who's on judge mathis today? #210
an idiotic recap of the greatest syndicated courtroom show of all time
plaintiff: robert from sheboygan falls, wisconsin. robert looks a little bit like george carlin, which is very soothing to me. he’s wearing a black velvet blazer (okay???) with a standard-issue electric pale blue (you know what i’m talking about) dress shirt, the sides of his balding salt and pepper head neatly clipped and his goatee sharp enough to slice deli meat.
defendant: michael from sheboygan, wisconsin. as a scientist i did feel like i had to do my due diligence and google to find out if these are two separate places or if someone messed up the chyron and indeed they are, sheboygan is a 12-minute drive from sheboygan falls, and typing that word over and over is scrambling my brain eggs. i can’t even see michael because he is walking into the courtroom led by his scowling parents david and janet. a bad sign, for sure, especially when they part to reveal what appears to be a 47-year-old man. dang what’s in the cheese up there??????
the complaint: robert says michael hit his girlfriend’s car while in line at a fast-food restaurant and he went to the michael’s car to talk to him, but michael punched him in the face before dragging him through the parking lot with his car and now he’s suing for lost wages and medical bills i’m sorry WHAT.
what does he want: $5000!!!!! over a big mac!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! michael is countersuing (please god, no) for $1500 for “attorney fees.”
how it went down: robert says on july 4 (not pulling this shit on america’s birthday?!) he and his girlfriend laura and her son went to burger king after the fireworks display because his son ethan wanted a milkshake. oh man i looooove this level of specificity. what kind of shake? what color shorts was ethan wearing?? which firework was his favorite??? how does his body tolerate lactose so late in the evening????
robert says they were patiently waiting in line at the drive thru when michael, who was in the car in front of theirs, decided he didn’t want to wait in line anymore and backed into laura’s vehicle while trying to get out. can we pause here to talk about my mental illness for a second? okay cool, enjoy: every time i’m in a trapped drive thru circumstance (the local dunkin’ one is sandwiched tightly between the tempered glass storefront and a brick fucking wall with basically a millimeter of space on each side) that’s either inching incrementally forward or stalled entirely the single thought that consumes my brain is “what if we never move again and i am forced to shit in my car?” first of all, i would do it. second, it’s a lease so ultimately that’s brian at zeigler honda’s problem? but it would still be an, uhhhh, inconvenience to say the least. the one thing you can’t control is the other drivers trapped in the line with you, what’s happening in their minds and bowels is a mystery, you just have to trust that these strangers who want a blueberry cold brew or whatever the special is are just gonna sit nicely in their cars and behave, and thinking about this is so stressful from now on i guess i just gotta go in. (jk i’m never doing that, literally spray warm diarrhea out your car window at me, who cares!)
laura got out of the car to talk to michael and assess the damage, at which point he started screaming and cussing at her while continuing to hit her car with his. the camera pans over to michael, who is smiling in an extremely unnerving way between his mom and dad who look a decade younger than him. i think this dude might actually be scary! robert says laura ran back to their car and he got out of the passenger seat and went over to michael’s on some “hey buddy, we gotta figure out what the damage is” and michael grabbed robert by the shirt (from inside his ride!) and started repeatedly punching him in the face. holy shit.
i dunno man, as a certified Person Who Cannot Fight™ the minute he called my girlfriend a bitch or whatever i would’ve just calmly eased my way out of the parking lot to defuse the situation and dialed my insurance guy like “i’m not sure how it happened, bob, some fella must’ve dinged my front bumper while i was picking up some dinner rolls at the shop n’ save, let’s file a claim,” or literally anything else other than confront an obvious sociopath, but maybe that’s just me. robert hands the judge a stack of kodak prints from walgreens (i miss the 90s so bad) and as greg is flipping through them (they’re awful) continues telling the story: after he finished punching him, michael drove off around the parking lot, while still holding onto robert’s fucking shirt. excuse me, what did he say?? roll in the goddamn gallows, it’s time for another episode of murder court.
robert says that michael drove circles around the parking lot, dragging his body along with him, before finally letting him go and speeding off. as bad as this is for robert, and it’s pretty fucking terrible at least according to the photographic evidence, i literally cannot imagine watching this happen? especially his girlfriend and their kids!!! i’d be on the phone with jennifer love hewitt trying to describe every inch of this dude and his car (“he’s got a tiny mole on the inner corner of his left eyelid and a half-empty starbucks latte in the cup holder”) so he could be captured and punished (my murder court verdict would be “run him over with a car then grind his meat to make whoppers” but whatever) but yikes how traumatic for everyone who had to witness this.
it’s michael’s turn and literally who cares. is he gonna dispute the road rash we all just saw pictures of or what? what on earth could his defense be??? “actually, your honor, that parking lot gravel was very soft. i was giving him a free massage!” michael says he’d been sitting in the drive thru for 45 minutes (lmao) and was tired of waiting. he drives a “manual vehicle” (lmaoo) and he turned to look behind him before putting the car in reverse and saw that laura’s car was approximately four inches from his (someone who studied physics: is it possible to gauge this while seated inside your car, at night, in a drive thru that smells like “chicken fries” please weigh in) and he “gestured rudely” (lmaooo) at them and in response laura got out of her car and came up to his window.
greg is like “why do you think she did that” and michael says, in all seriousness, “to get money.” michael adds that in his “experience as a bartender” laura “appeared to be drunk.” okay i don’t fucking believe this but let’s say he’s right and laura was falling down wasted as she staggered through the car exhaust in the stifling july heat to manufacture a story with the sole intent of bilking this stranger out of money she doesn’t know if he even has. let’s suppose that she could intuit that his car was filled with hundred dollar bills and she had no fear of getting caught stealing a handful of them in front of a live audience. taking all these scarcely believable facts into account i have just one question: WHY IF THIS MAN IS OLD ENOUGH TO BE A BARTENDER DOES HE HAVE BOTH HIS MOMMY AND HIS DADDY IN COURT WITH HIM TODAY.
