My trial has been cancelled. But wait, it is a far more interesting story than the last two times it was cancelled. This time my trial was cancelled because we negotiated a settlement in my favor and 'I Won'. But wait, unfortunatly things don't stand like that and it is much more complicated.
I started out the day much as expected, a little nervous but really just happy it was going to be over soon. We are getting slammed at work right now so I make arrangments with my supervisor to take my lunch early so I can do some work on station 1 during our regular lunch while others are gone, its work that would normally overlap our own and slow us down.
So I am in line at Jack in the Box, taking my lunch 30 min. early and I decide to check in with my lawyer. She says she is happy I called, she was just about to call me at work because Nicole's lawyer has sent us a settlement offer to look over, one that gives me primary custody. In other words, a serious one.
We go over some of it, I make some adjustments and beth sends it off to Nicole's lawyer who then talks to Nicole and it goes back and forth. Beth (my lawyer) called me at work several times while this negotiation process took place.
By about 12:30 we had agreed that there were three issues to negotiate seperatly. Debt, Parenting Plan, & Child Support. So anyway, by 12:30 we had agreed on a settlement for the debt, it was amazingly reasonable, I got only students loans, my Mervyns Card and my Car Loan, she would take the rest. That is perfect!
We went back and forth a lot on the parenting plan but ultimatly by 3pm we had settled on a plan we both liked, a plan that gives me primary custody in Washington.
The only remaining issue was Child Support, Nicole wants it reduced significantly, and I agreed to reduce it as long as I dont pay the costs for travel or her daycare expenses. She didnt like that, but its not something that needs to be decided in court.
So we have agreements in place for Parenting Plan and Debt, so we cancelled the trial and call off all our witnesses, then Nicole's lawyer calls us up and says that since we couldnt agree (YET) on the Child Support that she wants to cancel all of our deals and push it to trial anyway. Beth informs her lawyer that it is too late, trial has already been cancelled and we have already informed our witnesses.
So Nicole's lawyer calls her back to tell her and the craziest thing happened next.
Nicole fired her lawyer.
Now we are not sure if the settlements on Debt or Parenting plan are intact, Nicole doesnt think they are, but beth is looking over the information to see how official it was. The negotiation was definitly real though, I am hoping she backed out too late.
This makes it even more clear that she is taking her boyfriends advice over her lawyers, this is the 2nd lawyer already and I cant imagine how her next lawyer will view all of this. She is totally out of control at this point.
So hopefully we will get a new trial date set in place, I am proceeding with my plans to move ASAP regardless. This only hurts Nicoles case even further.
There is still that chance that those deals were put into place officially, though it would infuriate Nicole and cause some trouble, its a good place to start.
I hate that this is not over and I am stunned at Nicole's firing of her lawyer, but ultimatly nothing hurt me today. She is stupidly trying to get me to let her take them for Spring Break now, but between her behavior today and the fact that she had them for 2 weeks at Christmas (even though she broke that deal) Ive said no, twice.
Anyway, I hope everyone else is doing alright. My friend and I are thinking about going out drinking tommarow night, neither one of us have ever been to the bars in Pullman though. This isn't 100% for certain yet though, we are still figuring out what we want to do.
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