Mazik v. Decision Making, Inc., 449 A.2d 202

By Elizabeth Scheinberg

Before we move into the Villa we've rented near Dora, there are just a few odds and ends that need tying up. Well, two really. And since this one is the lesser of the two, we'll start with it. Below is the link to an original post from last January.

https://echoawareness.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-dodgers-may-have-ripped-phillies.html

The litigious engagements in Mt Dora have led Echo to dig deeper into Au Clair's 1980 salvation and revival. As of 1980, Au Clair had been operating on nothing more than a pipe dream. On August 27th, the original Au Clair location in Bear, Delaware, received a 6 month provisional license after operating without a license for more than a year. That license was predicated on the hiring of independent program manager, Dean Alexander.

On December 6th, 1980, Margaret Kirk of the News Journal reported that Mazik's new program manager, Dean Alexander was no longer with company. He had lasted less than six months. Au Clair espoused that he left Delaware due to a critical illness of a family member in California.

Au Clair's explanation was plausible and Mazik moved quickly to replace him. Thirty-seven years later, the real reason behind Alexander's departure may have surfaced in a little known court case, but oft referenced (in legal briefs anyway) Mazik v. Decision Making, Inc., 449 A.2d 202. It began on July 29, 1980 and took two years to complete the full judicial process.

At the hearing, Kenia Casarreal Alexander [**3] testified that she and her husband were unsophisticated in business circles and were quite reluctant to loan defendant the money which constituted a substantial portion of their life savings. Mrs. Alexander testified that, initially, defendant did not wish to be personally liable on the note and, instead, wanted the plaintiff to loan the money to Colonial House, Inc. which would then be liable on the note. However, the Alexanders were reluctant to lend money to a corporation and it was only after a "long night" of "laborious" negotiations that defendant agreed to substitute his own name for that of Colonial House, Inc. as maker of the judgment note. Mrs. Alexander also testified that she and her husband agreed to lend defendant the money only after he assured them that a judgment note was a safe proposition.

Mazik v. Decision Making, Inc., 449 A.2d 202, 203, 1982 Del. LEXIS 394, *2-3

Because this is an appeal, you have to read it backwards. Mazik was appealing the decision of a lower court regarding a loan he took from Dean and Kenia Alexander. While he appears to be the plaintiff, he, in fact, is the defendant in the original suit which originated when he defaulted on a loan from his newly hired independent program manager, Dean Alexander.

The defendant admitted at the hearing that his negotiations with the Alexanders took "quite a bit of time", and that their recalcitrance at the idea of lending money to Colonial Homes, Inc. was overcome only after he substituted his name for the corporation's name on the note and repeatedly assured the Alexanders that the judgment note would ensure the safety of their investment. [**4] Although defendant testified that he did not know that he was waiving certain rights when he signed the judgment note, he conceded that it was he who drafted the instrument and that he read it before signing it. The defendant stated that he had previously signed and made loans on behalf of the Au Clair School "as a matter of course." The defendant further testified that he utilized a store-bought set of legal forms as a guide in drawing up the judgment note.

Remember, read it backwards. The original defendant, Mazik, admitted that he had to work his butt off to get the Alexanders to agree to the loan. Furthermore, it was Mazik who drafted the loan documents using "store-bought set of legal forms as a guide in drawing upon the judgement note." And it was Mazik who defaulted on the loan and Mazik who attempted to seek judicial relief that he had already waived when he wrote his own note for the Alexanders to sign. And it all culminated with a July 16, 1982 Superior Court opinion that fell on the side of the Alexanders.

To really hammer home the point here's the timeline:

July 29, 1980, Dean Alexander has been hired and is both an employee of Mazik and tenant. Mazik approaches the Alexanders for a loan.

August 27, 1980, Au Clair gets a provisional license due to Alexander's hiring.

December 6, 1980, Alexander severs his employment with Mazik to presumably care for a sick family member in California.

July 16, 1982, the appeals court finds on behalf of the Alexanders.

What really happened between December 6, 1980 and July 16, 1982 was a series of legal maneuvers in which Mazik tried at every chance to get himself off the hook for the loan from the Alexanders, culminating with a Superior Court Appeal that held the judgement of the lower courts. With that loan document, Mazik had literally written himself into a corner.

And for that, we say, Thank You, Mr. Mazik, for your contributions to "case law" otherwise known as "judge-made law" and for those cases that have followed the precedent you set. You continue to expound the law and will due so in perpetuity until such time as a judge rebukes your case law, this precedent, and redefines the applicable case law. For those keeping score, that's likely to never happen. And Mr. Mazik can derive no source of income either way - from the citation of his case by succeeding cases to the day a judge/courts change their reliance on this judicial opinion to a more sophisticated one. In the world of legal researchers, Mr. Mazik, you've just gone viral.

Confidential to Lauren: This is why you don't get sued. You cite your facts. There exists no more weighted citation than one to the judicial court system, unless as matter of cause, you get to be part of a case that actually lands in the SCOTUS. And this particular one has been holding for 35 years.