by Aime Austin
Chambers squinted at her, assessing. “Ma’am, are you represented?”
Sheila sighed. “I’m an attorney. I’m sure I can handle this hearing today.”
The magistrate jammed his finger on the stop button. The plastic mechanisms ground to a halt with a squeak. “Going off the record.” He took in the three women in the room, each one erect with righteousness. “What’s the story here? Allegations? Can this be worked out?”
Dodds tipped her hand to Young.
“Your Honor, well. We have allegations that Ms. Grant here is an alcoholic and abusive mother.”
“Who made these allegations?”
“You know we can’t reveal that. But we have good info on this case.”
Chambers rested his chin on his folded hands, taking that in. He looked Sheila in the eye. “Okay, counselor. This doesn’t look good for you. I’m sure you know the standard of proof at EC hearings is preponderance of the evidence. If I find it’s more likely than not the allegations against you are true, your daughter will be committed to the agency’s custody.
“I’ve never seen you around here. This is not downtown. Do yourself a favor and get an attorney who’s familiar with how things work around here.”
Chambers turned his back on them, pressing buttons to continue the recording.
“The parties are not in agreement regarding custody, so we’re going to take some testimony today. The county is represented by prosecutor Dodds, the mother, Sheila Grant is unrepresented. You all know the score. Ms. Young, raise your right hand.”
Chambers swore in Young. “Miss Dodds, go ahead.”
The prosecutor turned in her chair and began questioning the witness. She dispensed with the preliminaries, name, job title. “In your capacity at DCFS, have you had a chance to become acquainted with Elizabeth—excuse me…” Dodds shuffled her files. “Olivia Grant?”
“Yes,” Young answered.
“What allegations led you to investigate the family?”
“We got a call on our six-nine-six kids’ line. They said the mother drank, and was physically and emotionally abusive.”
“Have you talked to the mother?” the prosecutor asked.
“She refused to cooperate.”
“Have you had any contact with the father?”
“No.”
“Has paternity been established?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is the child currently?”
“She’s in an agency foster home.”
“And how is she doing?”
“Great,” Young said.
Sheila took a deep breath, her ribs grating against the ladder back chair. How could these hearings pass a due process challenge? This was stone cold nuts. Not a single person in this room looked disturbed by not having a single shred of evidence of anything, but they all looked ready to snatch her daughter from her and put her God knew where in the ghetto. Dollars to that big ol’ box of doughnuts the staff was eating outside this room that they weren’t going to put her up with some rich suburban family and send her to private school.
“No further questions,” Dodds said.
Magistrate Chambers turned to Sheila. “Now, as I said before, I’m no fan of parents representing themselves. If you weren’t an attorney, I’d just refer you to the PD’s office. But if you want, you can cross examine the witness.”
This was it. Olivia’s get out of jail free card. She had to play this hand just right. She rose from her chair. Standing was an intimidation tactic she’d learned very early in her legal career.
“Good morning, Miss Young. I’m Sheila Harrison Grant, and I’m here today to ask you a few questions about the testimony you presented.”
Unseasoned, the young case worker looked disquieted by the unexpected formality of Sheila’s introduction. Good. She stuttered out a greeting. Keeping her off-kilter, Sheila continued.
“What evidence do you have to sustain the allegations in the complaint?”
“As I said before, we received a call from six-nine-six kids indicating there was a problem in the…in…your house.”
“Who was the call from?”
“Objection,” prosecutor Dodds shouted. “I don’t think Ms. Grant is familiar with court procedures and the revised code section that protects anonymous reporters.”
“Your objection is sustained,” Chambers said. “Ms. Grant, it’s the policy of this court to keep the complainant confidential. You may continue.”
Despite the calm exterior she projected, Sheila fumed inside. This excuse of a hearing would never pass any kind of appellate scrutiny. What would stop anyone with an axe to grind from calling the hotline and having someone’s child removed?
“Well, Miss Young,” Sheila continued. “Do you have any other evidence, beyond the hotline caller to support the allegations you’ve made?”
