See You In Court
A former girlfriend of mine, Elizabeth, took the foolish step of instigating legal proceedings against me. This vexatious litigant decided that I owed her a sum of money. I will not trouble you with the intricacies of the dispute but it revolved around an investment that she made. The investment did not work and being the type of person who cannot accept that she could get it wrong, Elizabeth looked to me for redress.
At first it began with a couple of telephone calls. We had parted company but I was pleased to note that she had retained my mobile number (I of course had ensured I had kept hers)and she telephoned me requesting payment of the investment sum. Initially I decided that I would string her along and explained that I would look into it to see what I could do. There was of course no prospect of her recovering that money. I do not indulge in repayments and moreover it was her own idiocy that resulted in her loss, she ought to have undertaken some due diligence beforehand and if she failed to do so then on her head be it. I enjoyed receiving the texts and calls from her as she asked when she might receive the money. I fobbed her off using my charm and well-honed powers of procrastination. Her demanding nature served as delicious fuel to me.
The calls ended and instead she penned a couple of letters. They were rather well written, eloquent perhaps, albeit it misplaced both in fact and in law. I replied to them, after all, it would be ill-mannered not to do so, but now I rejected her assertions out of hand. I wielded my power of no and had no need to explain myself. I am not accountable to her. I am not accountable to anybody.
The next letter made threats of police involvement and I laughed at those. I knew that would get her nowhere and I replied in such terms. I pointed out how such an action would be entirely misguided and if she raised a complaint she would find herself in the receiving end of litigation from me. She wisely heeded those warnings.
She did however maintain her claim in the civil arena and she instructed a firm of solicitors to recover the money that she claim she owed. I ignored these letters. I was becoming bored of these demands now and besides I had other targets to attend to. I thought she would get the message and cease with her tiresome pursuit but instead she issued court proceedings against me. In order to be satisfied that I had them she chose to instruct a process server to effect personal service of the court papers rather than send them through the post as anybody would do so normally. I entertained myself avoiding this process server. I would then agree to turn up at an appointed time and place to be served but then fail to do so. This meant more cost for her and more frustration for her.
My evasion of her attempts at service resulted in her securing an order for substituted service and one evening the papers and the accompanying order for this method of service to be effective were shoved into the letter box by my gate. I read through the papers and scoffed at the allegations. Whilst tempted to handle the dispute myself I decided I would instruct my own lawyers and purposefully chose an expensive outfit, far superior to the local hacks hire by Elizabeth. I attended my first meeting with a partner in the firm (I was not being fobbed off with some junior solicitor, I wanted the head of commercial litigation in this City firm acting for me) and issued my instructions.
“I know all about risk, costs and so on so save your breath. You are to defend this claim, counterclaim against her and then delay and prevaricate at every step of the way. Seek extensions, deliberately delay responding to letters, send incomplete material and look to frustrate the process. Do not go so far as to incur an interim cost order against me, that will cause her to think that she has met with a measure of success and that is unacceptable. I do not care about your bill, I can easily afford it, but I want her wracking up a large bill so she gives up. Understand?”
The partner smiled the cold grin of a legal shark and nodded. He was my kind of man.
Thereafter my lawyers delayed in acknowledging the claim until the last moment. They sought an extension for the defence and counterclaim and then another. When Elizabeth refused the third request, my lawyers applied to court and obtained it. She sought an extension when filing her defence to my counterclaim. We agreed, since it slowed the matter down. My lawyers filed requests for further information about her caseand then more. We slowed down disclosure, released ours in a piecemeal fashion and pored over her disclosure lists and sought additional documents and launched further applications against Elizabeth. We sought documentation from third parties and made applications against those parties in order to delay the provision of witness evidence. Oddly enough, several of the witnesses she wanted to rely on became unco-operative to her and the threats of witness summonses against them merely caused them to dig their heels in.
