This is, of course, the 30th installment of Snarfsplains the Law (numbers are approximate, yet tiring). No one told me that there would be maths. And today we shall learn how to read an appellate brief and understand all the information in it, specifically, all of the information that is hidden within the "cases" and "standards" and “citations” that most right-thinking people skip over. If you'd like to see the actual brief, there is a copy in the resources, here:
www.enworld.org
The opinion from the lower court that is being appealed is here:
District Court Opinion (nuTSR, Tenkar)
Okay! I know most of you aren't going to look at them, but still, you should. First, a quick overview of the trial court (also called the lower court's) opinion. It dismissed, with prejudice (that means no more litigation for you, buddy) a Complaint by Justin Lanasa (and some corporate entities) against Tenkar (not his actual name) and Tenkar's Wife ("Spouse").
1. The District Court Opinion.
Before understanding the appeal, you have to understand what is being appealed! Lanasa filed a complaint alleging torts (those are civil claims, not pastries) against Tenkar. The complaint is Lanasa's version of events. After "motion practice" (lawyers writing a bunch of things, and the judge wishing he was fishing) Lanasa was on his Second Amended Complaint (which is the THIRD complaint). The Third Complaint alleged three torts- defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and "prima facie tort," which means... I don't know what exactly the person did, but it's wrong, dang it, and I'm not going to take it anymore!
The judge had to rule on the following issues:
1. Does the Court have subject matter jurisdiction? In other words, can the court even listen to these people arguing?
2. Was the spouse properly served? Lanasa tried to sue Tenkar's mom first, and then tried to sue his spouse, but never served her. Which requires dancing and stuff.
3. Does New York's anti-SLAPP law apply? An anti-SLAPP law is a law to allow people to strike back at frivolous defamation claims that seek to silence them.
4. Do any of the torts "state a claim"? On a motion to dismiss, you have to accept Lanasa's facts, but if you accept the facts as true, does he still have a case?
5. Will the Court let him amend the complaint again?
The Court found as follows:
1. The Court has subject matter jurisdiction. Because of money and diversity. Really.
2. The dismissal of the spouse was proper because she was never served, and Lanasa's attorney knew about the problem, but still couldn't get the deadlines correct. In addition, when the Court granted leave to Lanasa to amend the last time, it was only leave to amend Tenkar's mom, not add his spouse. This one seems simple- you don't serve someone, the Court must dismiss the claims against them. Normally, you could amend, but the Court was not pleased with the ... antics.
3. The anti-SLAPP law does not apply, for reasons involving "substance" and "procedure." To explain this would require me to explain Erie, and I'm not going to inflict that on you. But federal courts have been like, "Naw, you don't get that in federal court. Take it to state court."
On the failure to state a claim...
4. Lanasa cannot state a claim for defamation. This is a close call given the motion to dismiss standards. While the Court does a thorough job going through the issues related to opinion and name-calling, and the pleading standards, there is at least some argument regarding the Court's analysis on the failure to plead an element issue (pp. 23-25). To try and simplify this for everyone-
The Court thoroughly trashed most of the allegations as being either (1) opinion, or (2) mere name-calling. My favorite example is as follows (I am putting this in spoiler because although it is from a court document, and the relevant language has appropriate asterisks, I am giving you a heads-up that it contains partially edited, but identifiable, vulgar language)-
That's called ... understatement, if you know what I mean. That said, if there was any possible daylight in the appeal, it's that the Court acknowledges that there is at least one statement that might be defamatory, but notes that LaNasa failed to plead the required falsity as a factual matter, instead just asserting falsity as boilerplate.
To illustrate the difference, imagine someone is bringing a defamation claim against a newspaper for a false allegation that they were being investigated by law enforcement for unicorn murderin'. You would plead something like the following:
a. The Article makes the following defamatory statement about Bugs Bunny:
The ToonTown Unicorn Murdering Task Force showed up at ACME headquarters and went to CEO, Wile E. Coyote's office, not to investigate Mr. Coyote, but to gather information on Bugs Bunny in order to charge him for multiple unicorn murders.
b. Mr. Coyote did meet with the ToonTown Unicorn Murdering Task Force, but the discussion between Mr. Coyote and the Task Force agents was only the possibility of using ACME devices to catch unicorn murderers.
c. Mr. Coyote has stated that during the conversation about ACME devices the only name that came up was Mr. Beep-Beep Roadrunner.