“The information from the call, and your refusal to meet with us was enough for me to believe your daughter was in danger,” Young said, better on familiar footing.
Without incriminating herself, Sheila couldn’t fathom what else she could ask. The gall of these so-called social workers who thought they could remove her daughter without any evidence.
“No further questions,” Sheila said, taking her seat.
The magistrate deliberated for a few moments. The pretense likely for her benefit. He’d decided the damned case before she’d ever walked in the door. “Okay. It will be my pre-trial order that the child be committed to the emergency custody of the Department of Children and Family Services, pending the next hearing.
“Ms. Grant, I’m aware that you’re an attorney, and apparently a competent one, but I’m going to suggest that you retain counsel for the next hearing. Juvenile court has its own set of procedures. We have a number of excellent attorneys who specialize in these types of cases.
“Now, we don’t have a hearing date for the TC, but you’ll all be receiving notices in the mail. Let’s see…” the magistrate paused, flipping through several stacks of papers on his desk. “We don’t have a GAL on the case either. Gloria!” he called.
The woman had exchanged doughnuts for diet coke. “Yes, Magistrate?”
“Can you pull in someone from the hallway? We don’t have a GAL on this case. I think I saw Patrick, or maybe Ed out there.”
Aghast was the only word Sheila could come up with to describe her feelings. In her limited experience with this side of the law, a guardian ad Litem was crucial to protecting a child’s interests. And they were going to pick any live body from the hallway to protect her daughter?
“Excuse me, Your Honor.” Sheila paused and modulated her voice. “Isn’t there some procedure for appointing guardians in these matters?”
“Counselor, if we go through the juvenile court clerk’s office, chances are we won’t have a guardian until well past your next hearing date. That would further postpone matters. Since you seem so eager to resolve this case, it’s best for you if we clean up what we can now while we’re all here.”
Gloria pulled a forty-something woman from the corridor. “Magistrate, I’ve found Sherry Otis,” she said.
“Counselor, good morning,” Chambers said. “I’ve just put a…” He looked down at his notes, “thirteen-year-old child into emergency custody. The mom here,” he gestured toward Sheila, “is non-cooperative and an attorney. Do you think you can handle this one?” Sheila took note of his patronizing tone. “It may be pretty time-intensive.”
Sheila worked to maintain the same unassuming posture she displayed during the hearing. She hadn’t yet digested that she’d lost this preliminary hearing. That she was being dragged kicking and screaming into this crazy ass place. Sheila hadn’t expected to visit the juvenile court building more than this one time.
For a long moment Otis sized up everyone in the room. “Thanks, Magistrate. I’ll accept the appointment.”
“Okay folks, that should wrap this up. Why don’t you all go discuss this in the hallway? The temporary custody
hearing will be in about six weeks. The clerk’s office will notify you.” With that, Chambers pressed ‘stop’ on the tape recorder, closed Olivia’s file, and opened another folder. “Gloria! Can you call Garcia?”
The prosecutor stayed in her designated seat, reaching down to fiddle with the pile beneath her chair, coming up with another manila folder. Dismissed, Sheila shuffled from the small, now too-warm, room with the guardian and social worker.
Sheila rounded on Celeste Young. “I need to make arrangements to see my daughter. After four-thirty would be perfect. I need to see how she’s doing. Make sure—”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Grant.” Young’s face held little sympathy. “I can’t do that. I’m only the intake worker. A regular ‘ongoing’ worker will be assigned to the case. She’ll be able to arrange visitation. I can tell you right now, though, we don’t have daily visitation. It’s usually every other week or so, depending on the availability of the drivers and most of the visits occur at Metzenbaum. So you should keep that in mind.”
