Chrysler dealers, Donofrio, Pidgeon denied in bankruptcy court

Scribd ^ | 05 Feb 10 | Judge Arthur J. Gonzalez

[LucyT]

By signaling that a request for writ of quo warranto would be coming soon, Chrysler dealers may have been trying to leverage a settlement offer in the bankruptcy case from Obama's team to keep quo warranto from happening.

I suspect that unlike Donofrio, the Chrysler dealers would have preferred a monetary settlement without quo warranto to one that was negotiated only after a messy, risky quo warranto filing.

That didn't happen, so now the path may be clear for Donofrio's quo warranto in DC as the next leverage point to gain a monetary settlement for his clients.

The leverage is that Obama may want to settle rather than have even more independent voters become knowledgeable about Obama's refusal to release his original HI vital records and the implication that he is hiding potential ineligibility.

. . . . #8 and #20.

[Thanks, SeizetheCarp.

[Drew68]

The denial of this long-shot motion to reconsider locks in the injury to the Chrysler dealers caused by Obama's agent, the Car Czar.

I see this now. I was mistaken about the nature of this specific case, confusing it with an eligibility case, which this one technically wasn't.

[Kenny Bunk]

Donofrio is a pretty good lawyer. Gonzalez is a pretty bad judge.

Get ready for the next round.

[BuckeyeTexan]

Agreed.

[tutstar]

Seems like more than one judge is passing the buck.

[Non-Sequitur]

I would think (not a lawyer, but I play one in FR) that this denial by the bankruptcy judge would strengthen the standing of the Chrysler dealers to request, with Donofrio acting as prosecutor, a grant of Writ of Quo Warranto by the DC Court.

Why?

[MrRobertPlant2009]

Birthers apparently never lose.

[Lurking Libertarian]

I would think (not a lawyer, but I play one in FR) that this denial by the bankruptcy judge would strengthen the standing of the Chrysler dealers to request, with Donofrio acting as prosecutor, a grant of Writ of Quo Warranto by the DC Court.

To have standing, you must (at a minimum) have suffered injury as a result of the defendant's illegal acts. This ruling holds that the bankrutcy court order was valid--hence not illegal-- so the plaintiffs have no standing to challenge it in a new case.

[Seizethecarp]

“To have standing, you must (at a minimum) have suffered injury as a result of the defendant's illegal acts. This ruling holds that the bankruptcy court order was valid—hence not illegal— so the plaintiffs have no standing to challenge it in a new case.”

The judge did not deny the Chrysler dealer's accusation that he misinterpreted the testimony of a key witness that may have led him to screw the Chrysler dealers in his ruling. The judge only said that the time limit for any motion to correct his ruling had passed and was not entitled to the “fraud on the court” exception.

My point is that if the judge had partially reversed himself to correct his mistake in the footnote, the damages to the Chrysler dealers would have been mitigated to some extent by redistributing the bankrupt's assets to give the Chrysler dealers a share.

If the Chrysler dealer's “injury in fact” had been reduced by the bankruptcy judge on reconsideration, then in a subsequent quo warranto, the claimed “injury in fact” attributed to Obama would have been reduced. That was my point.

Now there is no mitigation of the injury in fact that resulted from the bankruptcy directed by Obama and his Car Czar agent.

Donofrio and the Chrysler dealer's motion for reconsideration was civil and didn't claim illegal acts by Obama. It only claimed that the judge made an error.

But the quo warranto will claim illegal acts and will have a higher level of “injury in fact” after the failure of the motion to reconsider which will strengthen standing in quo warranto, in my amateur estimation.

[MrRobertPlant2009]

Either there is an injury or fact or there is not. Reducing the injury or increasing it has no impact on standing. Whether it is $1 or $1 million, standing is standing.

I’m also glad to see that Donofrio has now adapted the Orly Taitz strategy of calling judges traitors when they rule against him.

[Seizethecarp]

"Either there is an injury or fact or there is not. Reducing the injury or increasing it has no impact on standing. Whether it is $1 or $1 million, standing is standing."

An injury must be "material" (significant) and any remedy available to the court must be proportional to the injury.

In this case over $1 billion of Chrysler dealer franchise value was vaporized by Obama's agent Czars and approved by the judge based on a false restatement of the testimony of a key witness. Loss of $1 billion will carry far more weight in any future court hearing, including quo warranto, than a loss of $1, in my expectation.

Yes, the Chrysler dealers failed to appeal the judge's mistake within the time limit preventing a reconsideration by the judge and possible redistribution of the assets of the bankrupt estate more favorable to the dealers.

However "but for" (a term of legal art) the illegal acts of Obama's agents (illegal due to alleged usurpation by Obama) the judge would never have been in the position make this error and the Chrysler dealers franchise assets could arguably still be protected by the state franchise laws.

Had the Chrysler dealers persuaded Judge Gonzales to reconsider his ruling and redistribute the bankrupt estate, the size of the injury damages to the dealers would have been reduced and the materiality of the damages reduced. The cost-benefit calculation as to whether to proceed with quo warranto would have shifted against quo warranto, had Judge Gonzales reopened the bankruptcy.

[MrRobertPlant2009]

That “but for” argument doesn’t fly. Because it would allow standing for anyone. “But for” Expedia, I would not have bought that flight and would not have been on it when it crashed.

[Seizethecarp]

"That “but for” argument doesn’t fly. Because it would allow standing for anyone."

No, the "but for" argument can apply only to a party who commits an act in a chain of causation linking that act to an injury to the plaintiff. It does not apply not to "anyone".

If Donofrio is granted the right to quo warranto against Obama, I expect him to allege that Obama's usurpation of a federal office to which he was not entitled is the first tortious act in a chain of acts (including appointment of Car Czar) leading to injury of the Chrysler dealers (extinction of their franchise rights).

Under the "but for test" Obama can be liable and subject to a quo warranto challenge regardless of failure by the Chrysler dealers to only partially mitigate their injury with a timely appeal of a still onerous and injurious pre-sale-to-Fiat franchise negotiation as opposed to post-sale-to-fiat franchise negotiation.

See:

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/But+for+test

"An act from which an injury results as a natural, direct, uninterrupted consequence and without which the injury would not have occurred.

"Proximate cause is the primary cause of an injury. It is not necessarily the closest cause in time or space nor the first event that sets in motion a sequence of events leading to an injury. Proximate cause produces particular, foreseeable consequences without the intervention of any independent or unforeseeable cause. It is also known as legal cause.

"To help determine the proximate cause of an injury in Negligence or other tort cases, courts have devised the "but for" or "sine qua non" rule, which considers whether the injury would not have occurred but for the defendant's negligent act. A finding that an injury would not have occurred but for a defendant's act establishes that the particular act or omission is the proximate cause of the harm, but it does not necessarily establish liability since a variety of other factors can come into play in tort actions."

[MrRobertPlant2009]

How is this chain of events unique to the Chrysler case? Anyone affected by any law signed by any president would then have standing. The entire military would certainly have standing - and as birther case after birther case has proven, they do not.

And the quo warranto statute is clearly designed to limit standing as much as possible.

And it still doesn’t explain why Donofrio went through the farce of these filings.

[Seizethecarp]

“How is this chain of events unique to the Chrysler case? Anyone affected by any law signed by any president would then have standing.”

The Chrysler dealers have have the highest possible standing to file quo warranto against Obama, relative to other citizen plaintiffs, given that by the direct actions of his Car Czar agents $1 billion of their personal wealth was extinguished.