Now, imagine you have the above, and then replace (2) in there with the following instead-
2. This is a knowingly, malicious, and intentionally false statement.
In other words, you can't just assert a statement is false, you have to provide some minimal factual support as to why it is false. So no claim for defamation as a matter of law. There is another issue lurking, however. It's that Lanasa didn't include a lot of the supposedly defamatory statements in the complaint, but instead just linked, generally, to youtube videos. NO. You can't do that. As the Court explained, you have to put that in the allegations for the Court, not just say, "Here's a youtube video, why don't you have your clerks find the defamation?" Because clerks use youtube for cat videos, not for your legal research.
5. Lanasa cannot state a claim for intention infliction of emotional distress ("IIED"). Big nope on that as well. Under New York law (federal courts apply the substantive law of the state) this is always going to be loser; see Chanko (explaining that the standard for IIED was unmet in every case that the court had considered). In addition, defamatory statements will almost never support an independent IIED claim.
6. Lanasa cannot state a claim for a Prima Facie. Just ... no. This isn't going anywhere on appeal. As every first-year associate is told, "It's never RICO, and it's never a prima facie tort. But it's more likely to be RICO than a prima facie tort." If you see someone plead a prima facie tort, you seem someone throwing stuff at the wall, hoping something sticks.
7. Lanasa is all outta amendments. The main issue that normally would succeed is that Courts normally will allow amendments liberally*, but the Court explained in detail why the dismissal was with prejudice. First, Lanasa never responded to the argument that dismissal should be with prejudice, or requested leave to amend. Which is sufficient to dismiss with prejudice. Moreover the Court explains why, even if he had (which he did not) there is no reason to believe that a fourth amendment would state a claim (aka, futility). In other words ... just stop. Please, stop.
*How liberally? I am currently waiting for some mook's SEVENTH amended complaint ... that means its number eight. Kill me now.
2. The Lanasa Brief!
So now we are at the brief. Because after you lose that spectacularly, why not double down?
Let's go through this. The first page is the title page. It gives you a bunch of useful information.
The case number (24-1325).
The litigants and their posture- Justin LaNasa et al., hereafter "Lanasa" is called the appellant- the appellant is the party that is appealing a decision from the lower court, while .. I won't use the actual names, but Tenkar is the appellee, who is defending the decision from the lower court.
It tells you that this is an appeal from the "trial court" which is a federal court in New York (EDNY, the Eastern District of New York).
And the appeal is with the Second Circuit, which is the federal appellate court for New York and other states in the area.
Finally, this is the opening brief. There will be three "briefs" which are the written arguments- the appellant gets the opening, then the appellee gets a response, and finally the appellant gets a short reply brief.
After that, you will see the table of contents (where everything is at).
The table of authorities (all the cases, statutes, rules, and, um, other things that are cited in the brief).
The questions presented, which are the issues for the appellate court to decide.
And a statement pursuant to FRAP 28(a), which is basically a procedural statement explaining how we got here. 1. Of course, Lanasa doesn't doesn't follow the requirements of an initial brief under FRAP (Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure) 28. There is supposed to be a jurisdictional statement (Br. 9-10), and while it kinda sorta does the timeliness thing, it doesn't have the basic "this is the district court's jurisdiction, this is the appellate court's jurisdiction, this is the final order that disposed the claims." Basic stuff.
After that, you get to the meet of the brief. This consists of two main sections:
A. The Facts. These are facts that are in the "record" (stuff in the file with the lower court) that you saying are relevant to the case.
B. The Argument. Why the appellant court should rule in your favor.
A. The Facts Worry Me.
The appellate court confines itself to "the record," which are the documents filed with the lower court. Every practitioner knows that you do two things with the facts section. First, you make sure to hit all the facts for your issues that you are appealing. Second, you arrange your facts in such a way to be persuasive, but you DO NOT ARGUE in your facts. You want the facts to make an argument for you, but you never, ever, ever, argue in your facts. And you keep to THE RECORD. Every sentence should be a citation to THE RECORD. So ... what do we see?
