VICTORY!

It is 5:30 am on a Saturday morning. I have slept approximately a total of 4 hours last night and write these words in an excited, giddy state. I am still stunned and shocked.  The FTI Dopes trial is over and we have been judged as victors! We Won!

More importantly, not only have my neighbors and I won in our ongoing suit with the developer in our fight as chronicled here earlier, we won on all of the points we filed suit over and were also awarded attorney's fees!. Shifty, our lawyer, has told us from the very beginning it would be doubtful that attorney fees are ever awarded, it just doesn't happen.   Usually, most judges hear a case, decide it's merits, and render a decision with the thought that both sides pay their attorney fees to sort it out.  In our case, however, not only did the judge find in our favor, but announced that we had also been "substantially damaged" and ruled we were entitled to attorney's fees. Like, in upward of $150,000 in attorney's fees and this thing is not completely finished yet attorney's fees!  Now, I don't think for a minute that there is going to be a big ceremonial Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes check with my name and the 150,000 smackers printed on the front of it. More likely, we are going to end up with some property liens and long term claims of monies owed.  But, that's OK.  This was never about money. It was about doing the right thing. 

I have voiced my concerns with the American legal system and all of it's weaknesses in the past.  It is not speedy; it is not efficient; and it is not easy.  And sometimes, it is not right. But this time; this time, it was right.  Not because I was the victor; rather, because an obvious wrong had been committed.  20 or so good, decent, people had been wronged by one individual.    And the wrong was corrected.  As it should have.