Nov. 25, 1998 the court recieved a Motion to Allow Patricia A. Peard of
a Portland Law Firm to practice in Massachusetts for this case.  In her
affidavits she swears that she is "familiar with the local rules of the
United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts"  (I'm
not retyping the entire motion here).  At any rate I filed an opposition
to her motion as follows:

    UNITED STATE FEDERAL COURT
    DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

JUDY E. MORRIS, MD   )

   Plaintiff  ) Civil Action No. CA 98-30204 FHF

v.

UNUM CORPORATION OF AMERICA,  et al.    )

   Defendants

 AFFIDAVIT OF JUDY E. MORRIS, MD, PLAINTIFF IN OPPOSITION
 TO MOTION OF PATRICIA A. PEARD TO ALLOW APPEARANCE AND
 PRACTICE IN A PARTICULAR CASE.

I, Judy E. Morris, MD, being a citizen of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, under pains and penalties of perjury do hereby
strongly oppose the Rule 83.5.3(b) motion of Patricia A. Peard,
an attorney not licensed to practice law in the State of Massachusetts,
for permission to act in the case of Morris v. UNUM, et. al. for the
following reasons:
1)  There are many licensed attorneys in Massachusetts capable of
handling a matter of this type.  UNUM has in fact in the past used some
of them including Mintz, Levin, Cohn & Ferris of Boston, MA.
2)  Plaintiff avers that this is an attempt by UNUM to exert undo legal
power when qualified licensed attorneys exist within the state.
3)  UNUM is licensed to sell insurance in Massachusetts and should
therefore be required to use licensed Massachusetts attorneys to
litigate their cases.
4)  Allowing this unlicensed attorney leave to practice in this case
inserts an unnecessary level of complexity to the ability of plaintiff
to meet and negotiate and confer with counsel due to the distance as per
Local Rule 16.1(b).
5) This distance and complexity factor will work exclusively in UNUM's
favor as it would be very difficult for plaintiff to be forced to travel
to Maine for scheduling, or else there will be scheduling difficulties
and traveling difficulties for Ms. Peard or other Maine counsel to meet
and confer in Massachusetts probably resulting in delays and
cancellations of scheduled appointments.
6) Furthermore, traveling from Maine to Massachusetts will also make it
difficult for Ms. Peard to schedule and comply with Local Rule 16.3 (a)
to meet and confer with a judicial officer.
7) Furthermore this Motion was filed in violation of Local Rule
7.1(a)(2) requiring "No motion shall be filed unless counsel certify
that they have conferred and have attempted in good faith to resolve or
narrow the issue." There was no such discussion between Ms. Peard and
plaintiff prior to the filing of this motion.  It is apparent by this
fact that Ms. Peard is NOT familiar with the Local Rules of the United
States District Court for the District of Massachusetts as she swore to
in her affidavit.
Above statements support there are no valid reasons for this honorable
court to support Ms. Peard's request, as an attorney not licensed in the
Commonwealth,  to represent UNUM in this litigation and that should her
request be granted it will insert an unnecessary level of travel and
complexity into the judicial process in violation the Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure, Rule 1 to secure just, speedy and inexpensive
determination of every action and may violate Fed. Rule 11(b)(1), "it is
not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass or to
cause unnecessary delay or needless increase in the cost of litigation."

Signed under the penalties of perjury this 28th day or November, 1998.

       Judy E. Morris, MD
       PRO SE


    CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
    I hearby certify that a true copy of the above document was served
by United States Postal Mail, postage prepaid upon Patricia A. Peard,
Katherine A. Robertson and upon all other defendants in Morris v. UNUM,
et al.

       Judy Morris, MD
       PRO SE

Now this letter was mailed on the 28th or 29th day of November.  Within
a few days I received a copy of the front of Pat Peard's motion with
the following notation:

     11/30/98 Allowed Freedman, S.J. and the Court Clerk.

Question: Did he actually recieve and consider my opposition???

Local Rule 7.1 states that "motions that are not set down for hearing as
provided in subsection (e) will be decided on the paper submitted AFTER
an opposition to the motion has been filed, or, if no opposition is
filed, after the time for filing and opposition has elapsed."   The
time, according to these rules is 14 days.

OK so maybe the judge DID read the motion and ruled for them anyway but
wait until you see the next one.

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Email Judy Morris


at: judydoc AT worldnet DOT att DOT net


Email me, Bill Hammel


at: bhammel AT graham DOT main DOT nc DOT us





The URL for this document is:


http://graham.main.nc.us/~bhammel/INS/DOCS/motop112898.html


Created: December 17, 1998


Last Updated: May 28, 2000