Oh noes. There is an "introduction" pp. 10-17 that goes on for fourteen pages, just arguing. Not citing the record. Just asserting, and arguing, and linking to youtube, and even quoting law and random articles. DANGER. Oh, and website citations, that aren't in the record. And facts ... that aren't in the record! SO MANY ASSERTIONS AND FACTS THAT YOU AREN'T ALLOWED TO USE. I am having a near-stroke reading it. Also? The law? New York and the 2d Circuit (lawyers abbreviate weird) has a lot of law. But most of the legal citations aren't applicable! They are to Delaware, or unpublished opinions, or the 4th Circuit. And it's all a policy argument. I want to cry.
In addition, Lanasa is also citing the First Amended Complaint repeatedly. THAT DOESN'T MATTER. It doesn't exist. They are here on the SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT. Which might be fine, sometimes, but they are using it for factual allegations, which is assuredly NOT FINE.
It then goes into detailed facts, and those are no better (pp. 17-24). I honestly don't know how to tie any of this into the legal arguments. Bad. Bad. Bad facts.
Pages 24-29 are procedural, but also misstate what is in the opinion. Which is not good, given the appellate court will read it, and the response brief will make hay out of it. In addition, it repeatedly attacks the trial court- which is not only poor form, but tends to make the appellate judges unhappy. Never make it personal.
B. But the Fact are Better than the Legal Arguments.
Let's start with a basic issue. Appellate arguments are not "kitchen sink" arguments. You don't appeal everything because you can. You appeal the best issues, because otherwise you lose credibility. Identify the things that matter- don't just throw in everything that you lost on. Of course, Lanasa is appealing all issues. If you take one thing out of this, it is this- don't take your bad issues to the appellate court.
Let's start with what was noticeable. When you appeal, you always tell the Court what the standard for the appeal is. So when I got to pages 30-33 of the brief, I was mortified. You don't tell the appellate court what the district court's standard is. You don't say that the district court's standard on a ruling was X. You say, "The standard of review is de novo, as the lower tribunal dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim." Or that the standard of review for service of process is abuse of discretion. The appellate court doesn't care about the standard applied by the district court (unless the court applied the wrong standard), they only care about the standard that they are applying.
Next, the first argument (about service on the spouse) is terrible. It shouldn't have been made, and it's worse because it's the first thing the appellate court sees. The argument should be that the lower court should have provided an extension to serve, not that "no service is actually service, under an abuse of discretion standard." But given that the standard wasn't provided (or known?) it isn't surprising that this argument is so bad.
The second argument (defamation) should be the strongest argument, but somehow it is made weakly. It makes the classic mistake of not sticking to the order being appealed, and instead makes a general free-roaming argument. It's filled with bizarre footnotes that don't help. It repeatedly cites to the FIRST Amended Complaint for allegations, and again, that Complaint doesn't matter. This could have been a good argument- and it's the one that might have merit, but I couldn't follow it. At all. It's terrible. It doesn't address the specific issues (what are the allegations, specifically, and what is hidden in youtube videos, etc.).The only possible issue is briefly addressed and hidden, where Lanasa makes the argument that simply asserting a statement is false is sufficient at this stage (pp. 19-20). Which, if a correct statement of the law, should have been the primary argument.
EDIT: The struck out portion has been re-evaluated after I looked at it again. Look at comment #15 for my updated view after I spent a few minutes and looked at the law.
IIED and prima facie? Ugh. I have to admire the chutzpah of someone who claims that an affidavit attached to a response to a motion to dismiss is an "allegation" in a complaint. That's not true. Again, credibility.
Finally, the leave to amend argument.. The problem with this is that instead of focusing on the issue in the order on the Motion to Dismiss (failure to request leave, etc.), this is just a bizarre attempt to re-argue the service argument. NO. ARGHH! YOU ALREADY ARGUED THIS POORLY. There is a lot of good case law on leave to amend, this is something that should have been competently argued. Not even close. When you read it, you feel that the brief isn't even arguing the order, and worry that Lanasa didn't read the order.
Appeals are about raising specific issues. It's not about the airing of grievances. This is a terrible brief. It doesn't mean that it is destined to lose, but a brief like this makes it so much harder to win an appeal. The appellate court doesn't care about your case. They want to know what specific legal issues you are raising, and what are the specific facts in the record needed to support your legal issues.
One more thing- if you're wondering why I keep referring to things "Lanasa" did when it was his attorney, that is just how we refer to things. Unless there is a very good reason, we refer to parties, not their counsel.
