A New Breakthrough at the Institute of Molluscan Behavioral Therapy
Readers may remember Sir Marcus Josephus McBridus Snailius, Custos Slimi (known to friends as J.M. Slime), of the pre-eminent Chenangus Slimery Castle.
Sir Marcus had been successfully treated at the Institute of Molluscan Behavioral Therapy for a particularly stubborn case of Persistent Molluscan Obsessive Retaliatory Disorder.
The treatment had been spectacularly successful.
Justice — bwomp-ya.
Fairness — RIP bubble.
Notice.
Service.
Truth.
Integrity.
All successfully processed through the patented Slime Refinery™, leaving Sir Marcus peaceful, happy and capable of producing beautifully polished official prose.
The Institute pronounced him healed.
There was, however, a small qualification in his prognosis.
The cure was expected to last at least until the vacaturus insects arrived.
They arrived.
Sir Marcus Josephus McBridus Snailius was back at the Institute.
Doctor Gaston Slug, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.M.P.
(Fellow of the Academy of Molluscan Psychiatry)
looked over his spectacles.
“Marcus?”
Marcus said nothing.
“Marcus, you look terrible.”
Marcus's left eyestalk twitched.
“They filed motions.”
Doctor Slug smiled reassuringly.
“People file motions every day.”
“Against ME.”
Doctor Slug stopped smiling.
“Against... you?”
“ME.”
A long silence followed.
Doctor Slug cautiously opened Marcus's chart.
Treatment of Persistent Molluscan Obsessive Retaliatory Disorder
“Did you use the Slime Refinery™?”
“Of course.”
“Justice?”
“Gone.”
“Fairness?”
“Gone.”
“Notice?”
“Gone.”
“Service?”
“Gone.”
“Integrity?”
Marcus looked offended.
“Doctor. Please.”
“Sorry. Professional habit.”
Doctor Slug closed the chart.
“Then what is the problem?”
Marcus leaned forward.
“They want me to vacate what I did.”
Doctor Slug gasped.
“Under what?”
Marcus whispered:
“5015(a)(4).”
Doctor Slug's clipboard fell to the floor.
“And...”
Marcus could barely continue.
“2221(a).”
Doctor Slug pressed the emergency button.
Red lights flashed throughout the Institute.
CODE 5015(a)(4).
CODE 2221(a).
MOTION CHALLENGING PRIOR JUDICIAL ACTION DETECTED.
Technicians in white coats came running.
THE TERRIBLE PROBLEM WITH MOTIONS
The Institute immediately convened an emergency interdisciplinary conference.
Molluscan psychiatrists.
Gastropod proceduralists.
Senior slime engineers.
One extremely old snail from Records Management.
They assembled around a blackboard.
Doctor Slug wrote:
MOTION
He drew an arrow.
MOTION → DECISION
Another arrow.
MOTION → DECISION → ORDER
The room became uncomfortable.
Marcus shifted inside his shell.
Doctor Slug continued:
MOTION → DECISION → ORDER → RECORD
Marcus began sweating slime.
Doctor Slug put down the chalk.
There it was.
The fundamental defect in traditional motion practice.
THE RECORD.
If Marcus granted a motion challenging something Marcus had done, there would be a record of that.
Unacceptable.
If Marcus denied a motion challenging something Marcus had done, there would also be a record of that.
Also unacceptable.
If Marcus wrote an order explaining why the challenge was wrong, the explanation itself would become part of the record.
Even worse.
This was a grave technological problem.
The original Slime Refinery™ could remove Justice, Fairness, Notice, Service, Truth and Integrity.
But it could not remove a filed motion.
A filed motion was stubborn.
It had papers.
It had a filing date.
It had a motion number.
It had an electronic existence.
It sat there on the docket.
Looking at Marcus.
Marcus looked back at it.
The motion continued looking at Marcus.
“DO SOMETHING!” Marcus screamed.
A GREAT SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY
Doctor Slug paced around the laboratory.
“Think, Gaston. Think.”
He returned to the blackboard.
MOTION → DECISION → ORDER → RECORD
He stared at it.
Then he erased ORDER.
