars to the Defendant LLC for their alleged Counterclaim was not explained in any manner so it is unknown what factors the jurors based their improper Counterclaim award to the Defendant LLC upon.
There was no transparency regarding that award to the Defendant LLC or the larger jury award to plaintiff ABC of Health. An understanding of the two jury awards was purely speculation and guesswork. The trial judge presented no information to me at the end of the trial that would show how the jury calculated their two specified awards (one for the plaintiff and one for the defendant).
It was clear to me that the jury had largely ignored the plaintiff’s pleaded Complaint issues about four dispute issues that the jury was asked to evaluate and decide in the trial. The jury apparently ignored their responsibility to decide fairly the specific dispute issues that were clearly stated in the 28 page Complaint.
It was therefore clear to me that the six jurors were too lazy to read the Complaint document that I had given each of them during the beginning portion of the plaintiff’s “case in chief” evidence presentation to the jurors. They apparently failed to read any of Supplement A’s 23 pages in the Complaint.
Heinous Farce and a Despicable Fraud of a Trial
The one-day jury trial turned out to be a heinous farce and a despicable fraud upon the plaintiff, and upon the six-member jury, and it was an outrageously unfair and corrupt extrinsic fraud upon the court. I realized at the end of the trial, when the judge handed me a copy of the two-page jury verdict information, that the trial was a serious failed attempt by judge Laura Saunders to provide a fair, impartial, and responsible jury trial. She clearly allowed and enabled the avalanche of unfair, unethical, fraudulent, and perjured surprise ambush testimony that was presented to the jury by multiple witnesses for the Defendant LLC . All of that improper testimony was unimpeded in any way by trial judge Laura Saunders.
Summary Court Judge Laura Saunders clearly joined with the Defendant LLC’s improper unnoticed surprise ambush type testimony litigation schemes and tactics.
The audio recording of the six hours trial proceeding proves clearly, convincingly, and conclusively that judge Laura Saunders made no judicial efforts to responsibly manage and terminate the Defendant LLC’s ruthless surprise ambush type testimony litigation schemes and tactics that were very clearly denying the plaintiff basic fundamental due process of law standards for a jury trial proceeding.
I was in a state of shock at the end of the corrupt trial. After I had a few hours to think back about the trial activities, it became clear to me that judge Laura Saunders had Improperly allowed the defendant’s presentation of numerous defensive argument issues and “evidence testimony” about surprise ambush issues that had not been presented (noticed) in the Defendant LLC’s simple form type Answer pleading. (That had not denied any complaint issues noticed in the plaintiff’s 28-page Complaint.)
I could see that the trial court judge had knowingly and willfully allowed and enabled the unfair, unethical, and extremely corrupt Defendant LLC to take up a lot of trial time with presenting their unfair surprise “ambush” testimony litigation schemes and tactics.
That grossly unfair situation had forced me into defensive efforts to cope with an avalanche of surprise ambush testimony that was clearly in direct conflict with and contrary to the defendant’s Answer pleadings. That situation was clearly a denial of due process of law standards, but Judge Saunders casually and willfully took no judicial actions that could have restricted the Defendant LLC’s presentation of their extremely unfair and unethical improper surprise ambush type testimony to the jury.
Judicial Error – Failure to Responsibly Initiate Perjury Investigation
During the weeks after that very unfair, unethical, and corrupt trial, Judge Saunders failed to take judicial actions to initiate an appropriate criminal investigation of the Defendant LLC’s management personnel (Chris Johnson and son Christopher Johnson) for presenting a large amount of surprise ambush type perjured testimony during trial.
I knew that almost all of the testimony presented during trial by the Defendant LLC management personnel and their two supporting witnesses was unfair, unethical, and fraudulent perjured testimony. Their surprise ambush type arguments and evidence testimony was not presented (noticed) in the defendant Answer pleadings; therefore, it was improper testimony during the trial but that was OK with judge Laura Saunders.
Judge Laura Saunders should have realized that most of that testimony was unfair, unethical, perjured testimony, but she took no judicial actions during trial to limit that type of improper testimony. The trial audio recording shows clearly and conclusively that judge Laura Saunders casually and willingly cooperated with the Defendant LLC’s ruthless strategy to corrupt the trial with an avalanche of surprise ambush perjured testimony.
The case records do not indicate that Judge Saunders took any judicial action to help initiate an investigation of the serious perjury reporting actions that I made during the trial about the extremely unfair, unethical, and fraudulent perjured testimony that was presented during trial by the Defendant LLC. T reported to the Magistrate’s Court some of that perjured testimony in multiple post-trial motions, moving the court for a new trial, but the court expressed no interest in alleged perjury testimony.
