 Our next panel consists of two additional participants in the process and their attorney, Wayne Hagee, Christy Hagee, and Kurt Simoneau. Kurt, do you want to provide a little context? Absolutely. Well first, I want to thank you all for having me here. Frankly, as compared to every attorney in this room, I'm practicing law like 20 minutes. But I want to start by saying this. We are billed as the human interest story. Human interest story, we are not. These are the facts. Human interest stories are meant to be emotional and tug at your heart and maybe the story will, maybe it won't. But these are the facts. The story you're about to hear is what happens when a co-equal branch of the government is disrespected by another branch of the government. Now, in giving context, I'm going to briefly tell you how I got to sit in this seat. January 16, 2003, at about 8 o'clock in the evening, I watched a hit-and-run drunk driver kill my dad. We were in Florida. I was reaching out to shake his hand and a car came and killed him. As that unfolded, I met a lot of you. I met a lot of lawyers. And the truth is I didn't like many of you. And both my mother and father, both my mother and father are deaf. And that created an enormous number of additional challenges in dealing with the court system. In dealing with the court system and dealing with lawyers who quite frankly treated my parents as if they were hearing people. And anyway, long story short, I decided to go to law school because I wanted to do it differently. I wanted to fulfill the promise that Justice Broderick, Dean Broderick, talked about at the outset. I wanted to fulfill that promise for people. People like Wayne and Christie Hage, who came to my office because of a deaf organization that called me and said, we've got this nice young couple. She's deaf. He's hearing. And they need help. Okay. I'll give it a try. And so it's a custody battle. Christie's parents have issues with Christie's deafness and with Mr. Hage's religion. So they filed some motions and petitions and things to get custody of two young children who are now five and four. And we had hearings. And that's all well and good. And in pending the court's final order in June of last year, I filed a motion for visitation. On June 15, 2010, I filed a motion for visitation pending the court's final order in which we asked, please court, let Mr. and Mrs. Hage see their kids. Let them have overnight visits. Let's start getting towards reunification. And I want to be clear. The court said reunification is our goal here. We want to achieve this. So on June 27, 2010, two weeks later, the court issued an order granting exactly what we asked for verbatim. The problem, however, is we didn't receive that order until September. I called the court. I said, hey, any response to that motion we filed? Nothing yet. Called later. Nothing yet. And then one of my partners, Larry Vogelman, and some other senior attorneys said, you know what we're going to do? We're going to sue the state of New Hampshire. We're going to say the court is a co-equal branch. We're going to say that they're entitled to the budget that they asked for. And God damn it, our clients are entitled to justice. So they filed that lawsuit. And we were in the newspaper. And guess what happened the next day? I got a phone call from that very court. The order had been granted months ago. It was sitting in a pile. It was overlooked somehow. Now I don't blame any person. There's a lot of paper and not a lot of staff. Unfortunately by then it was too late. And what's ironic about this is we sit here now on April 5 of this year. So just two months ago I filed a motion entitled verified natural parents. And here's the key word, urgent motion for visitation because the visits aren't happening. Urgent. We've heard nothing from the court. But I think it's very important because I want this to be about facts. I don't want this to be about human interest. I think it's very important that Mr. Haggy communicate to you what exactly it's like for a parent. Who by the way in New Hampshire our cases say that being a parent is a fundamental right. It's akin to your right to speech and freedom of religion. Wayne, can you communicate to these folks what it's like to hear from a judge on a bench in June that he's going to issue an order granting you visitation and not get it until September? What happens during that time frame? Hello. What happened through that whole time is we lost time with our children. At the time they were two and three. Yeah, two and three at that time. And when the judge, when we went to court the judge says, you know, we're going to reunify you with your children. It's going to be, you know, this is what's going to happen. And all that time that went by when nothing happened, nothing happened. I felt disappointed. I felt let down because me and my wife, we went out. We spent money to get clothing, diapers, everything we needed to make sure that in case of anybody had any issues, any questions about our parenting skills, we were set. We had everything we went out. We got counseling. We did everything we were supposed to do. And as I sit here in front of you guys, I feel literally let down by the courts because me and my wife have now, and I'm sure most of you have children, grandchildren, we missed our first steps with our daughter, who is