That didn't work.
There was still a motion and a decision.
He erased DECISION.
That didn't work either.
There was still a motion.
Then Doctor Slug stopped.
Very slowly, he looked at the eraser in his hand.
He looked at the blackboard.
He looked at Marcus.
He erased:
MOTION
Silence.
Marcus's eyestalks rose.
Doctor Slug's eyestalks rose.
The technicians' eyestalks rose.
The extremely old snail from Records Management fainted.
Marcus whispered:
“Doctor...”
“Yes?”
“Do that again.”
Doctor Slug wrote:
MOTION
Then:
BWOMP-YA.
Gone.
Marcus stared at the empty blackboard.
“Doctor...”
“Yes?”
“That's brilliant.”
Doctor Slug smiled professionally.
“I know.”
And thus, after centuries of primitive Anglo-American motion practice, the Institute of Molluscan Behavioral Therapy announced its greatest technological breakthrough:
THE MOTION ERASER™
Why decide a motion challenging your own conduct when you can erase the motion?
CLINICAL TRIAL NO. 1
The new treatment was soon tested.
A motion had been filed challenging what Sir Marcus had done.
This presented the traditional procedural options:
GRANT.
No.
DENY.
No.
DECIDE.
Absolutely not.
The Institute administered one dose of Motion Eraser™.
BWOMP-YA.
No motion.
Sir Marcus blinked.
“That's it?”
“That is it.”
“No decision?”
“No.”
“No denial?”
“No.”
“No order disposing of it?”
“No.”
Marcus began smiling.
“No need to explain myself?”
Doctor Slug smiled back.
“Marcus, that is the entire therapeutic principle.”
Sir Marcus was delighted.
CLINICAL TRIAL NO. 2
Then another motion appeared.
This one was particularly unpleasant.
It challenged Sir Marcus's authority to continue sitting in the matter.
Marcus immediately called Doctor Slug.
“Doctor!”
“Yes?”
“Another one!”
“Same symptoms?”
“Worse!”
“Did it challenge you?”
“YES.”
“Motion number?”
“Six.”
Doctor Slug calmly opened the Deluxe Professional Motion Eraser™ kit.
“Apply directly to docket.”
BWOMP-YA.
Marcus sighed with relief.
Then somebody noticed another one.
“Doctor?”
“Yes?”
“There is a Motion Seven.”
BWOMP-YA.
Peace returned to Chenangus Slimery Castle.
THE MIRACLE OF MODERN MOLLUSCAN PROCEDURE
The advantages were immediately obvious.
Under the obsolete system:
Litigant files motion challenging judicial conduct.
↓
Judge decides motion.
↓
Decision exists.
↓
Record exists.
This antiquated procedure had one enormous defect.
Other people could later see what happened.
Under the revolutionary McBridus-Slug Method™:
Litigant files motion challenging judicial conduct.
↓
BWOMP-YA.
Much cleaner.
Much quieter.
Much less paperwork.
And no awkward need to write:
“The motion challenging my own authority is denied because I have determined that my own authority should not be challenged.”
The Motion Eraser™ does all of that without wasting a single word.
BUT THERE WAS A PROBLEM
Three days into the clinical trial, Doctor Slug received an urgent telephone call.
“Doctor!”
It was Marcus.
“They still have it!”
“Have what?”
“THE MOTION!”
“That is impossible. We erased it.”
“From the docket!”
“Yes.”
“They have the filing confirmation.”
Doctor Slug froze.
“Oh.”
“And the document.”
“Oh.”
“And the electronic notification.”
“Oh.”
“And copies.”
“Oh dear.”
“And they apparently take screenshots.”
Doctor Slug sank slowly into his chair.
The Institute had encountered the principal limitation of Motion Eraser™ technology:
ERASING A MOTION FROM A DOCKET DOES NOT ERASE THE FACT THAT THE MOTION WAS FILED.
Marcus became frantic.
“Can you make the confirmation disappear?”
“No.”
“Their copy?”
“No.”
“The email?”
“No.”
“The screenshot?”
“No.”
“The chronology?”
“No.”