There was no discussion with me about that subject. It was clear to me that the Magistrate’s Court cared nothing about perjured testimony in a pleading (defendant’s Counterclaim) or a lot of perjured testimony during a jury trial. Trial judge Laura Saunders did not make any judicial effort to discuss with me my serious complaints about perjured testimony during the trial. The jury trial litigation process is apparently a heinous fraud upon the public trust, and trial court judge Laura Saunders apparently understands and accepts that situation as being acceptable to her.
Summary of Judicial Errors - Cumulative Effects
Summary Court Judge Laura Saunders casually, knowingly, and willfully managed and orchestrated the trial to prevent the plaintiff from having adequate time to present evidence testimony about a pleaded Rental Fees Award claim for nine types of equipment that the Defendant LLC had confiscated within their facility during 2014, due to the plaintiff’s temporary loan of that equipment to Next Gen Trading for a few weeks and then was denied an opportunity to retrieve that equipment in the future.
Two Nest Gen Trading personnel were helping ABC of Health with their moving out project, but those same two people (brothers Christopher and Bradley Johnson) were also involved in moving actions that were moving Next Gen Trading into the Mauldin facility before ABC of Health had been moved out of the facility completely..
ABC of Health generously loaned nine types of equipment to Next Gen Trading for a few weeks (May and June of 2014). However, Chris Johnson subsequently refused to allow ABC of Health any opportunity to move that equipment from their facility after Chris Johnson recovered from a serious spider bite infection (Brown Recluse?) that delayed further actions by ABC for many weeks.
Then a critical action occurred on October 7, 2014. As the president of ABC of Health, I was ruthlessly ordered verbally by Chris Johnson to get out of their facility now and not come back to their business facility on threat of being arrested for trespassing if I returned to their business facility.
The plaintiff had also properly pleaded for a Punitive Damages Award for the ruthless, willful, and wanton, and reckless behavior actions that Nest Gen Trading had taken with me as the president of ABC of Health . That situation is reported in detail in the plaintiff’s Complaint, and it initially occurred on October 7, 2014, and continued all times thereafter regarding a lot of equipment items that Next Gen Trading had agreed to purchase from ABC’s of Health, Inc.
Since October 7, 2014, Next Gen Trading’s management personnel has irresponsibly and unethically refused to complete the payment for those 17 types of equipment units. That situation continued throughout the remainder of 2014, then through 2015, 2016, and into 2017. I personally filled the resulting lawsuit on October 9, 2017, and the trial reported in this Affidavit occurred on February 15, 2019.
The plaintiff eventually filed the civil lawsuit almost three years after the problems that occurred on October 7, 2014 had progressed to a hopeless situation. I had allowed Next Gen Trading additional months to resolve the payment dispute.
I had generously allowed several additional months of time after October 7, 2014 for Chris Johnson to start acting rationally toward me and ABC of Health. Consequently, I clearly filed the plaintiff’s lawsuit within the three years statute of limitations period of time. I personally allowed Next Gen Trading to have almost three years of additional time to resolve the equipment payment issues in a responsible manner. That is the civil lawsuit that is reported in this appeal.
Judge Laura Saunders’ unfair, unethical, irresponsible and corrupt judicial actions and tactics clearly joined her with the defendant’s unfair, unethical, and extremely corrupt surprise “ambush” type perjured testimony litigation schemes and tactics.
Judge Saunders used the defendant’s improper litigation actions throughout the one-day jury trial to unfairly and unethically prevent me from having adequate time to present very important evidence testimony to the jury about the plaintiff’s pleaded Rental Fess Award claim and also the plaintiff’s Punitive Damages Award claim.
As shown previously with references to the ACRM and the trial audio recording citations, Judge Laura Saunders also gave improper and inadequate jury instructions to the jury about the plaintiff’s properly pleaded Punitive Damages Award claim.
Due to the series of very serious judicial errors identified above (as improper judicial trial management actions and inactions), the jury awarded no compensation to the plaintiff for the Rental Fees Award claim, and the jury did not award any compensation for the plaintiff’s properly pleaded Punitive Damages Award claim.
Those deficient jury actions are proof that Judge Laura Saunders’ improper, deficient, and defective judicial actions and inactions worked in concert cooperatively with the Defendant LLC’s ruthlessly unfair and unethical surprise “ambush” type argument and evidence testimony schemes and tactics to corrupt the trial severely.
Those unfair, unethical, and corrupt judicial actions totally wrecked the plaintiff’s responsible attempts to present vital documentary evidence and oral testimony evidence about each of those very important special pleaded damages award claims.
