- law dawg
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- RIP Ret. Justice David Souter. [SCOTUSblog]
- You can watch the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline hearing regarding Michele Fiore today at noon.
- Opinion: Nevada’s justice system punts on 8-year old murder case. [TNI]
- Driver hit with $417 ticket wants law changed. [8NewsNow]
- City of Las Vegas files motion to dismiss lawsuit accusing marshals of illegal traffic stops. [8NewsNow]
- Congrats to the 46% of takers who passed the February bar in Nevada. Meanwhile, California ordered a return to the MBE after February’s disaster. [ABA Journal]
Got a mechanics lien question. Neighbor hired restoration company for leak damage. Homeowner was reimbursed $49K with contractor from carrier. Contractor wanted more and went to insurance carrier. Negotiated more but contractor still put lien on property. Carrier won’t help. Contractor said he put lien on property to get more and won’t take it off. Don’t do lien cases need direction or suggestion. No written contract between owner and contractor. Does homeowner have a claim against carrier for negotiating more payment but not getting lien off by contractor. Does homeowner have a case for slander of title. Is contractor entitled to place lien. Where do I send homeowner/neighbor to solve problem.
Would the Contractors Board intervene here?
My friend, as someone who has tried to do areas outside my expertise (and failed miserably), if you have these basic questions; perhaps get a reference. Sounds like a specialized area to me. Good luck and I hope you get some good references in the blog.
Call Peel Brimley.
That is a good choice. Noah Allison would be another. Making a complaint to the Contractor’s Board wouldn’t hurt. They will at least send an investigator around, and that might be enough to get the contractor to back off. Nothing to lose by doing that.
Representing mostly Contractors here. Liens are only valid for 6 months after recording and they fall off automatically. Also, if Homeowner was not served a Notice of Intent to Lien (at least 15 days prior to lien recording), then the lien is illegal and invalid. Most contractors misunderstand this.
Rather than spend the thousands in cash to hire the likes of Peel Brimley, have the homeowner/neighbor notify the contractor in writing that they never received a Notice of Intent to lien as required by NRS 108.226(6) (assuming this is true) and that the lien is illegal. They can also get attorneys fees for the bad lien under NRS 108.2275(4). Also, threaten the contractors board complaint.
Finally, there definitely is a case for slander of title. But, that is many steps down the road.
Since you represent contractors, you know that courts are very reticent to strip liens off of property which leaves your homeowner facing fees if they are unsuccessful under NRS 108.2275. The advice above is sound: wait 6 months and see if the lien falls off on its own. If contractor sues to foreclose, then weigh your options. Chapter 108 is very contractor friendly and bad for homeowners (see the above-mentioned Richard Peel).
No argument that 108 is Contractor friendly, I have seen a half dozen liens stripped for failure to serve proper or timely Notice of Right to Lien or in the case of a homeowner a Notice of Intent to Lien.
The lack of a notice of right to lien won’t help since the contractor was working for the property owner. NRS 108.245(5).
Re Judicial Commission, what sort of authority do they have? Can they remove her from the bench? I’m ignorant but seems weird to me that an elected person is subject to anyone but the electorate. Of course, in Nevada we have seen some judges gone wild.
The Commission on Judicial Discipline has broad constitutional powers to discipline judges. https://www.leg.state.nv.us/const/nvconst.html#Art6Sec21
Here, however, it’s a lot less clear they have a basis to further suspend or discipline her. https://lawblog.law/a-sinkhole-of-legal-uncertainty/#comment-99263
Sis, it’s because you’re a judge. https://www.leg.state.nv.us/courtrules/scr_cjc.html
Any local recommendations for a mergers/acquisitions attorney for local company? PC needs attorney for a merger between two family businesses in the home services industry.
Mike Kearney
Let me tell you about the deposition from hell I took yesterday as a cautionary tale.
The defendant was a local senior citizen who was raised in a foreign country. English is not even his first language. As a courtesy, we agreed to conduct the deposition via Zoom. We had no idea that the defense firm would not require the deponent to come to their office for the proceeding. Instead, someone at the firm inexplicably decided to allow the man, who possessed no tech skills, to appear from his home via Zoom on his cell phone.
First, the man arrived late for the deposition. Then, he could not locate the email with the Zoom link. Thereafter, he could not access the Zoom link from his phone. He then said his son had a laptop he could use, but we would have to wait an hour until his son got home. The son eventually dropped off the laptop and fled, leaving his father to flounder alone. The deposition took almost three hours. The majority of the transcript reads:
“Mr. Smith please unmute your microphone. It is the icon at the bottom left of your screen. . . . Mr. Smith we cannot hear you. . . . Mr. Smith we cannot see you. . . . Mr. Smith, where did you go, your screen is black. . . . Mr. Smith is there anyone there who can help you?”