“Ms. Grant,” Sherry Otis butted in, her maroon lipstick crawling into the lines around her thin lips. “I understand you may be an attorney. But let me reassure you that I’ll treat you exactly the same as every other parent I meet. No special treatment. I haven’t read your complaint yet, but I’m sure that if you’re here, something’s wrong at home.” Otis barely paused to take a breath. “I’m here to represent the children. The children only.” Sheila closed and opened her eyes. Surely Otis wasn’t wagging a finger at her. But there it was, a chubby, ringed finger. “If I find out anything is going on that’s not in the best interests of the child, you can be sure that heads will roll. That not only goes for you and the dad.” The next was under her breath. “If he’s around.” She returned to full volume. “But also for any foster parents. You can be sure that I’m going to visit the girl and make sure that any disposition is in her best interest.”
Sheila watched Sherry Otis very carefully. She guessed Otis to be around fifty. From her purple crepe dress to her ruby toned hair and her home shopping gold jewelry, a sense of superiority oozed from the woman. She wasn’t entirely sure what kind of pull Otis might have, but she couldn’t afford to get on the wrong side of anyone until she got her daughter out of the system. Then and only then could she go at these people, guns blazing. Until that day, Sheila knew what she had to do. She pretended she was walking down a sidewalk in the south, and figuratively stepped into the gutter to spare some white person the ordeal of being near her.
Sheila extended her hand toward Otis. And like that colored woman in the south stepping out of her place, it was ignored. Taking a deep breath, she spoke. “I look forward to speaking with you about my daughter. This whole process has been one big mistake. I plan to get this all straightened out before long,” Sheila said.
“Well, Ms. Grant, you’ll just have to believe me when I tell you, I’ve heard all that before.” Otis dug through her purse, extracting a business card and extending it to Sheila. “Here. Please call my office to arrange a time when I can meet with you and view your home.” Distracted by movement in the hall, Otis looked at her watch. She flipped open her overstuffed Filofax. “I can’t talk more now. I have a dozen hearings this morning.” Without so much as a good-bye, Otis stalked off.
The hallway was still packed with black and Latina women nearly as defeated as she felt. She looked at her own watch, realizing she needed to get back to her own courtroom and prepare for her afternoon docket. Other people’s problems paled in comparison to her own, but she propelled her unwilling body forward.
Though Sheila knew she had the expertise to handle her own case, maybe she should hire an attorney. Once past the metal detectors and out the front door, she retrieved her cell phone from her bag. She dialed a number she’d known by heart for years. When the receptionist picked up the phone, Sheila asked for a familiar name.
“Peyton Bennett, please.”
Seventeen
Happy Clients Never Sue
April, 2000
Peyton Bennett pulled his eyes from the documents he was scouring, and grabbed the trilling telephone from the expanse of his mahogany desk. He barked his name into the receiver.
A no nonsense voice came from the other end. “We have a problem.”
Dennis Traxson had to have been the inspiration for the “Boy Who Cried Wolf.” He sighed. “What now, Dennis?”
“There’s a big problem with my client, Arron Medical Systems,” he whined.
Instantly alert, Peyton sat erect. “Isn’t Sheila Grant handling those cases? She’s the billing attorney, right?” he asked, seeking confirmation for what he already knew.
“Yes, your little protégé is the problem, Peyton. She screwed up a discrimination case,” Dennis said as if a black woman should be an ace at cases of that sort.
“Come to my office. Now,” Peyton commanded, disconnecting the internal call.
He’d worn a path in his burgundy and blue Esfahan Persian rug in the ten minutes it took for Dennis to walk the forty feet to Peyton’s office. Dennis shook Peyton’s hand and patted his shoulder as if they hadn’t seen each other in six months rather than the six hours since they’d run into each other at the Arabica coffee shop downstairs earlier that morning.
Reaching over Dennis’ shoulder, Peyton slammed the door. “What’s the story with Sheila and Arron Medical?”
“Got a call from Jerald Staszak, EVP over at Arron. He’s frantic. They’re being sued by some guy. He’s Chinese…no, Korean. Asian. Anyway, he came after Arron claiming discrimination after they fired him. But they are pissed. Sheila advised that that it would be no problem terminating this guy.”