As shown in the ACRM document argument and citations of evidence locations on the trial court’s CD ROM audio recording, that audio recording provides clear and convincing evidential proof that Summary Court Judge Laura M. Saunders knowingly and willfully managed the one-day trial process to cleverly and deceptively deny the plaintiff fundamental due process of law standards for the jury trial.
I do not know what Judge Laura Saunders’ motives were for knowingly and willfully causing an extremely unfair, unethical, and fraudulent jury tri8al, but the digital ROA (DROA) documentary evidence and the trial audio recording evidence combine to show convincingly and conclusively that her judicial actions and inactions effectively worked to unfairly and unethically allow and enable the defendant’s unfair and unethical surprise ambush type testimony schemes and tactics to be very effective at confusing the six jurors about the valid factual evidence issues in the case.
The trial court’s CD ROM six-hours audio recording provides clear and convincing evidence that Summary Court Judge Laura Saunders knowingly and willfully created, orchestrated, and perpetrated a heinous extrinsic fraud upon the court with her outrageously unfair, unethical, and corrupt judicial actions and judicial inaction tactics during the one-day jury trial.
At the end of the trial, when the judge handed me a photocopy of the two pages of the jury verdict information, I quickly realized, at that moment in time, that the trial had been a serious failed attempt for the court to provide a fair and responsible jury trial.
I realized that the jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff was about 600 dollars low in value for the equipment shown in Exhibit 1 that was supposed to be paid for by the Defendant LLC. I did not understand how the jury could have made such a big error in their jury award calculations. The judge had not given me any jury award calculations information, so I had no way of understanding how the jury had calculated their award value for the plaintiff. It was clearly a serious mistake in award value.
I did some legal research and decided that I needed to file a Motion for a New Trial before I considered starting an appeal action. I also learned that I had only ten days in which to file the plaintiff’s Motion for a New Trial.
I then prepared and timely filed the plaintiff’s Motion for a New Trial and filed it timely on the tenth day. I wanted to review the six hours of recorded trial audio but was unable to get a copy of the CD ROM type recording from the court in a timely manner. Consequently, I had to prepare the plaintiff’s complex ten points Motion for a New Trial from memory about the six hours of trial actions and activities.
I had provided the court with blank CD ROM disc as instructed by the court’s clerk, but she did not telephone me when the recording was ready for me to pick up at the court. I had called the court two times to check on the recording and the clerk then said “you don’t need to keep calling about the audio recording – when the recording is ready, I will call you.” . However, she did not call me when the recording was ready.
I learned later that she unilaterally decided to send me an Email about the recording being ready, but I did not know that she had sent an Email about the recording. We had not previously communicated by Email, and II was too busy working on the motion for a new trial to have any time daily to check our corporate Email.
We get lots of Email daily (80 to 150 Emails) and I did not have time to check our Emails for several days due to my emergency work on filing a complex motion for a new trial. When I finally called the court again, the clerk told me that she had sent me an Email about the audio recording being ready. However, she did not tell me the date and time of day that her Email had been sent.
By that late date, I had to search through about 800 Emails to find her Email. That was the first time that the court had sent me an Email so I had no understanding of what name our Email receiving system would assign to her Email. I searched through about 800 Emails and found the Email identified with her personal name. It was now too late to obtain the audio recording before having to quickly complete the complex drafting of the plaintiff’s Motion for a New Trial.
The motion for a new trial that I personally prepared and filed timely on the tenth day (from the date of the jury trial) provided ten separate argument issues that cumulatively showed a very strong basis for judge Laura Saunders to grant a new trial. I was confident that the plaintiff would get a new trial.
However, the digital ROA in this circuit court appeal case provides a copy of judge Laura Saunders Order that summarily denied the plaintiff’s very responsible post-trial motion that had moved the court for a new trial.
I then gradually filed a series of additional motions that each moved the court for a new trial, presenting additional argument information for a new trial with my subsequent motions – after I had carefully reviewed the trial court’s six-hours audio recording.
The record shows that Judge Laura Saunders summarily denied each of those additional motions that responsibly requested a new trial, one after the other, Her denial information for her denial orders is filed in the beginning of Part 1 of the DROA.
The last motion that I prepared and filed for the plaintiff with the Magistrate’s Court requesting a new trial was filed on 4/22/2019 titled Amended Consolidation of Related Motions About Order Dated 4/2/2019, abbreviated herein as the ACRM. As explained previously, that motion was a complex 55-page motion (single-spaced – font size 12) and it also presented a separate Exhibit Documents Brief (Exhibit Documents for the ACRM) that contained 12 important supporting exhibit documents. All of that relevant argument information presented a very strong cumulative basis for judge Laura Saunders to grant a new trial.