Mod Edit: fixed your spoiler tag
Appellant Brief (nuTSR, Tenkar)
Snarf Zagyg submitted a new resource: Appellant Brief (nuTSR, Tenkar) - The Defamation Case By LaNasa- First Brief The brief filed on behalf of Justin LaNasa. Read more about this resource...
www.enworld.org
The opinion from the lower court that is being appealed is here:
District Court Opinion (nuTSR, Tenkar)
Okay! I know most of you aren't going to look at them, but still, you should. First, a quick overview of the trial court (also called the lower court's) opinion. It dismissed, with prejudice (that means no more litigation for you, buddy) a Complaint by Justin Lanasa (and some corporate entities) against Tenkar (not his actual name) and Tenkar's Wife ("Spouse").
1. The District Court Opinion.
Before understanding the appeal, you have to understand what is being appealed! Lanasa filed a complaint alleging torts (those are civil claims, not pastries) against Tenkar. The complaint is Lanasa's version of events. After "motion practice" (lawyers writing a bunch of things, and the judge wishing he was fishing) Lanasa was on his Second Amended Complaint (which is the THIRD complaint). The Third Complaint alleged three torts- defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and "prima facie tort," which means... I don't know what exactly the person did, but it's wrong, dang it, and I'm not going to take it anymore!
The judge had to rule on the following issues:
1. Does the Court have subject matter jurisdiction? In other words, can the court even listen to these people arguing?
2. Was the spouse properly served? Lanasa tried to sue Tenkar's mom first, and then tried to sue his spouse, but never served her. Which requires dancing and stuff.
3. Does New York's anti-SLAPP law apply? An anti-SLAPP law is a law to allow people to strike back at frivolous defamation claims that seek to silence them.
4. Do any of the torts "state a claim"? On a motion to dismiss, you have to accept Lanasa's facts, but if you accept the facts as true, does he still have a case?
5. Will the Court let him amend the complaint again?
The Court found as follows:
1. The Court has subject matter jurisdiction. Because of money and diversity. Really.
2. The dismissal of the spouse was proper because she was never served, and Lanasa's attorney knew about the problem, but still couldn't get the deadlines correct. In addition, when the Court granted leave to Lanasa to amend the last time, it was only leave to amend Tenkar's mom, not add his spouse. This one seems simple- you don't serve someone, the Court must dismiss the claims against them. Normally, you could amend, but the Court was not pleased with the ... antics.
3. The anti-SLAPP law does not apply, for reasons involving "substance" and "procedure." To explain this would require me to explain Erie, and I'm not going to inflict that on you. But federal courts have been like, "Naw, you don't get that in federal court. Take it to state court."
On the failure to state a claim...
4. Lanasa cannot state a claim for defamation. This is a close call given the motion to dismiss standards. While the Court does a thorough job going through the issues related to opinion and name-calling, and the pleading standards, there is at least some argument regarding the Court's analysis on the failure to plead an element issue (pp. 23-25). To try and simplify this for everyone-
The Court thoroughly trashed most of the allegations as being either (1) opinion, or (2) mere name-calling. My favorite example is as follows (I am putting this in spoiler because although it is from a court document, and the relevant language has appropriate asterisks, I am giving you a heads-up that it contains partially edited, but identifiable, vulgar language)-
{Although LaNasa alleged Defendant made statements such as} LaNasa was an “ignorant c**t” and that {Defendant} “just told {LaNasa} that she would grow a c**k so {LaNasa} could eat that c**k,” are unquestionably vulgar, they lack objective truth value and thus cannot be defamation.
That's called ... understatement, if you know what I mean. That said, if there was any possible daylight in the appeal, it's that the Court acknowledges that there is at least one statement that might be defamatory, but notes that LaNasa failed to plead the required falsity as a factual matter, instead just asserting falsity as boilerplate.
To illustrate the difference, imagine someone is bringing a defamation claim against a newspaper for a false allegation that they were being investigated by law enforcement for unicorn murderin'. You would plead something like the following:
a. The Article makes the following defamatory statement about Bugs Bunny:
The ToonTown Unicorn Murdering Task Force showed up at ACME headquarters and went to CEO, Wile E. Coyote's office, not to investigate Mr. Coyote, but to gather information on Bugs Bunny in order to charge him for multiple unicorn murders.
b. Mr. Coyote did meet with the ToonTown Unicorn Murdering Task Force, but the discussion between Mr. Coyote and the Task Force agents was only the possibility of using ACME devices to catch unicorn murderers.
c. Mr. Coyote has stated that during the conversation about ACME devices the only name that came up was Mr. Beep-Beep Roadrunner.