I repeatedly asked if we could recess for an hour, and Mr. Smith could drive to his attorney’s office for the deposition. I was rebuffed every time.
So I guess the moral of the story is that on all future deposition notices I will state that we will agree to conduct the deposition via Zoom, however we will require that local deponents to be at their attorney’s office or be supervised by an individual who has technical skills and experience conducting Zoom conferences. Failure to abide may result in a motion for attorney’s fees and costs.
I am your opposing counsel, and not surprisingly, you haven’t told the whole story here.
Lacking any Points and Authority by the OC, Judgment for the OP.
LOL
So what is he missing?
That the court reporter and the taking attorney demonstrated the patience of saints.
is the law blog about to become a court exhibit?
I’ve had similar experiences, such as where the deponent tries to appear by phone from their car during lunch hour. If there is a language barrier it is even worse.
Like the guy who appeared electronically for a court hearing for driving on a suspended license, behind the wheel of a moving car. Epic!
I don’t understand how you could have been “rebuffed.” If the deposition was going as you say it was, you don’t need permission from opposing counsel to call it. “This deposition is not working. We are stopping now and will reconvene at a later date so these issues can be addressed.” I don’t see the Discovery Commissioner saying you acted unreasonably and can’t re-notice the deposition. Again, assuming it was going how you say it was.
OC kept saying it will take too long for the deponent to get to the office, I was hoping to get the depo finished yesterday. So I was not rebuffed, the OC did not want the deponent driving to his office to finish the depo.
Equates to a failure to appear. At a minimum terminate the deposition with “obviously the deponent is having difficulties appearing. I’ll terminate this deposition now and reconvene tomorrow morning in person at 9 AM at my office.” You’ll probably then have to deal with discovery dispute process, I mean bs, and have the discovery commissioner give some la,e reason why you’re wrong, etc.
P.S. I had an “expert” from Mesquite with the same issues. what a loser.
You are conveniently leaving out the detail that you were at home taking the deposition completely in the nude. You didn’t want it to be in person as you knew you do your best questioning all natural. We know the real story here.
https://www.youtube.com/live/yYhFoDlgXJc
Michele Fiore hearing begins at noon. Warm up the left over lasagna you brought to work for lunch, and come back here to the law blawg for some live commentary, sis!
Prediction: The Princess of Pahrump will be reinstated today.
That is pretty much my prediction. The conduct occurred PRIOR to her being a sitting judge.
Paola Armeni is repping Fiore. Fiore is sitting behind PA, with body language that says she is very irritated.
Well, that is entirely subjective considering that you really can’t see her at all. And has only appeared in 1-2 second partial glimpses.
Agree with you, but she should have the ovaries to show her face.
Or, as Fiore often said while in the Legislature, “Put on your big girl panties…”
I think by definition, any panties of Fiore’s would necessarily be “big girl panties.”
Would you let her, if you were her counsel?
Yes. She looked weak sitting behind Armeni.
Weak? or humbled?
Humbled? New to these parts?
Nope. That was the sound of my tongue in my cheek.
she has sat in that spot on every hearing ..
Did Fiore testify at trial? Is there a perjury allegation?
I remember there was some kind of problem with her daughters testimony.
Armeni quoting Judicial Commission statement in another case about jurisdiction (I think regarding Bill Kephart), that it is limited to conduct only while a sitting judge. Ergo, because Michele Fiore (allegedly) stole that money when she was not a judge, the Commission has no jurisdiction. As much as Fiore is a slimeball, this is a good argument. I get the feeling that the Commission won’t care.
If the commission’s responsibility is to ensure the public’s faith, belief, and trust in the judiciary, she should not be reinstated. She was found guilty by a duly empaneled jury in a valid case in a valid court of law. Pardon or not, her sitting on the bench is a slap in the face to the judicial system and does nothing to increase the public’s view of the judiciary system. Especially in this climate of “rogue judges.”
While I agree with you that she is unworthy of the dignity and responsibility of the bench, I will push back on two points. (1) To date, nobody has cited legal authority that empowers the Commission to keep her off the bench. The Commission doesn’t get to rely on their very reasonable opinion that Michele Fiore lacks integrity to keep her off the bench. Maybe the Judicial Canons need to be revisited. But, as of now, they do not empower the Commission to keep Fiore off the bench. Those of us who are wary of Trump and sycophants like Fiore often express concern about the rule of law. We can’t maintain that position if we abandon the law in order to save the law. (2) The people in Pahrump want her on the bench. This is an elected position. If the people want her, even after knowing her history, then let the people have her and the natural consequences that follow. Who is the Commission to stand in the way of the will of the people of Nye County? In this context, removal or suspension is a paternalistic slap in the face to Nye County voters and citizens.
