On April 15, 2019, I had my day in court.

Well, not exactly.

I attended my deposition.

I was ready; I had a story to tell.

In walked opposing counsel Craig D. Roswell, raised in Howard County, who looked like he could be a club member.

He went out of his way to share how his grandfather was a large landowner in the county; as we grabbed a coffee.

He lamented in disgust that the county overdeveloped in a watershed area. Wow. Nobody’s talking about that now, then, or ever.

I was impressed with his substance and character.

When I sat down, he asked me if I had been deposed before, and his charming demeanor changed slightly.

His line of questioning began, and I was right there with him. Swiftly (like how an experienced used car salesman operates), he brought up the subject of this blog and started taking quotes from the blog entirely out of context and placing them on the record.

He didn’t like that I wrote about how wonderful and intelligent my husband is. (Must have been jealous.)

I didn’t try to explain or defend myself. This blog has never served as anything more than a therapeutic platform for me to tell my story.

Next, opposing counsel started placing printed pages in front of me and brought up a conversation between an engineer friend who happened to sell his services to Howard County and I. My engineer friend had no interest in helping me with this project.

I paused.

That’s odd, I thought. That was a private email conversation; how’d this guy get that?

Oh, that’s right, I copied the email into the blog as I started to flesh out the story. I am doing this right now, I pull from emails, from research tools, from notes to myself, etc.

Next, pages of images from the blog that were never published were placed in front of me AS EVIDENCE.

At the time, it did not dawn on me that these were drafts, as in CONTENT THAT WAS NEVER PUBLISHED on this platform.

His strategy was designed to confuse me, and it did.

In 2018 in a draft blog, I attempted to understand the concept of going from pervious to the impervious surface, roof height, swimming pools, stormwater management, and run-off impact. I also had many questions about distinguishing between flood damage and poorly executed repairs.

Nothing in the draft was fleshed out or finished.

My deposition did not go well.

Someone hacked this blog. I don’t know who or how, but none of the required steps to obtain access to THIS blog per policies at Automattic, the publishers of the WordPress platform, were followed.

Twenty days after my deposition, I wrote Automattic and asked them how they could give someone access to my blog without my consent or knowledge.

Automattic’s response was simple. Nobody was granted access to my blog, as nobody requested access to the blog in the manner that they required.

I wrote the Justice Department.

I researched if it is legal for a lawyer to submit unpublished content on a blog as evidence during a deposition and learned a lawyer can submit unpublished content from a blog as evidence during a deposition, as long as the lawyer follows the proper procedures for introducing evidence. 

However, Mr. Roswell should have informed everyone how he obtained the draft content.

In general, evidence is admissible in a deposition if it is relevant to the case and if its probative value outweighs any potential prejudice or confusion, it may cause. 

OR CONFUSION IT MAY CAUSE.

Like a slight-of-hand-magician, Mr. Rosswell was distracting everyone in the room hoping that none of us noticed what he was doing with his hands.

To introduce evidence in a deposition, the lawyer must typically provide notice to the other parties, describe the nature and content of the evidence, and provide copies of any written documents before admitting the evidence. 

I attempted to take the copies he provided during the deposition, but he refused. He snatched them out of my hands. No kidding.

I learned from an attorney-friend that once you go through a deposition the content is a matter of public information.

The End.

For now.