Re: While building your new house
1- A guy rips you off.
2- The guy files for bankruptcy
3- The bankruptcy judge issues a stay, meaning that creditors can't get at your assets
4- You don't get the notice (or don't understand it when you get it) about the stay
5- You are ticked off so you file a criminal complaint
6- The guy who ripped you off sues for you violating the stay
7- The idiotic judge who sees that lawsuit believes you might be trying to use a criminal complaint as a form of blackmail to get the guy to pay money even though there is a stay because he sees "suspicious timing" and never even listens to your side of the story.
(It's really only #7 that is the big problem, in my book, but I've seen judges do all sorts of things that I think are pretty crazy.)
Personal Example: Recently, one of my clients was sued for discrimination because it gave out special hats to "Mothers" on "Mother's Day." Well, the "man" who sued didn't get one because he is not, and cannot be, a mother. He filed a similar case in Southern California against other defendants ("double dipping"). The Southern California case was thrown out by the judge. But our judge in the San Francisco area refused to throw it out despite all the legal authorities pointing in our direction, and his holding is directly contrary to California Supreme Court law. So up go the attorneys' fees...and down goes our society to hell in a handbasket.