Throughout this we suggested mediation and then changed our minds and then changed our minds again. This caused a hiatus in the litigation. We would not accept their suggested mediators and we kept changing the ones we wanted, so we decided a court had to make that decision. More cost and delay. We chopped and changed our dates of availability and then agreed a date which we then altered at the last minute owing to unforeseen circumstances. Then the mediator became unavailable (he was an accountant who suddenly found himself instructed on a different matter- I wonder whose company did that?) so a new one had to be appointed so we went through the rigmarole of all that once again. The costs mounted and mounted, they were of little consequence to me, but they soon outstripped what Elizabeth was claiming.
The mediation was fruitless. I spent most of my time engaging with the attractive trainee solicitor from the firm engaged by Elizabeth and drawing some rather pleasant if unexpected supply from her. We were never going to settle and made outrageous demands of them throughout.
The litigation resumed as we moved towards the preparation of forensic accountant reports and lay witness statements. Then there was silence from the opposition. Three years had elapsed from the commencement of proceedings. Her solicitors came off the record as acting for her and nobody replaced them. She was now acting in person. Her funds had been exhausted and nobody was willing to act on a conditional basis.
Bit by bit her demands lowered and lowered and lowered until just recently she suggested that we adopt a drop hands basis, namely she bears her costs and I bear mine and that is it. After delaying my response I decided that this was entirely acceptable, after all, there was a huge risk if it went to trial that I would lose and be stung for her claim, interest and costs. That did not trouble me, it was the fact of losing to her that did. I instructed my solicitors to accept her proposal, draw up the relevant consent order and have it signed and then I sent her a note.
“Dear Elizabeth,
I recall the last time we spoke on the telephone you demanded money for your idiotic investment and declared you would “see me in court”. You never had a chance of getting me into a court room for the trial of this case. I always win.
Regards
HG”
25 thoughts on “See You In Court”
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I’m thinking I should do this to my husband. It’s not hard and for my enjoyment it’s money well spent.
HG
That being said…I think you also must possess a very down to earth quality about yourself to be doing this blog. To be on this blog as much as you are talking to people you wouldn’t normally have communication with. The people on here from all walks of life that someone like you would never even acknowledge otherwise in your social circle that is. Most people with your status in life would not be doing so I do not believe. All common people not of your status who come together to discuss and learn about this one topic…..narcissism. A pretty unique experience for yourself and us I’m guessing. But I know you have your reasons and you do give a lot of good information.
HG
One more thing….I imagine you to be a person who can find out anything about whomever you wish. Just from what I’ve read from your blogs so far which isn’t a lot as of yet. I imagine you as one of those people who has access to and the know how to find out whatever you want. Like you could just go to whatever information sources you have access to a lot of information about a person if you so desired. You could probably even figure out all their history that had been recorded on any public records or social. You just strike me as that kinda guy. Which is pretty damn cool. A lot of people do not have that ability or even know how to do all of that. Like you know the ins and outs. Maybe my imagination is taking off to a pretty far reach here. Maybe not. I guess that’s why I am asking lol. Anyways
Correct.
HG
If you don’t mind me asking. What is it that you do for a living? Are you some kinda of millionaire big wig.? After reading an old blog of yours about your success as you described it made me wonder what you do? I don’t think you telling me that will give away who you are because there are millions of people. But from some of the things I have read that you have written and from conclusions I am drawing, you sound very powerful and very up there on the scale of living. Is this so? I think I am going to make it a goal of mine to go back to the beginning of your blogs and read all of them through the years you have done this blog. Sorry I am an inquisitive person. I will say that I myself am nothing special. No money just a job and some college. Anyways I will stop lol. I don’t judge myself by these things by the way. I am what I am whether I make use of it or not. Sorry if this seems random.
I have different interests but eminence grise covers them rather well.
Where do you find these perfect words? I’m so envious of your vocabulary HG!
Thank you MB. I am extensively read.
This made me think of the Dark Fuel Matrix of the UGN.
