Just when you think this brief has taken the most ridiculous possible turn, the next page is right there to defy expectation. Innocently billed as a response to an order to show cause, these papers are nothing less than the gripping, slow-motion unraveling of a lawyer’s dignity laid out in seven pages of publicly filed awesomeness. There may be a more hilarious filing in the history of the American legal system, but I’ve not seen it.

So let’s set the stage. James Fournier represents plaintiff Randolph Renchard in a federal action over Renchard’s yacht and faced a January 15 deadline to respond to the summary judgment motion. Unfortunately, Fournier came down with a nasty case of gout AND pneumonia that confined him to his bed in severe pain. But, for some reason, he kept pressing forward trying to meet this deadline instead of trying to get better.

What a trooper.

Now before we dive into directly quoting the filing, you can enhance the whole experience if you read this brief in the voice of Gil from The Simpsons.

Without further ado:

When counsel filed Plaintiff’s first consent enlargement of time on January 16, 2015, he only sought a three-day enlargement of time upon returning from the emergency room. That forecast for health was wildly optimistic, but as counsel mentioned in the subsequent consent enlargements of time, counsel had never had pneumonia before, much less pneumonia with gout.

“Enlargement of time”? Was the word “extension” down with gout, too? Anyway, here’s a life lesson: when you have to go to an emergency room, at least ask for a week. Seriously, opposing counsel will consent to a week (or more) after the words “emergency room.” This also gives a guy enough time to properly convalesce before jumping back into work. Trying to half-ass it through the pain is courting disaster.

And that’s before we consider the merits of doing legal work in a drug-addled haze. Assuming he took his meds properly, which he didn’t because this guy is incredibly candid about his ability to take a bad situation and make it oh so much worse.

Percodan and Percocet, while easing the gout pain, made it impossible to meaningfully work. So, counsel instead relied upon heavier doses of indomethacin and Advil. Indomethacin, however, causes severe gastrointestinal disturbance that required perpetual hobbling to and from the restroom, generally interfering with the level of concentration needed to oppose a motion for summary judgment.

Holy shit man. I guess, kind of literally. You’ve got to appreciate the TMI factor at work here. Clearly the strategy is to bombard the judge with so many embarrassing facts that it’s impossible to believe it’s not true.

It’s working.

And then a series of bizarre events occurred that, combined with counsel’s illness, made it impossible to work steadily in any meaningful manner.

THEN a series of bizarre events occurred? Well this is just the bottom of page two so let’s see what this guy has for an encore. That’s when we turn the page and see the next subject heading centered right there at the top of the page:

Alvin the Cat

Go on.

By the Friday morning of January 30, counsel was feeling relatively confident that the opposition papers would be completed by the submission deadline. Counsel’s children arrived home at approximately 4:30p. One of them commented that they had not seen Alvin, the family’s longtime house cat, for about a week.

If it took a week to notice the cat was missing, I’m starting to suspect Alvin’s family wasn’t that attentive to his well-being. I mean, no one noticed Alvin hadn’t been eating?

A grand, somewhat wild search of the house with 6 children ensued, and two hours later, Alvin was found dead in a closet.

Autoerotic asphyxiation.

After considerable effort, involving two shovels and rubber gloves, Plaintiff’s counsel placed Alvin in a box and told the kids that we would bury him tomorrow. Counsel, hobbling around, is now exhausted. By late Friday evening, it became clear to counsel that the opposition papers were not going to be completed.

Note that it took two shovels to get Alvin in the box. We’re not talking about the burial — that’s tomorrow’s excuse for not filing — this was just to pick up the damn cat.

Now at this point, he tells us that the defendants had granted “enlargements of time” up until now, but had run out of patience.

Accordingly, counsel did not think requesting another enlargement of time on Friday evening or early Saturday morning stemming from illness exhaustion, compounded by a dead housecat, would gain much traction. Further, as it was Friday evening and the Court was closed, counsel did not file a motion to further enlarge time based upon something as ridiculous as the foregoing.

Pop quiz hot shot: does he go ahead and file for an extension first thing Monday morning, or does he just ignore the deadline without a word and let the whole thing slip another week? You’re smart cookies so I assume you guessed the latter.

The next day, Saturday, January 31, there was a ceremony and funeral for Alvin, with all six kids present. Plaintiff’s counsel actually managed to dig a hole for the cat. There were then discussions about the nature of life and death, where would Alvin go after he died, et cetera, which took some time. Late that evening, counsel dug Alvin back up and disposed of him out of the backyard. In doing so, counsel hit his foot on the shovel the wrong way, thereby triggering another gout attack.

Jesus dude.

Like God, he apparently rested on Sunday because when next we check in with our protagonist, it’s Monday, February 2, and he’s pretty sure he’s going to get those papers done. Maybe. Not really.

…frankly, the opposing papers did not look as good as they did while on pain killers.

Imagine that.

Plaintiff’s counsel has taken in a close friend that is going through a divorce. For reasons wholly unclear, that morning he was in need of counseling concerning the state of his marriage, to the point where I was concerned for his immediate wellbeing. I think Alvin’s funeral and ceremony with the kids triggered something.

I don’t even know what to do with that.

As Monday dragged on at Casa de Everything But Legal Work, the court sent over an order to show cause giving Fournier until Friday, February 6, to finish up.

Counsel took it as a sign to get some bed rest, which he did.

/slams head into wall/

On Friday afternoon, February 6, 2015, Plaintiff’s counsel decided that before finishing the brief and response to Defendants’ separate statement of facts, he should scan in the exhibits, which were voluminous, in order to avoid any last minute filing crises.

F**k it, let’s just skip ahead. His scanner is obviously going to break because this poor bastard is having the kind of month where he’d f**k up a wet dream. So he’s going to go to sleep and try to get this all done by Monday because Friday deadlines are for chumps. Then he’s going to get another scanner and lose all the files and then he’s going to scan everything at a resolution that makes it impossible to file because he’s every stereotype of your grandfather trying to turn on a calculator. He makes the point that he’s a solo practitioner — maybe that’s not a workable model for you, buddy.

So he gets everything ready to go on Monday. But because he loves us, the story doesn’t end there:

Having become intimately acquainted with the deposition transcripts in the course of the scanning crises, however, Plaintiff’s counsel realized that the response to Defendants’ statement of facts needed to be amplified. Working in 2-3 hour increments that took up all of Monday – well longer than expected – bringing us to today, Tuesday, February 10.

If even half of these events really befell Fournier, then it’s hard not to sympathize. Unfortunately, there comes a point where a lawyer has to take a long, hard look at himself and honestly assess whether or not he’s acting in the best interests of the client. Fournier is undoubtedly a fine lawyer in ordinary times, but gout-ridden, drug-addled Fournier simply isn’t serving his client. That was the time to bring on another attorney to help get through summary judgment. Hell, hire a contract attorney for next to minimum wage to write drafts — editing 2-3 hours a day would be more expedient than drafting 2-3 hours a day. Fournier is probably going to get benchslapped but good over this, and that sucks for him, but the silver lining is that he might finally take the time he needs to get better and return a better lawyer for it.

In the meantime, let’s all pour some out for our departed little buddy. Alvin, we miss you, brother.

As per usual, the full filing is available on the next page if you can stand the sorrow.