The extremely unfair, unethical, and corrupt bureaucratic Summary Court Judge Laura Saunders summarily denied that exceptionally important Amended Consolidation of Related Motions (ACRM). That consolidation of several motions cumulatively showed an exceptionally strong basis for the court to grant a new trial.
The digital “Record on Appeal” (DROA) shows that Judge Laura Saunders denied that exceptionally important 55-page Amended Consolidation of Related Motions legal brief with its separately filed Exhibits Documents ACRM brief containing 12 very important relevant evidential exhibit documents.
As indicated by her previous unfair, unethical, and dishonest judicial actions regarding the plaintiff’s multiple post-trial motions requesting a new trial, Judge Saunders was obviously determined to force the civil case below into a complex, difficult, and probably expensive appeal.
For many weeks after the trial, Judge Laura Saunders also failed to take any judicial actions that would responsibly initiate an investigation of a lot of apparently perjured testimony by three defendant’s witnesses that had totally wrecked any opportunity for the plaintiff to obtain a fair trial.
The plaintiff’s several post-trial motions had reported the avalanche of unfair and unethical perjured surprise ambush type testimony schemes and tactics by the Defendant LLC during trial. They had clearly prevented the plaintiff from having fundamental American style due process of law standards for presentation of the plaintiff’s Complaint issues to the jury during that one-day trial.
The trial court judge apparently accepted, approved, and willingly enabled those unfair, unethical, and outrageously corrupt surprise “ambush” perjured testimony schemes and tactics to continue for hours during the trial. She took no judicial actions during the trial to terminate those unfair and unethical ambush litigation tactics.
During many weeks of post-trial motions and amended motions that I developed and filed for the plaintiff (that requested that a new trial be granted), Judge Laura Saunders demonstrated that she has no judicial integrity at all (NONE - ZERO).
It is now clear to me that Judge Laura M. Saunders is not ethical fit to be a summary court judge in South Carolina (or anywhere else), and she is also not ethically fit to be a respected member of the South Carolina Bar.
It is clear to me that judge Laura Saunders should be investigated responsibly and then be properly removed from both positions (a judge and a member of the SC Bar). She has repeatedly demonstrated in the civil case below that she is an arrogant elitist who is a despotic judicial tyrant that has no judicial integrity and no sense of fairness and responsibility as a summary court judge in a court of law.
She demonstrated repeatedly throughout the litigation process below that she will make decisions based upon her “personal objectives” for litigation dispute issues, rather than being fair-minded and responsibly provide fundamental due process of law standards in a jury trial. Her repeated orders denying the plaintiff’s very strong motions for a new trial demonstrated that she has no judicial integrity at all. The record evidence for the case below shows that she is an elitist dishonest unfair, unethical, judicial despot and tyrant. At age 83, I recognize a despot when I interact with one.
As the plaintiff’s pro se representative during the trial below, I did not understand judge Saunders’ very noticeable adversarial aggressive animosity toward me during the trial, but the judicial outcome of that adversarial animosity is clearly evident in the way the civil action jury trial case below was conducted in an extremely unfair, unethical, and clearly corrupt judicial manner.
My progressive series of post-trial motions requested that judge Laura Saunders provide a new trial to replace the obviously unfair, unethical, and corrupted trial that she conducted on February 15, 2019. The judge unfairly and unethically summarily denied each of the post-trial motions that I responsibly prepared and presented for her judicial consideration.
I responsibly spent hundreds of hours preparing those multiple motions, but Judge Laura Saunders did not have the judicial integrity to responsible review fairly her own improper judicial actions and inactions that were extremely unfair and unethical as reported herein.
It is clear to me that she in an elitist corrupt judicial despot and tyrant that should be removed from her summary court judge position and removed as a member of the South Carolina Bar. I will do whatever I can in a conscientious responsible manner to see that those needed actions are taken by both the Commission on Judicial Conduct and the Commission on Lawyer Conduct. In Columbia, South Carolina regarding the corrupt judicial activity reported herein.
Further the affiant sayeth not.
_____________________________________ Dated August _____, 2019
Lonnie E. Willoughby, Jr., president of ABC’s of Health, Inc.
P.O. Box 127, Mauldin, SC 29662-0127
Office phone: (864) 329-0004 Fax number: (864) 329-0005
_______________________________
Sworn to and subscribed before me
This __________ day of August 2019.
________________________________ _________________________________
Signature Printed Name
Notary Public for South Carolina I live in ________________ County, SC
My commission expires ___________
Copyrighted (c) 2019, ABC's of Health, Inc.
This department was updated last on August 26, 2019