now four years old. We didn't get to see them. We heard about them through an email from her family. We didn't get to party train our children. We heard about it through word of mouth from her family. You know, and as I sit here as a father, I have five other children that I have raised the best of my ability. But for some odd reason, just because I chose the Mormon religion, my in-laws feel with my wife being deaf and my son having a disabled, a developmentally delayed disability that my wife is not capable of raising her own son. It's sad because my daughter, we found out through one of the slight communications we had with our daughter. She's in ballet. We've missed numerous recitals because we've never been invited to them. My son has been in school plays. We missed those because we've never been invited. Doctors appointments. We've heard nothing because all this stuff is sitting in court waiting to be heard. And two years now, we've been sitting here and we've been getting told by guardian of the items, by our lawyer, by everybody, be patient. And I'm telling you, patience is a virtue because I'm not a very patient man. I'm really not. And you can ask anybody who knows me. I am a very outspoken individual. But four minutes and no profanity. In all honesty, when we get to see our kids two days a week, four hours a day, and one of those days is a quarter of a day, the other one, the in-laws decided to be nice because I don't know why. We get them eight hours a week. That's it. What kind of bonding can we have with that? And those visits aren't regular, which is one of the reasons we're trying to get back into hearing. And I don't want to embarrass you, Wayne, but I want them to understand this. When you say you spent money back in June, you spent about how much money? We spent over $500. And do you have an extra $500? No, we don't. We actually, some of that money I borrowed from my mother because my mother hasn't seen her grandchildren. And that's the whole reason why we moved from California to here was so both sides of the family could see the grandchildren. And the kids outgrew everything? Yeah, all the clothes we have. Yeah, they don't even fit in them anymore. We have $500 worth of clothes sitting there waiting, and we can't even use them now, so we're going to donate them. Do you want to say anything? The last picture she has of her daughter, Bethany, was when she was three. Bethany often doesn't go on the court-ordered visits because the in-laws don't want to subject her to it. So it's a picture taken of Chuck E. Cheese. And you're her five-year-old. She has a picture here, too. They have good visits. And I think, and obviously if there's questions, I think it's appropriate. I've taken up enough of your time. But where's the call to action here? Okay, I've heard a lot of problems. Where's the call to action? Where are the protest signs? Where are the other lawyers brave enough to file the lawsuits against the states and say, let's get this right? That's my question to all of you who are supposed to be the leaders. It's good enough to talk. We need action. And with that, as a young lawyer, I turn it over to your questions. Thank you for coming today, and were you here for the other witness testimonies? Yes. Because I guess I would like to ask you. I mean, one of the assignments that the commission has been given, and one of the reasons that we're holding these public hearings, is to determine what calls to action are appropriate and what can be taken. And so while I hear on one side that you're saying, okay, if all of these cost reductions and all of these court closings and all of these financial or incremental approaches haven't worked, are lawsuits and public demonstrations the best way to bring the case? Because from your perspective, if the courts didn't have the, I mean, is this a responsibility of government or is it a responsibility for individuals in the courts? I guess I'm asking the question back to you. Well, as I understand it, and it's going to sound trite, but it's true. We're a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, so aren't we the people supposed to do something? I absolutely, I was dumbfounded when our lawsuit got bounced. I was dumbfounded. As I understand it, the court system in New Hampshire at least is a co-equal branch of the government. So why another branch is telling it what to do and how to do it, I don't understand that. The Chief Justice from Massachusetts made an excellent point saying, give me my money and don't tell me what to do because I know what to do. I was at an awards dinner where Dean Broderick was given the Kenneson Award and he made a point of saying, you know, I see an awful lot of people picketing the state house. How come I don't see lawyers? Are we too good to hold picket signs? I don't know. But something needs to change. And sadly, the change isn't going to happen until those very people who are forcing all those cuts find themselves with a big fight on their hands and only one place to resolve it, and that'd be the courts. And sadly, they're going to get to the front of the line. Maybe some of us who control the queue need to tell them to get back at the end of it and let them see what it's like to be everybody else. So, Simone, just one question for you. What you're basically saying to us, and thank you for being here, what