Now, imagine you have the above, and then replace (2) in there with the following instead-
2. This is a knowingly, malicious, and intentionally false statement.
In other words, you can't just assert a statement is false, you have to provide some minimal factual support as to why it is false. So no claim for defamation as a matter of law. There is another issue lurking, however. It's that Lanasa didn't include a lot of the supposedly defamatory statements in the complaint, but instead just linked, generally, to youtube videos. NO. You can't do that. As the Court explained, you have to put that in the allegations for the Court, not just say, "Here's a youtube video, why don't you have your clerks find the defamation?" Because clerks use youtube for cat videos, not for your legal research.
5. Lanasa cannot state a claim for intention infliction of emotional distress ("IIED"). Big nope on that as well. Under New York law (federal courts apply the substantive law of the state) this is always going to be loser; see Chanko (explaining that the standard for IIED was unmet in every case that the court had considered). In addition, defamatory statements will almost never support an independent IIED claim.
6. Lanasa cannot state a claim for a Prima Facie. Just ... no. This isn't going anywhere on appeal. As every first-year associate is told, "It's never RICO, and it's never a prima facie tort. But it's more likely to be RICO than a prima facie tort." If you see someone plead a prima facie tort, you seem someone throwing stuff at the wall, hoping something sticks.
7. Lanasa is all outta amendments. The main issue that normally would succeed is that Courts normally will allow amendments liberally*, but the Court explained in detail why the dismissal was with prejudice. First, Lanasa never responded to the argument that dismissal should be with prejudice, or requested leave to amend. Which is sufficient to dismiss with prejudice. Moreover the Court explains why, even if he had (which he did not) there is no reason to believe that a fourth amendment would state a claim (aka, futility). In other words ... just stop. Please, stop.
*How liberally? I am currently waiting for some mook's SEVENTH amended complaint ... that means its number eight. Kill me now.
2. The Lanasa Brief!
So now we are at the brief. Because after you lose that spectacularly, why not double down?
Let's go through this. The first page is the title page. It gives you a bunch of useful information.
The case number (24-1325).
The litigants and their posture- Justin LaNasa et al., hereafter "Lanasa" is called the appellant- the appellant is the party that is appealing a decision from the lower court, while .. I won't use the actual names, but Tenkar is the appellee, who is defending the decision from the lower court.
It tells you that this is an appeal from the "trial court" which is a federal court in New York (EDNY, the Eastern District of New York).
And the appeal is with the Second Circuit, which is the federal appellate court for New York and other states in the area.
Finally, this is the opening brief. There will be three "briefs" which are the written arguments- the appellant gets the opening, then the appellee gets a response, and finally the appellant gets a short reply brief.
After that, you will see the table of contents (where everything is at).
The table of authorities (all the cases, statutes, rules, and, um, other things that are cited in the brief).
The questions presented, which are the issues for the appellate court to decide.
And a statement pursuant to FRAP 28(a), which is basically a procedural statement explaining how we got here. 1. Of course, Lanasa doesn't doesn't follow the requirements of an initial brief under FRAP (Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure) 28. There is supposed to be a jurisdictional statement (Br. 9-10), and while it kinda sorta does the timeliness thing, it doesn't have the basic "this is the district court's jurisdiction, this is the appellate court's jurisdiction, this is the final order that disposed the claims." Basic stuff.
After that, you get to the meet of the brief. This consists of two main sections:
A. The Facts. These are facts that are in the "record" (stuff in the file with the lower court) that you saying are relevant to the case.
B. The Argument. Why the appellant court should rule in your favor.
A. The Facts Worry Me.
The appellate court confines itself to "the record," which are the documents filed with the lower court. Every practitioner knows that you do two things with the facts section. First, you make sure to hit all the facts for your issues that you are appealing. Second, you arrange your facts in such a way to be persuasive, but you DO NOT ARGUE in your facts. You want the facts to make an argument for you, but you never, ever, ever, argue in your facts. And you keep to THE RECORD. Every sentence should be a citation to THE RECORD. So ... what do we see?
