July 2012
The relief and sheer joy of the power of attorney miracle was tempered with the reality of having to return to the Stamford court exactly one week later.
I left Sunday night from the cape again. Out for another adventure. Full of hope but also fear and trepidation of the unknown. I’ve never been here before. My sincere hope was that the plaintiff’s attorneys would not be able to produce the necessary power of attorney as a prerequisite to getting a foreclosure judgment as ordered by Judge Dem. Truly, this could be an awesome miracle.
The traffic was difficult coming from the Cape back to the suburbs of Connecticut in the NYC metro area on a Sunday night. Like last week, I prayed for the best way home and let Google suggest alternative routing to bypass the traffic. For the first time in my experience, it suggesting taking the “Hartford Highway” which is Rt. 6 from Providence, RI to Hartford and then down Interstate 91 to the Wilbur Cross / Merritt Parkway. It’s not much of a highway, but blazed a trail through various country towns and villages in the middle of the night with scant street lights.
As I entered into Connecticut down a road I had never travelled, I rolled into the Village of Brooklyn Connecticut.
Once more, in the middle of the night a town green emerged out of the darkness with a gleaming white, uplit Congregational steepled church in the center of a triangle of grass opened up before me. It was the quintessential New England white steepled church. Turns out this was the local congregational church built in 1771, one of the few remaining pre-revolutionary war churches. As I pulled through I also saw a Greek Revival-style building (also white) just across the street on the right. The whole scene totally reminded me of the week’s prior experience in Tolland. Church and State. And sure enough, when I looked it all up later, the second building was the Windham County courthouse built in 1821. One of the other historical aspects of Brooklyn, is that a revolutionary war hero General Israel Putnam hailed from the area. He famously led the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775 and very well may have given the order and famous saying “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” Israel Putnam publicly declared his Christianity in 1765 and led the Continental troops across the colonies through 1779.
It gets better. That court house held a famous trial of the now “Heroine of Connecticut”, Prudence Crandall. What was the trial about? Civil rights. What was her crime? Prudence was being tried for educating and housing young black women who had escaped chattel slavery in the south. Why was this an issue? Because of the terrible “Black Law” passed in Connecticut in 1833. They only lasted a few years, partly because Prudence’s case went up to the Supreme Court of Connecticut, who threw it out for a lack of jurisdiction.
Crandall’s court cases and injustice were later cited in the historic trials Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) and Brown v. the Board of Education (1954) famous decisions that led to ending slavery and segregation of school systems, paving the way for civil rights in America where constitutionally “all men are created equal” and as such their should be justice for all. Connecticut is known as the constitution state, and this is an incredible example where Connecticut led the way through Prudence Crandall helping her black students become educated.
As I passed through Brooklyn and that old Windham County courthouse and wound around Route 6 in darkness, I also happened to drive right by the very post office that our mail had been mis-forwarded to – North Windham, CT which sits right on Route 6! As they say, “you can’t make this stuff up”.
I get home late, went to bed, woke up early to smell the coffee and then make the trek back into the Stamford Courthouse in the morning rush hour on I95.
We all piled into the crowded courtroom for the Monday foreclosure short calendar. Once more, all walks of life were there plus a handful of the “usual suspects” set up behind the bar ready to go for the dozens of cases they would be prosecuting a foreclosure judgment.
At one point, I turned to a well dressed black gentleman who looked like he knew what he was doing and likely a lawyer. Excuse me sir, but do you know when the longer lunch break is today? He responded, yes its the next break coming up. Turns out that was the wrong advice and I ended up returning to court twenty minutes late. I didn’t know if my case had been called yet, so it was a bit unsettling – did I miss it? Did they throw the gavel down and take the house??
My case was called a little while later. I had listened to the other defense lawyers make their various defenses for their clients. The judge asked the plaintiff’s attorney – the racoon – Attorney Kirk whether they had found the missing power of attorney, my hopes were dashed in an instant when he announced to the court room, why yes your honor, here it is right here. I couldn’t believe it. Now what? The judge turned to me, saying Mr. Healey it would appear as though everything is in order from the plaintiff to proceed with the foreclosure. Do you have any questions for me? I was flabbergasted and was reaching for straws. Ah, well your honor… I started spouting what I had heard the other attorneys say, randomly stitching together this and that argument. I knew it was gibberish. I knew I was grasping for straws. I prayed – Holy Spirit I need help right now! What should I do?? A thought came to me – well your honor, maybe I could take some time and search through the mortgage documents and see if there is anything else. He responded that he had no problem with this, Attorney Kirk? I object your honor he shouted back. These are the original documents. What if Mr. Healey intentionally destroys them or throws them out the window! Overruled. Marshall, please hand Mr. Healey the documents and supervise his review process.