you're really saying to us is that the lack of resources, the lack of funds is the cause which has had this case prolonged for this length of time. Is that correct statement? Absolutely, sir. Okay. Thank you. The delay from June until September is just extraordinary. I can't imagine an excuse for that. When was your lawsuit filed? The petition was brought by the in-laws on June 9, 2009. So it was actually a petition where they were petitioning the court so that the grandparents would have custody of the children. And that was brought on June 9, 2009. And going from June of 2009 until June of 2010, did things proceed relatively expeditiously or were there delays there as well? There were delays there as well. Those delays, however, are slightly less infuriating for a couple of reasons. The chief being Mrs. Hagee is deaf. And the court needs to be able to provide an interpreter. And I say slightly less infuriating because I'll note to the folks here today that everyone in charge of this event knew Mrs. Hagee was going to be here and knew Mrs. Hagee was deaf and no one made arrangements for an interpreter. Presuming we would take care of that. There's an education process involved in representing deaf people. So I don't fault the budget issues or anything else with that. I fault sort of a general ignorance with any delay that happened in that timeframe. Kirk, I think you should put in perspective, maybe it's self-evident, maybe it's not, that this is not an isolated event. Would you agree with that? And I'm assuming you're dealing with a marital master? No, we have a judge. Would you like to briefly, briefly address the magnitude of this delay problem before marital masters and judges in general in New Hampshire? The honest truth is I'm not sure. I'm capable of doing that. I think if you got a room full of lawyers here in New Hampshire and you just started to anecdotally speak about it, you'd find, boy, just the stories coming out of the woodwork. The first trial I got to second seat was the July after I was admitted in 2009 and my partner, David Sloskey, brought that lawsuit six years previous. Now there's lawyering involved in some of those delays, but not so much. And a point was made earlier by Chris, an excellent point I think that here's the real problem with this from a lot of perspectives. Even before all of these delays, even before the budget crisis, most cases weren't resolved in courts. They weren't resolved by judges or juries. They were resolved privately. That was the case for a great number of years. The problem is this. If you can't say to the other side with any degree of seriousness, well, let's just ask the judge or let's just ask the jury in my own practice, which is a predominantly personal injury, some employment litigation, and a great deal of ADA cases representing deaf folks, the other side is oftentimes a well-moneyed hospital, insurance company, and we just wait and wait and wait and wait, and I have had personally one case that comes to mind. We settled for a great deal less than what it was worth because we said to our client, it's this dollar now or we wait for the court, and that's three, maybe four years from now. But the magnitude is this. I guarantee you talk to anyone in any practice, and they will tell you that there are delays. There are some courts that are still running like clockwork. It's not to be, you know, and again, it's not an accusation of the courts. I agree that people are working like crazy. The problem is if you have a hundred men building a building that takes, you know, really a thousand men to do and take a long time to build a building. Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much for coming in and you and the haggers. We really appreciate this. Could you tell me where were the children prior to the June 2009 filing? Yes, and this is sort of the basis of the custody question, and correct me if I'm a little bit off here. Mr. Haggy was driving a truck, long haul trucking. So Mrs. Haggy, having a young child and a new baby, spent a lot of time at her parents' house and stayed there a lot and so the kids were staying at a combination of with Grandma and Grandpa and at the Haggy's own home, but always with Mrs. Haggy. And it really, Wayne I think put it really well earlier, they were helping like you're supposed to help and then all of a sudden they were helping themselves. Okay, now I do not know New Hampshire procedure, but is that any process whereby you can expedite matters and custody cases? You filed motions that indicate to the court and in fact in this case we were told that if we filed any last time we were in front of the court we were told whatever we filed the clerks would be on alert that it would be acted on within five days. And I've sent, you know, letters to follow up. And I've said, as a matter of fact in this particular motion we followed up about a little more than a week later because we got additional information, a note from a counselor. So I obviously don't know everything about every trick to the trade at this point and this is also not my general practice area but this is a pro bono case in which I am doing the best I can in large part because of the language barrier and there are a few other lawyers equipped to be able to do this because the pro bono system would have to pay at over $100 an hour to have an interpreter do this. So I don't know, I'd be anxious if anyone in the room could come and tell me but I've talked to family law practitioners at length about this and asked about ways to speed things up and the only thing that we did successfully to speed things up was file a lawsuit that got us on the front page of the newspapers. Did you file any motion for an emergency hearing because of the circumstances involved here? We have. We filed them as urgent. And did you hear from the judge? Did you get a hearing? Not yet. That's the motion I referred to that was filed April 5th of this past year. You say this last year, 2010 or 2011? 