This story is part of my H.E.A.R. encounter with the Lord after 10 Days of Prayer.
In early 2016 I was in Appellate Court over our house in CT. I had received a call from our insurance broker on Cape Cod who called me So after meeting Jack at court and he making our arguments, I drove up to check out the cape house. There was like a foot of snow and the road wasn’t plowed. My broker was in his BMW and loafers. When I arrived to see that the house had been posted with notices from the bank, I found a service of another suit from another bank. I was like oh man, this is just one disaster on top of another.
But this is a story of redemption. In less than a year – October 2016 after the fall feasts (10 Days of Prayer), I found myself with Jack in Court once again. This time is was Massachusetts Superior court, Barnstable county.
Jack and I had breakfast together before the hearing. We prayed together. I asked Jack, did you know there are courts in heaven? He said no I didn’t. I went on to explain that the father is seated in heaven in Daniel 7. And that we could pray for Him to rule in “favor of the saints”. So we prayed together right there in the restaurant for a ruling in our favor that day.
Jack had figured out a strategy in the proceeding weeks. It started with identifying a mistake the plaintiff’s counsel had made by filing in the wrong court. The bank was out of state and their counsel was as well. The mistake was they filed in a court that could only adjudicate matters in dispute up to $25k. This was a $180 HELOC, so it was filed in the wrong court. Jack communicated with counsel and threatened them with sanctions if they didn’t with draw the suit. So, they admitted the mistake and with drew the case.
Those papers they had left at my front door on the cape – the ones that made my heart sink and upset me – were now null and void.
Better yet, because they were “out of staters” they made a second mistake by filing the same lawsuit 3 times. Their first filing was in Connecticut and Jack also insisted they were filing in the wrong court because the property was in MA. When Plaintiff’s council couldn’t make court back in the summer of 2015, Jack had cleverly brokered a deal that we would agree to their stipulation of withdrawing the CT case and instead file in MA.
But now, back in Massachusetts, they failed to realize that refiling the case in the correct court also nullified their suit. In MA that’s against the law. It’s commonly known as the “two-dismissal” rule, and operates similarly to “double jeopardy” in the 5th amendment to the Federal Constitution.
So the trap was set, but now we needed the Barnstable Court to agree and make ruling.
Amazingly, Jack did a masterful job presenting the facts and the judge agreed with our perspective on the “two-dismissal” rule with the first CT dismissal counting as #1 and the wrong court in MA as #2. The judge told plaintiff’s counsel (the bankers themselves never appear in court if they don’t have to) that unless they had a more compelling counter argument to what they had presented, he didn’t know how else to rule other than to agree with us, the defendants.
They lost. The court struck the case and dismissed it “with prejudice” which is part of the law and it means they can’t sue us for the $180k anymore. Another debt wiped out. This time not through settlement, but court rule. Jesus had the victory. We were grateful. Jack and I both saw it as yet another miracle.
Of course they appealed the decision, but we had them caught red handed and so counter-sued. As a result we were able to settle with the bank – get this – paying us because they broke the law. As a bonus, Jack received 40%, which was well earned compensation for all the other legal work he had done for us.
We serve an amazing God who can redeem!