I started through the documents. I had no clue what to look for. A needle in a haystack type of situation. But I didn’t even know what a needle looked like! Argh. I was praying. I was panicing. I was like what am I doing? It was almost an out of body experience.
When the real lunch break came around, I requested to stay behind and continue to scan the documents. The judge said no, you have to turn them over to the Marshall until you come back from lunch. Okay. As I get up to leave the court room I overheard someone behind me making statements like. All you rich guys think your smart enough to defend yourself in court. I was like – is someone talking to me? I turn around and say to this man speaking are you talking to me? It was the black man who had given me the wrong council about the lunch break. I could not believe he was insulting me in front of everyone else in the court room. I was like you have no idea! He then proceeded to say to me, why don’t you and I get together after lunch 5 minutes before the court reconvenes and well see if there is something I can do for you. Here’s my card as he thrust it towards me.
I look down at it. I was like – what kind of lawyer has an American flag on his card? And who would call themselves Jack E. Robinson? Is that meant to sound like Jackie Robinson the famous baseball player? I was as agitated as I was incredulous and doubting.
I immediately went to a conference room to call Bridgette and to pray with her. I gave her the bad news – they found the power of attorney. We prayed, Lord we need another miracle! We were desperate.
I shared the story of meeting this guy Jack E. Robinson. I explained my concern that I was being scammed. I was like, how could I hire someone I don’t know and don’t trust? I was like who is this guy? Bridgette calmed me down and suggested I meet with him anyway. Just talk to him. Maybe God was sending him to us somehow. I got past myself and my concerns, prayed and felt, well what do we have to lose? We said goodby and I went to find Jack.
We went to another conference room. He asked me some questions. I explained, look I have no money. I had an attorney, but I had to let him go because I couldn’t pay him anymore. I’m only here trusting God for a miracle. Then he said, well, maybe I’m your miracle? Don’t worry about the money, we can work something out later. Still, I’m totally skeptical at this point. I was like Lord, I can’t hire this guy on the spot. What do I suggest I say to him? I felt the answer came: tell him you are not comfortable hiring him today, and then ask what he suggests I should say to the court. He said, that’s easy, you go back in and tell the judge you just met with me in the break and you need two weeks to talk it over with your wife. He will give you time whether or not you want to hire me. I was like. Huh. I could do that.
So back in I went and asked the court for time just as Jack suggested. Judge Dem said, well how much time would you need? Thinking through how much longer we were planning to have the family on the Cape before returning to Connecticut, I said 3 weeks your honor. Once more, Attn Kirk loudly objected complaining that this case already went to judgment last week and now they couldn’t wait any more. The judge got upset, yelled at him that he was out of order and told him to “sit down”. After than, he changed his tune, looked at his calendar and suggested, why don’t we schedule it for 4 weeks from today because the calendar looks more open then? Judge Dem said, does that work Mr. Healey? Yes it does! I thankfully responded. It worked. My day was done here and we still owned the house. Thank you Jesus!
I drove back to the Cape straight from Stamford. Called Bridgette with the good news. Called my parents as well. Once more, joy and hope filled my heart. I couldn’t believe it, but God had made a way. Once again!
We got back to Connecticut and met with Jack in his Stamford office. At the time he was chief council for Bennistar. Turns out Jack was the real deal. He attended Brown undergraduate, then went to Harvard Law and Harvard Business getting a JD and MBA. He worked for eastern airlines and was the first black executive to run an airline, as President of Eastern Commuter Air. He later created one of the first cell phone companies in the Caribbean. He later opened his own law practice. And then I found out he had run against Senator Ted Kennedy as the Republican nominee up in Massachusetts. Who is this guy?
To set the stage here, recall the Lord had given me a dream back in April 2010 when we were going through the thick of our financial storm and were fighting to retain our offices at the Vigilant Firehouse. In that dream, a man who sounded like James Earl Jones said “you have stage 5 cancer and need a world-class doctor.” Turns out, the guy in my dream was Jack Robinson. God had sent him across my path and had shown me ahead of time – 2 years ago in a dream! What a mighty God we serve!