The Wood Pile

Back in the day when I was still doing some matrimonial trials, I had a case which should have lasted, at most, one-day. In fact, it should never have gone to trial at all, it was so eminently settleable. The kids in this farm family were nearly grown up and custody and access were not in issue, the parties’ incomes were close enough that there wasn’t much tussling about support, and the “big picture” property issues were pretty easy to sort. But not the “nickle and dime” stuff.

The lawyer on the other side was professional, reasonable, but stalwart for her client’s best interests. The judge was experienced and fair, and ran a tight courtroom, not putting up with nonsense. But when we got down to the firewood, things spiraled out of control.

The reality is that both parties had been spoiling for a fight, and a fight they were going to have. The hill upon which they both determined to stand and die was a stack of firewood, perhaps five or six stove cords. Worth roughly the same as an hour or two of legal fees, maybe less.

From what I recollect, it was a fairly ordinary stack of good-quality Ontario hardwood– maple, ash, oak, beech, birch, elm… all the usual stuff. Except that the husband had cut, split, and piled the stuff himself from the family farm, and had the slivers and blisters to prove it. The fact that the wife was going to keep the farmhouse and he was moving into a home in town with no stove or no fireplace was irrelevant to my client. That pile of wood was personal, very personal, and there was no way on God’s Green Earth that his Ex was going to have so much as a stick of it.

What did he plan to do with the wood? Load it up on a trailer and offer it for sale? Somebody else was going to burn it and enjoy the warmth, but not the wife. If he had to, he’d take it to the dump or go to a friend’s farm and burn it in the field.

He wouldn’t budge, but neither would she. If I recollect, the lawyers offered to buy the stuff themselves, and I’m sure the judge would have done the same, if he could. The pain of it all was too much.

Counsel was hauled back into the judge’s chambers for the usual lecture, but even for His Honour there wasn’t much to be done but go back into battle. Everything else, already agreed, came off the table, and we duked it out over every nickel and dime, cup and saucer. We were there for the better part of a week.

The judge decided, to nobody’s surprise, that the woodpile stayed with the farm. My client was outraged, and even more so with his “astronomical legal bill”. He demanded a huge reduction, and I wouldn’t budge. We ended up in front of the assessment officer, and I didn’t lose a penny. This, of course, only confirmed to my client that the whole world was in conspiracy against him. His only satisfaction, for what it was worth, was that his Ex also had a legal bill several times larger than was necessary. The court had not awarded costs to either party, given that it takes two to engage in a spitting match.

The client wouldn’t pay his bill, so I simply lodged a lien on the title to his new house, and waited it out until he refinanced in three years. In those days interest was running at over thirteen percent, better than the stock market, so I didn’t mind.

It didn’t need to be.

We are indeed strange beings, choosing to fight and die over the most inconsequential things. And then we whine when the entirely foreseeable outcome arrives. If the price of our stubbornness is too high, it can’t be our own fault, can it?