Our Voice : Citizens For a Better Lebanon Maine

Once again, I sit to write more about what has transpired in the last 6 years of our lives.  I thought that our senior years would be filled with enjoying the outdoors of  beautiful Maine and sitting on our porch in rocking chairs. ” Sit on the porch you say!?”  Lord, I’m even afraid to walk out on our porch because of the gun fire.  You never know what will happen next at our house.  Anyway, I’m going to write about the lawyers and surveyors that we hired, which I thought were going to help us.  Instead, they took all of our money that they could, and did nothing.  So here it goes.  Sit back and enjoy the life and times of  a SHOCKING, but sad part of  life in Maine.

We  looked long and hard for a law firm and found what we “thought” was a prestigious  firm in Wells, Me.  The lawyer who owned the firm was a prominent probate judge.  This, I might add, was in April of 2006, so it was NOT the probate judge who is serving now.   We made an appointment, which was set with an associate.  We were told we had an excellent case, an even better chance of winning it. The first step was to allow the attorneys to open an  “ECROW ACCOUNT”, to cover costs for experts, surveys, stump tallys, and other expenses.  For those of you who don’t understand what that is.  It’s simply, you write a check for the sum that the lawyer requests and they place in a bank, under their firm’s name. They asked us for $50,000 for this purpose, adding this money would only be touched if we authorized it.  Our escrow account actually was  a bank account, in the lawyers name, that he could dip into at will.  In a year or so,  he skillfully managed to  deplete our $50,000 to $17.90.   We found this incredible because, after 7  months of his representation, he switched us to a “contingency fund”, whereby legal representation would be based on a percentage of that amount awarded in the final  judgement. In early November of 2006, the judge who headed the law firm walked into our associate’s office and told her to “offer the Henderson’s contingency on their case, and petition the court to make me lead attorney. You’re supposed to be able to trust your lawyer.  We got billings but because we “DID” trust them we didn’t really check the escrow account.  When we finally did check it, we found that there were double billings, over billings,  expenses for consultations that were never conducted, and fees for lawyers that weren’t even on our case. There were payments to ”expert” witnesses who bailed out, etc.  Oh yes, let’s not forget, we paid for  mileage all over the state!  When all the money was gone, not only were they looking for MORE MONEY,  but they wanted to switch back to a “pay as you go” plan.  We had already mortaged our home to set up the escrow account, and would have a hard time financing this extra burden.  Additionally,we should add,  while all this was going on, our associate lawyer kept going missing every couple of weeks, and we couldn’t figure out what was happening to her.  She finally called us one evening, and said she was being escorted out of the firm’s office, under guard, and was no longer going to be working for this law firm.  Needless to say, we were shocked beyond words.  She offered to continue with our case on her own.  and honor the contingency plan. I truly believe she was seeing dollar signs.  It took her awhile, but  she did write a 14 count complaint outlining the actions of the defendants. Further, as of now, this probate judge is NO LONGER allowed to practice in Maine, after several reprimands and sanctions from the Maine Overseers of the Bar.  No wonder!!!!!   We asked our attorney if she, or the firm’s other attorneys had ANY dealings with the defendants, and were answered that although they knew of the defendants, there were NO instances that “would make any difference”..  Later we found out that the probate judge had handled  some pretty large litigations for these people in the Probate Court.  Surprised?  I”m not.   This whole thing was full of lies, deceipt, and omissions.

