A property litigant and his lawyer faced criminal perjury proceedings over what turned out to be a typist's error confusing 'disposed of' with 'dismissed.' The Supreme Court holds that a mere 'wrong statement' isn't a 'false statement,' and quashes the twenty-year-old complaint for want of any finding of deliberate falsehood.
"All I did was buy a piece of property and get myself added as a defendant in a long-running civil dispute I hadn't even started. My lawyer's typist made a couple of small typing mistakes — 'dismissed' instead of 'disposed of,' one missing word 'no' — while preparing my appeal papers, and we caught it and asked the court to correct it before anyone even accused us of anything. Yet somehow that turned into me and my own lawyer being accused of perjury, criminal proceedings that have now dragged on for over twenty years, all stemming from a stenographer's typo that we ourselves flagged and tried to fix. I never intended to deceive anyone, and neither did my counsel — we were simply trying to get an interim order reviewed like any other litigant."
Moral Universe
The narrative frames the case as an instance of an ordinary clerical slip being weaponized into a criminal accusation by an opposing party, treating the pursuit of Section 340 proceedings as disproportionate retaliation rather than a genuine concern for the integrity of court records.
Emotional Driver
Frustration and anxiety at facing the threat of criminal prosecution — for both himself and his own lawyer — over what he experiences as an innocent, promptly-corrected clerical error, compounded by two decades of unresolved legal exposure.
Objective
To have the criminal complaint against himself and his counsel quashed entirely, and to be relieved of any further threat of prosecution arising from the disputed pleadings.
Blind Spots
The narrative does not directly engage with why the correction application was filed only after the stay order had already been obtained and was being relied upon, nor with the plaintiffs' underlying concern that the mischaracterization of a prior court disposal may have influenced the appellate court's decision to grant a stay.
Inherent Tensions
- —The client's framing of the error as purely clerical and innocent sits against the fact that the mistaken characterization (calling a 'disposal' a 'dismissal') happened to favor his own litigation position by making it appear the plaintiffs had lost related proceedings.
- —The client's insistence on prompt correction competes with the timeline showing the correction application was filed only after the favorable stay order had already been secured on the strength of the original pleadings.
- —The demand for complete exoneration sits against the reality that some inaccuracy in the pleadings is undisputed; what remains contested is only whether that inaccuracy rises to the level of a punishable falsehood.