OFF THE WIRE
Faced with corrupt lawyers and judges, no litigant can expect to win in court by simply
playing defense. To beat them, you must be able to scare them. You must be able to make
them respect you, and that means you must be able to take the offense — attack them
personally.
Unfortunately, judges, lawyers, and other government officials enjoy various levels of
personal immunity provided by both law and "professional courtesy." How do you sue a
lawyer for malpractice? You hire another lawyer — if you can find one who’ ll take the
case. How do you sue an IRS agent for violating your Constitutional rights? Only with
great difficulty. How you sue a judge for railroading you in court? You don ’ t.
As a practical matter, private citizens can’ t sue the President of the United States, a
Governor, judge, or even an IRS agent for failing to obey or enforce the laws. If we try to
sue in court to compel our government officials to obey the law and perform their lawful
duties, the judges routinely ignore our petitions and laugh us out of court.
Because legal and de facto immunities shield government personnel from being sued for
committing crimes against the People, the public is legally disarmed, unable to
aggressively sue the government or its agents and compel them to obey the Law. As a
result, the public’ s legal posture is fundamentally defensive: we try to duck, dodge, and
hide in legal loopholes to defend ourselves against the government and the courts. We try
to escape, evade, and avoid, but we seldom counter -attack against our antagonists, largely
because we think there are no lawful weapons to do so. However, it appears that a
powerful offensive legal weapon may now have been discovered, tested, and proven for
common Citizens — the commercial lien. We don’t try to sue a government official for
failing to perform his lawful duties. Instead, we simply file a lien that encumbers the
official’ s personal property and credit rating like a ton of bricks until he voluntarily
satisfies our demand to perform his lawful duty, and we, in turn, voluntarily agree to
excise the lien.
Example 1 — Edward J. Wagner, an hourly, unionized employee at General Electric,
received Notices of Levy from the IRS, garnishing his wages and moneys received from
several other sources. Wagner tried to persuade G.E. not to honor the Notices, since they
were not properly attested as "true bills of commerce." His efforts met with no success.
After giving G.E. proper Notice and Demand, Wagner and his wife filed a Commercial
Lien in the amount of $224,640,00.00. In the lien, Wagner impounded G.E. inventory
that he had worked on (including air conditioning units, analyzing equipment, etc.) as
security for the lien. This is similar t o an auto mechanic impounding a car he had repaired
("mechanic’ s lien"). This meant that G.E. could not lawfully sell or transfer the
equipment until the lien was either extinguished or satisfied.
Among the reasons for the high dollar amount are that the law allows for such high sums
as rewards for damages incurred, and it generally has to be large enough in relation to the
size of the company involved, to get its attention. Otherwise such a large company might
just ignore it.
Consequently, a legal war followed, and by June of ’ 92, G.E. had gone to court several
times trying to remove Wagner’s lien, all without any real success. This was in spite of
the fact that G.E. had the best, most highly paid, and highly motivated lawyers.
In June of ’ 92, the first major victory for the Wagners came. The IRS issued four
different official Releases of Levy, one to General Electric, plus three other places where
they had wages and income that the IRS had levied — the Port of Seattle, Dean Witter
Reynolds, and Ohio State Life Insurance Company. These effectively released the IRS ’ s
attachment on the Wagners ’ income and assets. That’ s a pretty solid testimonial to the
power of the arguments in Mr. Wagner’s lien.
Although this lien strategy is explosive, it ’ s more like nitro-glycerin than hydrogen
bombs. You need to be knowledgeable and careful to use nitro -glycerin, but you don’ t
need to be a nuclear physicist. However, nitro -glycerin can blow up in your face if you
handle it carelessly!
Likewise, "bombing" government officials with liens is a craft, not a science, that can be
used as easily by knowledgeable pro se’ s as it can by lawyers and legal scholars. The
commercial lien is simple, inexpensive, and takes very little time. It requires no court
action or judge’ s approval. And, it has proven to be very direct and effective, if it is
handled correctly. However, a few careless pro se’ s have had their liens "blow up" in
their faces, so be meticulous when you use them.
