The Temporary Injunction (TI) hearing took place on May 31, 2022. I’ve posted a complete transcript, which I personally think is fascinating. But if you have better things to do than read 40 pages of people arguing with each other, here are the highlights.
Opening Statements
My lawyer, Robert Newton, spoke first. He described the lot lines in our subdivision as “messy.” He pointed out that the property-access issues cut both ways: Not only did I have to pass over Sonia’s property to access my property, Sonia had to pass over my property to access her property. Robert summarized his statement by pointing out that “there’s a portion of Mr. Mishkoff’s property that is really kind of inaccessible to him without passing along and over the driveway of the neighbor, Mrs. Bryant.”
Sonia’s lawyer, Tommy Garrett, conceded that “the lot lines are really weird in this neighborhood.” But he also said that the real reason I was seeking an injunction was to force Sonia to move a potted plant that I claimed was in my way. I was, of course, seeking an injunction to stop Sonia from harassing my wife and me, but Tommy had cleverly reframed the issue to try to convince the judge that I had taken Sonia to court just to get her to move one of her planters.
Then it was time for the star witness to take the stand. (I say that in all humility because I was the only witness.)
It’s one thing to read that Sonia had harassed us. It’s much more impactful to see it in action. So Robert played a couple of videos that typified the kind of behavior that we wanted the court to “enjoin” while the case was in progress.
The First Video (April 12, 2021): Donna is standing on our property, rinsing off our windows with a garden hose. Sonia is repeatedly gesturing for Donna to get off her property (even though she’s not on it) in a condescending manner reminiscent of an adult herding a reluctant child. Although Sonia appears to have been sweeping her driveway at the time, she hadn’t actually come out of her house until Donna had nearly finished washing our windows. Sonia had left the comfort of her home specifically to give Donna a hard time.
The Second Video (November 8, 2021): Once again, Donna is washing our windows. Sonia drives up and comes to a dead stop in her driveway. She sits in her car for nearly half a minute, obviously waiting to ambush Donna when she walks back to the front of our house, which involves taking a few steps on Sonia’s driveway. And to nobody’s surprise, that’s exactly what Sonia does.
Years later, as I review these videos, I’m both puzzled and angry.
I’m puzzled because I don’t understand why a new neighbor would move in next door to an elderly couple (I was 72 when the videos were recorded) and start harassing us almost immediately for the offense of occasionally taking a few steps on her driveway.
But I’m far more angry than I am puzzled. I had what I thought was a reasonable expectation (based on 35 years of experience) that I’d be able to live in my house for the rest of my life without my wife being confronted by an angry neighbor every time she washed our windows. Donna is a good woman and a wonderful wife, and she doesn’t deserve to be treated with such disrespect and contempt.
At that point, I expected Robert to turn to Tommy and say, “Your witness, counselor,” like they used to do on Perry Mason 60 years ago. But instead, he turned to the judge and said: “No further questions, Your Honor.” And then Judge Bouressa asked: “Any questions, Mr. Garrett?” To which Tommy responded: “I have a few.”
In his cross-examination, Tommy completely ignored my testimony about Sonia’s harassment, even though our request for an injunction specifically stated that one of the main reasons we had scheduled the hearing was to get the judge to order Sonia “to cease and desist from harassing Plaintiff and Plaintiff’s spouse.” Instead, Tommy made it sound like Sonia’s “planter blockade” was the only issue in the hearing.
For example, here’s a lightly edited exchange. (The original is on page 29 of the transcript.)
TOMMY: In the video where your wife was using the water hose, that video is more than a year old, isn’t it?
ME: I believe so.
TOMMY: And the other video is also more than a year old, isn’t it?
ME: I believe so.
TOMMY: And so you thought the best thing to do would be to come to court and spend everyone’s money versus walking between a potted plant?
ME: First of all, I’m not sure what that has to do with the two videos because the plants weren’t there at the time, so I’m not sure if the two parts of your statement are related. But there have been times when I’ve had to move one or two of them to get to that side of my property. And as I said, my wife cannot move the plants. So, yes, I thought it would be best to go to court to force Ms. Bryant to remove what I call “the blockade.”
I was puzzled. Tommy wasn’t arguing a case in front of a jury, so there was no reason to try to impress anyone with how clever he was. The decision was going to be made by the judge, who surely would rule according to the law and ignore Tommy’s theatrics. There simply was no reason for him to be so nasty.
This was my first experience with Tommy, so I hadn’t yet learned that nastiness was his default behavior. But I’m guessing it came as no surprise to Judge Bouressa – who, after all, had worked for Tommy for three years.
The Decision
In the end, Judge Bouressa ruled against me.
She characterized my request as “a matter of convenience, as opposed to a matter of emergency.” She added that the situation “just doesn’t rise to a level that would support the imposition of injunctive relief.”
In other words, Judge Bouressa based her decision solely on Tommy’s argument that no injunction was necessary because it was possible for me to navigate around Sonia’s planter blockade. But that was only a secondary issue in my request for an injunction. The primary reason I was seeking an injunction was to get the court to order Sonia to stop harassing us. To that end, I had offered clear video evidence that Sonia had, indeed, been harassing my wife. That evidence was so conclusive that Tommy hadn’t even bothered to question it – which meant that, as lawyers like to say, the evidence of Sonia’s harassment was uncontested.
Judge Bouressa did not dispute the obvious fact that Sonia was harassing us. She just ignored it.
The Order
Although she issued her decision from the bench at the end of the hearing, Judge Bouressa didn’t actually file her Order Denying Application for Temporary Injunction for a few weeks. And when she filed the order on June 21, it looked familiar, because it was the same as the “proposed order” that Tommy had sent her before the hearing.
At first, I thought this was an insidious process. (“Here you go, Judge! Just sign here!”) But the Texas Court Help website stresses that both sides should provide a proposed order for the judge, characterizing it benignly as “a document describing the things you want the judge to order.”
One way to think of a proposed order is that it’s a timesaver for the judge. And in this case, that’s exactly what it was: By the time Judge Bouressa ruled in Sonia’s favor, Tommy had already submitted an order for her to sign so she wouldn’t have to create her own.
A few months later, I came to the painful realization that a proposed order also allows judges to issue decisions without even bothering to familiarize themselves with the cases on which they’re ruling.
Document Links
Transcript of the injunction hearing
Order denying the injunction
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