My husband’s family had never gotten a survey done.  There was no need to, back then.  We were told that we  needed a certified survey to prove our case.  The probate judge suggested a surveyor out of  Berwick, and low and behold, guess what,  a surveyor right here in the Lebanon area!!!  My husband decided to take the one out of Berwick because the Lebanon man was related to the defendants.  I do believe this was a plan that was conjured up by the probate judge, the defendants lawyers (yes, I said lawyers, because they had three different law firms and four to five lawyers representing them through out the case and trial) , and probably the defendants also.  Then we found out, sometime into the surveying,  that the defendant’s surveyor, and our surveyor, used to work together (we felt like we had been “set up”, no matter how we tried to avoid it..  In their surveyor’s sworn deposition she revealed our man had “called her and asked if she could HELP HIM OUT with his survey of our land”.  I do believe they collaborated, because the two surveys were so similar as to be identical.  We spent a total of over $7,000 on this erroneous survey.  The surveyor we hired wouldn’t agree with the documentation we provided him with, and sought  information from the opposing partie’s surveyor IN A BOUNDARY DISPUTE!!  He said there was a contradiction to what we claimed in the language of the deed, although he NEVER bothered to research back to when the original parcel of land was sold, or he would have seen that the seller had conveyed LAND SHE DIDN’T OWN to the buyer, thereby making the questionable language sound correct.  We ended up hiring another surveyor, from Portland, who did another survey, and recognized the ambiguity correctly.  He agreed with our findings.  When he put the survey up against the face of the earth, it fit perfectly.  I might add, when the defendant’s surveyor drew their rubber stamped survey, they had to spin it 3 times to make it fit on the surface of the earth.  That part,  though confusing, also made sense to me.  Our second survey, I might add, cost us another $9,000!!!!!  All and all, there were 4 surveys done, with none of the findings matching.  So NO ONE, other than our second surveyor and we ourselves, really knows where our boundary lines are. Certainly not the defendants, who presented the court with TWO similar deeds, one of which was  VERY UNSKILLFULLY, altered, to make it fit on the face of the earth.

The long and short of things is, that when we went to court, the judge ORDERED our second surveyor to say that he had NOT completed a survey.  I ask you why??????  The judge  would not allow this survey in evidence, nor did he  let any of our evidence, such as Town records of the tranfer of our land at the time the parcel was created, to even be mentioned because “it may be prejudicial to the defense”.  The defendant’s lawyer remarked that, “OUR EVIDENCE WOULD BE DETRIMENTAL TO HIS CLIENTS DEFENSE”.  GEE, I WONDER WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!  I ask you,  is what happened to us fair?  You be the  judge.

Lastly, the ONLY thing we wanted was to quiet the title to our 15 acres, to be compensated for  the trees cut and damages done to our land.  The many  ”mediations” that we went to, made it clear that the defendants were NOT going to even try to set things right…..  We were forced into taking action to protect was was rightfully ours.  The defendants said, “ their family owned OUR land for generations.  However my firm belief  is that they made up these lies, and repeated them for so long, that they believe it themselves.  I’ll never understand why they have to “CLAIM” other peoples land, when they already have so much……..or is that how they got SO MUCH???

Finally, our  lawyer, was deemed “MENTALLY INCOMPETENT” by the  Overseers of the Bar for the State of
Maine, three weeks after she tried our case. .  I am no psychiatrist, but it seems to me that one doesn’t become mentally ill overnight.  Nothing was said about this where our appeal was concerned.  The appeals court did not say anything  about it. They let our case languish on their appeals docket  for one year before they “got to it”.  Of course they affirmed the judge’s decision  and we lost the appeal.  The old addage,” Money talks and BS walks”, is so absolutely true.  When it came down to the court process, the tables were turned. We were treated like we were doing something  awful to these poor, poor people.  NOT!!!…..This truly happened, and we can prove it, with documentation that hasn’t been ALTERED” !!  So, if you are thinking of sueing someone because you can’t get  justice, DON”T DO IT IN THE MAINE COURTS…………………

It  just goes on and on, seemingly without end.  All we ever wanted was to live peacefully in our little Cape Cod in the woods. That, and the rights of  life, liberty and pursuit of happiness (which I guess the defendants feel are only for them, and on our dime).  That is our right as stated in the Constitution of the United States, and we’re still fighting for it!

This is the story of what happened to us and I wanted to thank Glen for letting my husband and I share this with everyone.  I know people are shaking their heads at disbelief, but it is the truth and nothing but the truth so help us God…….