Assets - Liabilities = Net Assets / Capital

IOW, Welch's appellate court nomination...

If you are completely stupefied at the Judicial Nominating Commission selecting Judge Welch as one of three options for the governor to appoint to the Indiana Appellate Court, then you don't understand the equation for net assets, the JNC's method for valuation, or you haven't counted some assets. 

When I saw the nominees, all I could do was chuckle... 

On and off... 

For a few hours...

I wasn't surprised at all.

• assets - liabilities = net assets
• assets > liabilities = positive net assets
• liabilities > assets = negative net assets 
• one person's liability is another's asset / the borrower is servant to the lender
• covering someone's liability owed to a third party, keeps the borrower a servant, but now to a new master   

CourtCall and Judge Heather Welch

The past year has been brutal on almost every company in every industry.

Only a handful of companies have thrived during the pandemic, benefitting even more than before. Netflix, while we all sat at home with nothing to do. The RV industry in my hometown giving people the means to safe freedom. PPE manufacturers. And obviously Zoom. But also the Zoom equivalent for courts, CourtCall. 

Trust me, this post will be much more interesting than you might think. Because very few active parties from Indiana's highest courts can find a plausible argument for ignorance. They all know.

Welch's Significant Cases- How Does She Do It?

The comment originates with Wayne Turner, whose firm Hoover, Hull, Turner, LLP regularly finds itself in Judge Heather Welch's court. In a December 2017 review of the then pilot project for Commercial Courts, Turner offered the following suggestion:

Help the higher volume Commercial Courts to clear their dockets of matters from non-Commercial Court cases; I don't know how Judge Welch keeps up, but she does it somehow.

That's not even considering her numerous ongoing obligations and contributions to the broader legal profession detailed in this post Welch's Amazing Professional Contributions.

Let's see if maybe we can solve Mr. Turner's mystery for him.

Worse Than Regulatory Capture

In the realm of regulation and protecting the public interest, how could anything be worse than regulatory capture, right?

Excuse the crass word, but what if there was regulatory incest? Extend the proverbial fox hen house to having foxes protecting the hen house and judging claims of harm by hens against foxes. What I am suggesting isn’t an otherwise neutral third party that starts taking bribes, as if a cow favored foxes for some side benefit. 

Welch's Amazing Professional Contributions

We previously detailed Judge Welch's amazingly busy courtroom that for some odd reason gets a large percentage of the most notable cases in Indiana courts. Yet with all that, Judge Heather Welch still finds a few minutes to give back to the profession:

IHSAA Contract - Avoiding Indy Court Mandate

Previously I detailed the contractual provision in the IHSAA "Consent & Release Certificate" really a contract that forces any lawsuit between an athlete and IHSAA to be heard in Marion County (Indy). The location of a court is called venue. It's kind of like jurisdiction, but not at all. The difference is confusing to keep us regulars guessing.

For any skeptics and those not concerned, let's look at an example.

            tl;dr Skip to the bottom for directions on how I believe you can avoid automatic transfer to Indy. 

Landon Grimes v. IHSAA 

How to Escape Judge Welch's Commercial Court

For Attorneys

Alright Indiana Jones / Batman and Robin / Bo and Luke, you have found yourself in Judge Welch's Commercial Court. That might be because:

• You contractually agreed, even if you didn't realize it, 
• The opposing party is falsely stating that you did sign a contract that never existed and Welch won't make them produce it with new trial court rules, 

Or maybe the opposing party isn't doing any of that since recent trial rule amendments give no greater weight to one venue provision over another, sort of, and subject to the judge's personal preference.

Most importantly, when a party 'familiar' to Judge Welch lands in her court, she has a history of ruling in their favor to keep the case by denying any motion to transfer or claim of improper venue.

So what's the key to escaping Welch's Commercial Court labyrinth?