That said, Michele Fiore is an embarrassment to our legal system. But there’s no legal basis to stop that embarrassment.
Were you here for Gerard Bongiovanni?
Lawyer sentenced for stealing $9M of client monies and gambling 24/7
https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/courts/lawyer-sentenced-for-stealing-nearly-9m-from-lenders-gambling-it-away-in-las-vegas-3370221/?utm_campaign=widget&utm_medium=topnews&utm_source=homepage&utm_term=Lawyer%20sentenced%20for%20stealing%20nearly%20%249M%20from%20lenders%2C%20gambling%20it%20away%20in%20Las%20Vegas
Fiore’s Lawyer Presses Judicial Commission to Lift Suspension, Citing Presidential Pardon
By 12:31 PM.
LAWBLOG
(LAS VEGAS) At a public hearing Friday, attorneys for Nye County Justice of the Peace Michele Fiore argued that her federal conviction has been nullified by a presidential pardon and that the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline no longer has the authority to keep her suspended, warning that continued action would exceed the commission’s jurisdiction and undermine legal safeguards for judges across the state.
The Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline convened to determine whether Fiore should remain suspended from judicial office following her full presidential pardon. Fiore, a former Las Vegas city council member and state legislator, was convicted last October on seven federal felony counts tied to the misuse of charitable donations during her time as a public official. A pardon issued earlier this year erased the prospect of sentencing or a final judgment.
Fiore’s attorney, Paola Armeni, maintained that the commission’s earlier authority to suspend Fiore—based on a pending indictment and later a jury verdict—had lapsed with the pardon. She characterized the current suspension as legally baseless, arguing that both the punishment and the legal consequences of the conviction had been nullified.
Armeni challenged the commission’s reliance on the concept of “substantial threat of serious harm” as an alternative justification for suspension. She contended that the conduct at issue occurred years before Fiore assumed the bench and therefore fell outside the commission’s jurisdiction, which is limited to actions taken while serving as a judge. She warned that punishing a sitting judge for pre-judicial behavior would establish a precedent that could place every judge in the state under retroactive scrutiny.
The commission heard Armeni’s arguments via remote hearing, with documents including trial transcripts, public correspondence, and prior commission orders entered into the record. Supporters and critics of Fiore had submitted letters and emails, which the commission acknowledged it would consider.
During the federal criminal proceedings, prosecutors did not seek pretrial detention or electronic monitoring for Fiore, and she remained free throughout the case. Armeni presented this as further evidence that her client posed no present risk to the public or the judicial system.
Fiore’s tenure on the bench has been suspended since July 2024. Her current term ends in January 2025. The commission’s decision will determine whether she is reinstated before that term expires or remains barred from returning to judicial duties.
The commission did not issue a decision at the conclusion of the hearing and is expected to deliberate privately before announcing any further action.
January 2025 already passed.
I find that hard to believe
Re the $417 ticket – I have absolutely no sympathy for someone going *twice the legal limit* in a *school zone.* $400 is cheap for risking little kids’ lives. And it seems like it was effective, since the ticketee says she now is much more careful about following the speed limit. (Also lol at the husband who says that his wife was only going 5 mph over the speed limit. No, the cop reduced the speed to 20 as a favor. You’re not allowed to use that generosity to argue the ticket itself wasn’t fair).
That said, I’m OK with the bill that would make the ticket payable only after court. Not that anyone actually goes to court for these things, but if it truly was a bogus ticket you want to fight, I can see why having to prepay would be burdensome.
re speeding ticket.
Entitled people who think speed limits and handicap parking don’t apply to them.
But the current law is flawed. Formerly tickets were criminal, the state had to bring forward evidence and no crime until proved, judgement, and then fine imposed. Under the current system, the presumption is shifted by making it a governmental civil fee, that must be paid in advance of an evidentiary hearing. In other words, effectively “guilty” until proved innocent.
Yes, I heard the hardships when criminal traffic matters resulted in warrants. But really, all these affected folks had to do was show up to avoid a bench warrant.
School zones are rife with abuse by police and especially CCSD police. The signs are confusing with “15 mph when children present” while at the same time there is a warning light that is not turned on or turned on when no children present. The school zone signs sometimes sneak up on drivers before and after the school. The system is fraught with problems. When school is in session and children are leaving or coming they have school crossing guards to protect them and slow down traffic. Now sometimes the drivers don’t pay attention or defy them and that is a real problems. I have done a lot of tickets. The problem is the process is the punishment requiring appearances to contest the ticket. Usually clients can’t afford to hire an attorney thus getting pushed around in traffic court.