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Timeline for Judge's decision on motion?

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cbrody

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? Mississippi :confused:

Is there a time limit for a Judge to make a ruling on a Motion to Strike and a Motion for Protective Order? I cannot find anything in our state court rules.

My husband and I are representing ourselves in a lawsuit against a lawyer for attorney fees. We are disputing the fees based on the lack of representation we received that actually cost us money and discrepencies and/or mistakes on the billing, which he will not even acknowledge. He filed a claim, then we filed an answer and counterclaim.

After that he sent us Requests for Admissions, Interrogatories and Production of Documents. We answered all and sent the same to him. He then filed a Motion to Strike (Our request for Admissions), a Motion for Protective Order (all of our Discovery Requests) and a Motion for Summary Judgment using our Admission answers as basis. We answered all of the Motions in Opposition. The hearing for all Motions was June 27, although oral arguments were only done on the Motion for Summary Judgment.

Within a week we received from the Judge an Order stating that the lawyer's "Motion for Summary Judgment is not well taken and hereby denied". But he did not address the other two motions.

In Mississippi he has 30 days to answer our discovery requests and now we are past that time. We are not sure what to do since the Judge has not given an answer on his Motion to Strike and Motion for Protective Order.
About 2 weeks ago I called the Court Administrator and asked about the motions and she said that he still has them under advisement or something like that. Since the time the Judge sent his ruling on the Summary Judgment the lawyer did answer our admissions requests, every answer was "Denied, Plaintiff demands Proof!"

Is there a time limit on how long the Judge has to make a decision? Is there something we should do that will not make the Judge mad?

Any help or guidance would be appreciated.
 


Skiking

Junior Member
Good Luck

Sounds like something fishy going on...Just wondering why you are doing this on your own. Chances are, you could not find an attorney to represent your case in the first place. They protect their own. We had a lawsuit pending for damages against another insurance company and never heard from our attorney again. We called our insurance company to get an update on the case and was told the case was settled 3 months ago for $13,000. He took the liberty of TAKING care of EVERYTHING for himself and took the money. Now....Do you think we were able to find an attorney to take the case. They all advised to drop it. Well thats our justice system. You can usually tell that your attorney is lying when there is movement of their mouth.
 

cbrody

Junior Member
Absolutely Skiking, we could not find an attorney that would even listen to our case once they found out it was against another attorney!

Bearflag70...That is exactly what we were trying to decide if we should do, file a motion to compel. We just didn't know if we could or should with the motions still being under consideration by the Judge. I personally think he overlooked those two motions, since he did rule to our favor on the Motion for Summary Judgment. I'm just not sure how wise it is to point out to a judge he dropped the ball!
 
I don't think a judge would take offense at filing a motion to compel. It's the right thing to do, especially since you have no order to the contrary on the other motions.

If your motion to compel wakes him up, he may just give you the ruling on the other motions and you can drop the motions to compel as needed.
 

compworkr

Member
I don't think the Judge will be offended if you file motions to compel, but I would call the Court Administrator and ask her again if the motions are still under submission (advisement) first. Who knows, she may tell you good news.
 

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