Fighting Wars
By Hal Haralson, Attorney Austin, Texas
He introduced himself as Colonel Jack Smith. I noticed how much he looked like an English Bulldog. His body was thick and squatty and there was a permanent look of anger on his face.
I had not kept him waiting, so I could not be the target of his anger. I guessed him to be about 65.
"We`ve been married 40 years. She`s trying to poison me. I can prove it."
He took his heavy briefcase off my desk and set it on the floor. After fumbling with the lock, he took out a file and showed me two charts.
"I`ve been sending food to the Mayo Clinic for two years. They analyze it and send me a report on the arsenic level. See how the level has climbed? She`s going to kill me."
"What would you like from me Colonel?"
"I want a divorce. The quickest way possible. I want everything that`s coming to me."
"You are aware, of course, that under Texas law one-half of all your assets belong to her unless they are your separate property?"
"I know that. We`ve got to inventory the house, especially her room. We have lived in separate bedrooms for the past ten years. We have dead-bolt locks on the doors."
The Colonel proceeded to describe his wife as a candidate for the Wicked Witch of the North.
I looked him in the eyes and said, "I`ll help you get a settlement, an uncontested divorce. If you want to go to trial, then you have the wrong lawyer."
"I know about you. I`ve checked you out. I want this over and done with, with a minimum of hassle."
"Okay, I replied. There will be a non-refundable retainer and if we go beyond that, I`ll bill you by the hour." We signed an attorney/client agreement and the Colonel put his files back in his briefcase and left.
I prepared the divorce petition and filed it. A copy was mailed to Mrs. Smith. I waited to hear from her or from her attorney.
I received a letter from the Colonel. It was a military memorandum dated 10 June 1985:
On 2 June 1985 I retained you to represent me in the matter of a divorce from my wife.
On 20 June I will set up an appointment at which time you will report to me regarding:
Name, address and phone number of my wife`s attorney;
Arrangements for inventory of my wife`s bedroom and the house;
Progress you have made toward discovery of assets my wife may have hidden.
And on it went, signed at the bottom Colonel Jack Smith and his serial number. I had seen these things when I was an enlisted man in the Army. These were military orders.
When the Colonel returned for his second appointment, he set his briefcase on the floor and fiddled with it for a moment, then sat upright and faced me.
"If you will get out the memorandum I sent you, you can begin reporting on the matters I instructed you about."
"Colonel, before we go any further, I have something to say to you. June 12, 1959, is one of the most important dates in my life. On that date I was discharged from the United States Army."
"I spent two years in the military police and rose like a flash to PFC. My serial number is US54196628. I saluted my last officer 25 years ago. I neither salute officers nor take orders from them. You can take some comfort in knowing that I don`t give orders or require that I be saluted."
"If you want to proceed on that basis, fine. If not, I`ll write you a check for your retainer and you can be on your way."
Colonel Smith got red in the face and coughed and when he gained his composure said, "I would like to proceed."
"Fine," I replied. "I`ll let you know when I hear from Mrs. Smith`s attorney."
The reply to the petition came from an attorney I knew well and enjoyed working with. Along with it was a letter requesting two personal items-a Bible and a pistol-to be turned over to Mrs. Smith, indicating that they were her separate property.
When I made the request for the Bible and pistol, the Colonel laughed. "I knew she was going to try this. Those belong to me and I`ll never turn them over to her."
The Colonel smiled for the first time. We were doing battle with his wife and he was enjoying it.
When I told the other attorney that the Colonel refused to turn the Bible and the pistol over, he immediately set a hearing for Temporary Orders.
At the hearing both the Colonel and Mrs. Smith testified. The Colonel was cocky in his military style, as if the judge had no reason not to rule in his favor.
But it didn`t go that way. The judge ordered the Colonel to appear in court with the Bible and pistol in ten days and turn them over to Mrs. Smith`s attorney.
The Colonel was furious. "I`m not going to obey the judge`s order. Those things are mine."
I warned him he could wind up in jail over this. He said he had a plan . . . but he wouldn`t tell me what it was.
Before the hearing, the inventory of the house was set. Both attorneys were present. It took all day. I stuck my head in the door and there was the Colonel on his hands and knees counting spoons, forks, and knives and dictating the numbers into his tape recorder.
Mrs. Smith was there. She was petite little lady, about 60 years old, who served us cake and coffee. I could not imagine her poisoning a mouse.
The day of the hearing came. The Colonel took the stand and was sworn in. "Colonel, I ordered you to produce a pistol today. Do you have it?"
"No sir, I do not."
"Why not?"
"Your order was ambiguous."
"What do you mean?"
"The weapon is not a pistol. It is a handgun."
The old judge got red in the face and I knew what was coming.
"The Bible . . . do you have it?"
"No sir."
"And why not?"
"Same reason . . . ambiguous order . . . it is not a Bible. It is a New Testament."
I thought the judge was going to come down off the bench.
"Colonel, if that pistol and Bible are not in Mr. Haralson`s hands by 4:00 this afternoon I`m ordering the sheriff to pick you up and put you in jail where you can stay until they are produced."
"Is that order clear, Colonel?"
"Yes sir."
"Any ambiguity?"
"No sir."
The pistol and Bible were turned over to me by 4:00 P.M. and the Colonel ordered me to appeal the judge`s order. I told him that it was in interlocutory order and could not be appealed.
He got red in the face and very angry. "I`m giving you a direct order to appeal the judge`s order. If you don`t do it, you are fired." The Colonel left.
Two days later he called and made an appointment.
He came in and put his briefcase on the floor and went through the fumbling routine. When he looked up, I set my portable dictating machine on the table and turned it on.
"I want you to know that there are two tape recordings being made of this conversation."
He proceeded to order me to appeal the judge`s order that he turn over the Bible and the pistol.
I told him again that it was not an appealable order.
"Then you are not going to file an appeal?"
"That`s correct."
"You are fired."
He was gone.
I saw him at the courthouse about a month later and saw in the paper that the divorce was granted.
All was quiet. I knew what had happened. He had lost the battle against him wife. There was now a new battle to fight. There was a new enemy . . . me.
Sure enough, 18 months later I received by certified mail a 163-page complaint filed against me with the Travis County Bar Association Grievance Committee. I had 20 days to answer.
I filed a 164-page response. The Grievance Committee dismissed it all without a hearing.
It is sad when the most important part of a person`s life is wrapped up in doing battle with others. I suspect there had been no love in the Colonel`s life in many years