Wowwwwwwwwww! Your scary HG. I don’t mean that in an insulting type way. Just wow. I know this is an old blog from 2016…but gonna go back and read a lot of your older ones.
I am not insulted. You are correct.
lol…..I see.
I went through this whole story in the 3 years it took to divorce a narcissist. Every trick you pulled he pulled to the letter. I went through he’ll but kept my little boy and got enough money to buy a new home outright in the settlement. He got to keep his 120 000 gambling debts he was trying to fob off as marital debt. My biggest mistake going in was I got a rubbish softie lawyer who did not understand narcissists but I defended myself. Have clear facts. Let him talk and rant and lie in court. Keep quiet and let him hang himself with his lies. I brought him back to court last week for unpaid child support. He paid in full because they were going to take his car. My son is 10 now and not happy with his dad’s affect on him so am gradually pulling him away. If he brings me to court over this he represents himself and rages and is totally unreasonable so always loses. Seeing him in court in all his glory and following all your advice….. ignore meant he flipped and lost because by normal human standards these people lose. No contact or absolute minimum for kids is essential. I even went on an accounts course to understand his crazy finances. Fight if my life but worth it
Reblogged this on Speak Out 4 Others .
oh and ps….like you he tried all of those on me…
Just want to let others know I recently took on not one but two N’s brains, both my ex husband and his best friend and won legally … I am an empth but strategic and as I discovered as my ‘old’ self came back after years and years of abuse and gaslighting very strong….it can be done!.. luv your blog btw, not seen anything like it
Hello MsR interesting that you discovered your old “powers” and as you say it can be done. Delighted you enjoy the blog. Did you have two legal disputes with the ex husband and his best friend or were they involved in the same one? What was it about?
Hi Ms. R
How were you able to do this. I’m in the middle of battling my soon to be ex who i believe is a greater narc. He is VERY controlled with his emotions and how he handles himself but, extremely manipulative in any relationship. Like you, I am an empath and put up with his ways for a good part of my adult life so far. Any advice would be helpful!
Thanks to the perfect story telling I got through understanding the unknown legal terms and getting the complete picture of the story.
It seems legal battles with Ns is a loose-loose. In the beginning of my journey I had joined some facebook groups on surving abuse, and I could read many cases of endless legal battles and according to their stories the abused women/men always ended up loosing, kids, home, money, dog … Almost all. I never read a story where somebody was celebrating victory over the N. I still remember one lady who had lost it all, her kids, money etc and therefor health also and was on the way to standing up and start a new life. I always wonder what is in the background of such an outcome…
As we only have one side of the story…
I know of one story with all details from botj sides of a narcissist man who also took away all from his ex and she ended up im the hospital in a very bad shape… She had betrayed him and he caught her cheating and that is when it all started.
I would tend to think behind such huge fights and outcomes like the one om facebook therr is an actiom-reaction snowball behind.. Which of course at the emd always turms to the benefit of the N
Me like your ex I think I would also not go to legal battles with one. 😞.
Thanks for posting again HG. Very interesting and very informative. Learning about narcissism with HG with an entertaining read. 😃😘😘🌔. Only with you. ❤️
Fascinating article. Seems to me, HG that the control and power of greater Narcissists makes them practically unbeatable in any manner by their victims.
We can’t win, no matter what. You’ll outsmart us or outmaneuver us. Every time. With the one exception being when we go No Contact and then leave the rest up to God.
We always change the battlefield so we succeed. The rules of engagement are our rules, which you do not understand. If you start to understand them,we change them, without warning. Yes, No Contact is your weapon of choice.
Thank you for these posts. After successfully extricating myself from a Narcissist, I am able to fully understand how I allowed him to pull every string that I left exposed. You are doing a great service to those who seek to understand the fascinating (albeit slightly evil) mind. I knew what I was dealing with after a while, and I enjoyed his mind as well. Until it/his craziness no longer served me. Keep them coming…
Thank you Jezzabelle and thank you for reading.