“But it’s a problem, right?” Peyton asked. Dennis nodded his head in confirmation. “Shit.” Peyton banged the desk, putting an exclamation point on the explicative. Heavy brass fittings rattled.
Dennis moved from his perch by the door and made himself comfortable, leaning back in one of Peyton’s brass studded leather chairs. He smiled unctuously. “Your little filly out of control?”
“Uncalled for, Dennis. I was Sheila’s mentor. Kimberleigh and I have been happily married for years.” He shook off the slight. “Let’s get down to business.”
The men strategized for an hour and came up with a plan to turn Sheila’s sow’s ear of a blunder into a silk purse.
A week later, Peyton, Dennis, Sheila and several associates assembled in a borrowed courtroom. Though the windowless courtroom was paneled from floor to ceiling in warm oak and the recessed lighting cast the room in a golden glow, the room was ice cold.
An associate in judge’s robes sat at the bench. Twelve men in sweatshirts and jeans filled the plastic swivel seats of the jury box.
“Call your first witness,” the ‘judge’ said.
Peyton rose to his full six foot height. “We call David Park to the stand.”
An Asian actor walked to the cloth-covered witness chair. There was no swearing in during this mock trial.
“How did you come to live in Cleveland?” Peyton questioned.
“I was born in Koreatown in Los Angeles. I’d lived there all my life. After my wife got her medical degree from UCLA, she got an offer from Cleveland Clinic. It was hard to leave our families, but we came to Ohio.”
“And how did you come to work for Arron Medical?”
The actor looked down, speaking to his chest. “I couldn’t find a job right away. This is the kind of town where it takes years to be accepted. My wife and I mostly kept to ourselves. Nearly every vacation and holiday we went back to L.A.”
“Your Honor,” Peyton said.
The judge directed the witness to answer the question asked.
“My wife Kyo-jin finally talked with her bosses at the Clinic and they got me an interview, and finally a job at Arron.”
“What was your job at Arron Medical?”
The Park impersonator nodded modestly. “Arron makes imaging machines. The designs, testing, et cetera is done her
e—the manufacturing in China. I was on a team that designed and did quality control testing on the newest products.”
“Did you have any problems with the machines you tested?”
“At first things were going well. We designed some innovative scanners and sales were through the roof. Then we started having problems with the latest batch of bone scanners. Buyers were complaining. Our own testing showed a failure rate near fifty percent.”
“In your opinion, what was the source of the product failures?”
“Arron tried to get manufacturing on the cheap. The first set of machines from China were fine, but the newer models were further subbed out from our Chinese manufacturer to Sri Lanka. The designs were sound. The quality control during manufacturing was not.”
“Did you have a falling out with your bosses at Arron?”
“I suggested we tell the customers about the high failure rate and offer to replace the machines. Jerald Stazcyk said we shouldn’t until a scanner failed—waiting out the warranty if possible. But my wife—she’s an oncologist—said lymphoma and leukemia were too serious to mess around with.”
“Then what happened?”
“Going to work went from bad to worse. They had always made jokes, like saying ‘Hello sexy girlfriend’ every time I walked into a room or comparing me to David Carradine’s Chang character. That I could handle.” The actor put his head into his hands for a moment then resumed speaking. “But when they started complaining about how my lunch smelled bad or asking if my wife was good in bed, had she been trained by her grandmother in the ways of the Japanese, I got really upset. When they started calling me a …” The fake Park paused for dramatic effect. “…‘Gook,’ well…I didn’t think anyone had used that since the Korean War.”
There was a hush among the voluntary jury members.
After ‘Park’ left the stand, Peyton presented a few more of the plaintiff’s witnesses. Dennis played Sheila’s role as Arron’s lawyer and presented the medical manufacturer’s case. Then the twelve volunteers went to the jury room to deliberate the case. Unlike a real deliberation, a secret process sacrosanct in the American justice system, this one was piped into the courtroom via closed circuit TV for the attorneys viewing.