Oh noes. There is an "introduction" pp. 10-17 that goes on for fourteen pages, just arguing. Not citing the record. Just asserting, and arguing, and linking to youtube, and even quoting law and random articles. DANGER. Oh, and website citations, that aren't in the record. And facts ... that aren't in the record! SO MANY ASSERTIONS AND FACTS THAT YOU AREN'T ALLOWED TO USE. I am having a near-stroke reading it. Also? The law? New York and the 2d Circuit (lawyers abbreviate weird) has a lot of law. But most of the legal citations aren't applicable! They are to Delaware, or unpublished opinions, or the 4th Circuit. And it's all a policy argument. I want to cry.
In addition, Lanasa is also citing the First Amended Complaint repeatedly. THAT DOESN'T MATTER. It doesn't exist. They are here on the SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT. Which might be fine, sometimes, but they are using it for factual allegations, which is assuredly NOT FINE.
It then goes into detailed facts, and those are no better (pp. 17-24). I honestly don't know how to tie any of this into the legal arguments. Bad. Bad. Bad facts.
Pages 24-29 are procedural, but also misstate what is in the opinion. Which is not good, given the appellate court will read it, and the response brief will make hay out of it. In addition, it repeatedly attacks the trial court- which is not only poor form, but tends to make the appellate judges unhappy. Never make it personal.
B. But the Fact are Better than the Legal Arguments.
Let's start with a basic issue. Appellate arguments are not "kitchen sink" arguments. You don't appeal everything because you can. You appeal the best issues, because otherwise you lose credibility. Identify the things that matter- don't just throw in everything that you lost on. Of course, Lanasa is appealing all issues. If you take one thing out of this, it is this- don't take your bad issues to the appellate court.
Let's start with what was noticeable. When you appeal, you always tell the Court what the standard for the appeal is. So when I got to pages 30-33 of the brief, I was mortified. You don't tell the appellate court what the district court's standard is. You don't say that the district court's standard on a ruling was X. You say, "The standard of review is de novo, as the lower tribunal dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim." Or that the standard of review for service of process is abuse of discretion. The appellate court doesn't care about the standard applied by the district court (unless the court applied the wrong standard), they only care about the standard that they are applying.
Next, the first argument (about service on the spouse) is terrible. It shouldn't have been made, and it's worse because it's the first thing the appellate court sees. The argument should be that the lower court should have provided an extension to serve, not that "no service is actually service, under an abuse of discretion standard." But given that the standard wasn't provided (or known?) it isn't surprising that this argument is so bad.
The second argument (defamation) should be the strongest argument, but somehow it is made weakly. It makes the classic mistake of not sticking to the order being appealed, and instead makes a general free-roaming argument. It's filled with bizarre footnotes that don't help. It repeatedly cites to the FIRST Amended Complaint for allegations, and again, that Complaint doesn't matter. This could have been a good argument- and it's the one that might have merit, but I couldn't follow it. At all. It's terrible. It doesn't address the specific issues (what are the allegations, specifically, and what is hidden in youtube videos, etc.).
EDIT: The struck out portion has been re-evaluated after I looked at it again. Look at comment #15 for my updated view after I spent a few minutes and looked at the law.
IIED and prima facie? Ugh. I have to admire the chutzpah of someone who claims that an affidavit attached to a response to a motion to dismiss is an "allegation" in a complaint. That's not true. Again, credibility.
Finally, the leave to amend argument.. The problem with this is that instead of focusing on the issue in the order on the Motion to Dismiss (failure to request leave, etc.), this is just a bizarre attempt to re-argue the service argument. NO. ARGHH! YOU ALREADY ARGUED THIS POORLY. There is a lot of good case law on leave to amend, this is something that should have been competently argued. Not even close. When you read it, you feel that the brief isn't even arguing the order, and worry that Lanasa didn't read the order.
Appeals are about raising specific issues. It's not about the airing of grievances. This is a terrible brief. It doesn't mean that it is destined to lose, but a brief like this makes it so much harder to win an appeal. The appellate court doesn't care about your case. They want to know what specific legal issues you are raising, and what are the specific facts in the record needed to support your legal issues.
One more thing- if you're wondering why I keep referring to things "Lanasa" did when it was his attorney, that is just how we refer to things. Unless there is a very good reason, we refer to parties, not their counsel.
Mod Edit: fixed your spoiler tag
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