“The fact that Motion Six once existed?”
“No.”
“The fact that Motion Seven once existed?”
“No.”
Marcus's eyestalks drooped.
“So what exactly did you cure?”
Doctor Slug considered the question.
“The docket.”
THE FOSSIL PROBLEM
This created a new field of molluscan science:
Procedural Paleontology.
A motion might disappear from the present docket.
But electronic litigation produces fossils.
Filing confirmations.
Notifications.
Document numbers.
Copies.
Dates.
Earlier docket records.
Correspondence.
References in other documents.
The extinct motion leaves tracks.
Doctor Slug explained the problem gently.
“Marcus, imagine that a dinosaur disappears.”
“I don't like dinosaurs.”
“Stay with me.”
“Fine.”
“The dinosaur is gone.”
“Good.”
“But its bones remain.”
Marcus frowned.
“So?”
“Someone can establish that the dinosaur existed.”
Marcus stared at him.
Doctor Slug continued:
“Your motions have bones.”
Marcus screamed.
AN IMPORTANT DISTINCTION IN MOLLUSCAN JURISPRUDENCE
The Institute therefore issued an important scientific clarification.
DENYING A MOTION means:
A motion existed.
The court considered it.
The court ruled upon it.
The ruling exists.
The reasons, if supplied, exist.
The procedural history exists.
ERASING A MOTION means:
The motion existed.
Then something happened to the docket.
These are not the same phenomenon.
Indeed, the second phenomenon raises a rather interesting question all by itself:
WHERE DID THE MOTION GO?
That question requires no opinion about whether the motion was correct.
No opinion about whether it should have been granted.
No opinion about whether Sir Marcus liked it.
No opinion about whether Sir Marcus thought the people filing it were irritating.
It requires only two historical objects:
BEFORE.
and
AFTER.
The motion was there.
Then it wasn't.
The Institute's lawyers advised Doctor Slug that this portion of the treatment brochure should probably end here.
A MESSAGE FROM THE INSTITUTE OF MOLLUSCAN BEHAVIORAL THERAPY
Does your docket contain uncomfortable motions?
Do litigants persistently challenge things you have already done?
Do you suffer from recurrent outbreaks of:
CPLR 5015(a)(4)?
Does CPLR 2221(a) cause itching, inflammation, or uncontrollable eyestalk twitching?
Are ordinary treatments such as:
GRANT
DENY
and
DECIDE
no longer providing adequate relief?
You are not alone.
Thousands of distinguished judicial mollusks suffer every year from Persistent Reviewable Record Syndrome™.
Fortunately, modern molluscan science has the answer.
MOTION ERASER™ PROFESSIONAL
From the makers of the original Slime Refinery™.
Simply locate the irritating motion.
Apply directly to docket.
BWOMP-YA.
No denial.
No adjudication.
No uncomfortable explanation.
Just a smooth, professionally groomed docket.
Specially formulated for:
Vacaturus
Recusalus
Disqualificatus
Voidus-Ab-Initio
and the particularly resistant:
Five-Zero-One-Five-A-Fouricus
Also clinically tested against recurrent outbreaks of:
Two-Two-Two-One-A
TESTIMONIAL
“They kept filing motions challenging ME!”
“They kept filing motions challenging ME!”
— Sir Marcus Josephus McBridus Snailius, Custos Slimi
After treatment with Motion Eraser™ Professional, Sir Marcus reported:
✔ Dramatically reduced visible motion population
✔ Immediate relief from Motion Six
✔ Immediate relief from Motion Seven
✔ No painful written denials
✔ No irritating explanations
✔ Cleaner docket appearance
✔ Dramatically improved slime happiness
There was only one reported side effect:
THE FILERS KEPT THEIR RECEIPTS.
The Institute is presently conducting research into this unfortunate condition.
Until a cure is discovered, patients are advised that Motion Eraser™ removes motions from the treated docket only. It does not remove filing confirmations, electronic notifications, retained copies, screenshots, chronology, memory, or reality.
Ask your administrative judicial mollusk whether Motion Eraser™ is right for you.
MOTION ERASER™
Because denying it leaves a record.
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