2011. I think it's important to understand that as part of the procedure here what happened was, and I understand this is not uncommon, the judge says he appoints a guardian at Lightham and then gives the guardian, I don't even know how to describe it but almost carte blanche to do whatever the guardian feels is necessary given the circumstance. So a lot of what we try to do is work with the guardian and when that fails we turn to the judge. But I can show you that I mean the pleadings file itself is a stack. We only have, I think, a third of it. That's the pleadings there. That's just a third of our pleadings. No, I don't need to see it. I was just curious to know because I know when I was on the trial bench what I would do if I would get a motion for emergency hearing and I saw these facts, you would get an emergency hearing. Forgetting about it. And then I would decide do I have to appoint a guardian at Lightham. But this is a very serious matter. I agree, Your Honor. I'm only the liaison so I can take great liberties and suffer no consequences from the committee. Let me add a couple of observations to what you've offered here because I think it's important for the record to understand that this is a systemic failure in New Hampshire. Let me give you two quick examples. I received an order not, well it was last year but it was within the last year or so, that a critical event, transactional event had to occur in a significant divorce case by August 10th. I received that order in September. I sent that to friends in the process so they could see what was happening. The hearing had been in June. It had been written, the opinion had been written in June and it was processed and approved and released in September with an August performance date. I had another one where, and it's the case of Stilpenny, I won't comment too much about it, where a significant marital estate, hundreds of millions of dollars, was hemorrhaging millions of dollars a month in the wrong way. If you can hemorrhage in the right way, but it was hemorrhaging and we needed to staunch it and we went in and had a hearing. The hearing, as I recall, was July. The opinion was written in the first week of August and we received it issued by the clerk's office at the end of September. This was an emergency for which we said we need immediate relief. There was another 60 days of money being spent in the improper fashion. It's not a failure of good people trying hard because good people are trying hard, in my opinion. The clerk's offices are overburdened. The judges have no resources. The marital masters who hear these divorce cases don't have clerks to assist them. They barely can write opinions. They have to scribble on the end of a motion denied, granted, and two or three sentences that you have to parse out for the rest of that case as the law. So in supplement to what these poor folks have gone through, I want this crowd to understand that at least here in New Hampshire there is a widespread systemic failure of the system, despite the fact that good people are trying very hard. The answer is for this task force to determine how to best resolve that, but it lies beyond the human effort. It lies in something called technology and it lies in something called finances. That, I believe, should be the focus and is the focus of what this task force is all about. I think you also have to move the court system out of the same budgetary consideration process that every other department goes through because you know what? It's not a department. Mr. Simono, just one quick additional question. Could it be an easy one? Would you mind? No, no, no. It's just, you are intimately familiar with this case with the pleadings that have been filed from your side and from the other side. In your judgment, how long would it take to hear this case? To hear it? To have a hearing? That's right. Maybe a little longer if you have any experts of any kind. Oh, well, yeah. Let's call it in. A little longer. Let's call it in. I forgot we had a counselor who, by the way, agrees with us. But clearly a half a day, you think. Clearly a half a day would you take it? Not even, ma'am. And frankly, the truth is the judge we'd be before is a very good judge and he would make sure it got through quickly. Thank you. Was that too gratuitous the last one? No. Typical. You're learning very fast. Thank you, Larry. Yeah. I want to thank both of the two parents for coming here. I think this has been very valuable. I want to express our sympathy to you for the situation. And I want to congratulate Kirk on your learning very fast. And I think that your willingness to take this case on is very commendable. Thank you, sir. From you, it's very helpful. Thank you.