seriously though, if you can serve drinks (and, based on his general demeanor, collect a pension) why would you need to be flanked by your parents on TV court? they didn’t witness your crimes!!!! michael says he didn’t hit laura’s car and emphatically told her so, but then she got kinda heated and he pleaded with her to wait for the car in front of him to pull up so he could “pull out and they could assess the damage together.” (me, to every man i’ve ever disappointingly boned.)
michael says that laura then became “hysterical” (love this casual misogyny from a man who beat someone up trying to get some cheesy tots) and got back in her car and then robert got out and “came right after [him],” lunging through the window where he was counting his money for the stuff he was gonna order. okay as a student of the judge mathis school of law (and as a woman who has watched a few good men 11,753 times) i’m wondering why santiago didn’t have his bags packed if he was gonna be transferred off the base and also why michael was counting his loose change to pay for a spicy chicken junior he…………….wasn’t gonna order because he was supposedly trying to leave?????
michael says that his first impression was that robert and laura were trying to rob him and i know you aren’t supposed to judge a book by its cover but robert looks like a tax accountant and laura could be a soap opera star (it’s very specific look but you get it) and you want me to believe these people who probably buy swiss chard and use a tea cozy are out here robbing a dude for jalapeño popper money??? all in front of their kids and the entire combined populations of both sheboygan and its falls??????? yeah right! michael admits to punching robert in the face but says it was self defense, then greg asks if he called for help and michael says no and greg very calmly says, “but i thought you were being robbed?”
the problem is not that michael is trying to defend himself in court today, the problem is this particular defense. if i’m him, i’m saying, “yes judge i’m so sorry i tapped their bumper, when i attempted to rectify the situation and exchange insurance information the plaintiff approached my car in a threatening way and i assaulted him because i was afraid.” i might not win but at least i wouldn’t sound foolish? “she was drunk” and “he wanted to steal seven dollars” is a weird and fruitless road to take!!!!!! michael says “i don’t know, i was in a busy parking lot…” and greg tells him that’s all the more reason he should’ve cried out for help. man, you know at least a dozen stoned teenagers were standing around recording this, why not ask one of them to snapchat message the police????
then michael says that when he drove off robert voluntarily held onto his car, and yo dude he just should’ve paid his medical bills from home because this is humiliating. if you’re gonna lie, why not say “maybe his shirt got caught in the door and it took me a second to notice” instead of acting like this senior citizen wanted to take a joyride clinging to your bumper? why are his parents even here if they’re gonna let him shame their ancestors by saying the dumbest shit we’ve ever heard?????
here comes robert again (thank god honestly), interjecting to tell the court that the police came after michael fled the scene. robert went to the hospital because he’d just been dragged through a parking lot littered with paper crowns and the lesser of the available fast food french fry options, and the cops got the license plate number from laura (i mean of course she got his plate she’s an adult!!!!!!!!!!!!) and went to michael’s house to arrest him. he pleaded (plead? idk how legal grammar works) guilty to three counts: two disorderly conduct and one other thing the judge talks over so i can’t make out what robert’s saying, but the important information is that michael went to jail for three months for this incident. hold up wait a minute, why are we here? what’s this about robbery and drunkenness and all that shit when homeboy served time for this??? i know we live in a wild timeline but do y’all think he thought this strategy would actually work or is he just having a laff at our expense (i get it) or what. this is bonkers.
michael tries to get cute with greg about how he would’ve been well within his rights to call the cops on robert and greg shuts that shit down immediately, reading aloud the judgment from real court and pointing out that michael was sentenced to 70+ days in real jail!!!!!!!!!! what’s he gonna charge robert with, attempting to steal a couple quarters for the pay phone? michael blames his loss/sentencing on “an overworked public defender” and, if it pleases the court, i’m just wondering if it was ordered that santiago wasn’t to be touched then why was it necessary to transfer him off the base and also why is this dude countersuing for lawyer fees if he lost his case at the too-full hands of a taxpayer-funded wisconsin public defender???????
the ruling: c’mon greg, put a bullet in this already. finally the dad speaks and he says “we are here because we let our son use our jeep while we were on vacation, and they’re suing us and that doesn’t make any sense.” listen i know a guy who sleeps on the couch in his parents’ rec room when i see one and sir that alone is why you should be sued, but i see his point. if someone commits a crime in your car can you be on the hook for the havoc they wreak? well, robert thinks so. he has a bunch of papers in his accordion of truth™ that detail michael’s extensive history of batteries, assaults, and vehicular crimes, and he thinks that it’s neglectful on the parents’ part that they let him use their car after so many DUIs and whatnot. i get it, it’s horrible, but also parental neglect stops being an issue for a non-dependent child at 18, right??? this dude looks 65!!!!!!!!!!!
greg launches into an explanation of plea bargaining i don’t care about (lord help me if i ever need this crucial knowledge in the future i guess!) and clarifies that while robert’s beef with the parents is understandable they’re not liable, but babyyyyyy their son is!!!!! michael’s counterclaim is dismissed for being offensive to people with common sense, but he owes robert the robber(t) $5000 for dragging his ass around like a rat would a half-eaten impossible whopper, and you have the luxury of not knowing what i know—that santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives; and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives!
did uncle greg say anything fucked up to anyone: “if you were getting robbed in front of all these people why didn’t you yell for help? surely someone would’ve called out ‘stop! hey little lady, stop robbing him!’”
*bangs gavel*