Dear Mr. Garmel,

Thank you for your letter. I am pleased that communication
between us has revived, and I promise not to impose on you
with overly lengthy correspondence.

This coming November, my litigation with the Town will enter
its eleventh year, intellectually and emotionally an experience
more rewarding than plumbing, or for that matter, than many other
enterprises on which I might have spent my time. I took the
opportunity to publish six volumes of fiction,
http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AErnst%20Jochen%20Meyer
which, since they are all written in German, are functionally
inaccessible to the defendants - and to the judges - who, it
turns out have considerable difficulty even with the English
language.

As for the lawsuit itself, the first Appeals Court ruling
prohibited me from doing my own plumbing, but also prohibited 
the Town from destroying the plumbing unless the destruction
was warranted by an "inspection of fairness and integrity." 
Such an inspection proved to be beyond the Town's capacity. 
There ensued a wildly improper examination, with an encyclopedic 
listing of non-existing deficiencies, a travesty with which the 
Superior Court wrestled for almost two years before sending
the controversy back to the plumbing board which endorsed
the inspection. The plumbing board in turn was sustained by
a ruling of the Superior Court which would make George Orwell
green with envy,
http://home.earthlink.net/~ej2meyer/litigation/brief01
and it is this ruling which was decisively reversed by the
Appeals Court's second opinion.

This second appellate opinion sends the controversy back to
the plumbing board, but with instructions, which if they are
observed, are tantamount to a directed verdict in my favor.
Specifically, the Appeals Court ruling permits no further
inspections, but requires the Plumbing Board to rely for
charges of specific deficiencies, solely on an existing 
Inspection Report and Condemnation Order which on the face 
of it, is wholly deficient of the required "detailed findings 
and reasoning". The Appeals Court ruling also permits no
additional evidence but requires the Plumbing Board to rely 
for evidence only on 35 photos taken at random by the Town, 
on the premise that all my plumbing was by definition defective.
The Board, which scrutinized these 35 photos at the first 
Jearing.could find specific defects in only three, and these
three alleged deficiencies, if logic prevailed, would be the
only issues in the August 6th plumbing board Hearing. I have
two expert witnesses who will testify that they see no
substantial specific deficiencies on any of the photos.

If logic prevailed, the controversy would already have been
resolved in my favor.  But logic doesn't prevail. What I've
learned is that not only the Town of Nantucket, but also the
Plumbing Board, the Superior Court and the Attorney General
ignore the Appeals Court. Even now, I'm as uncertain of the
outcome as if I were gambling in Las Vegas.

Dear Mr. Garmel, I've almost broken my promise not to write
you too long a letter. Please feel no need to answer. My very
best wishes to you and to your family. Please stay healthy and
happy. I'll let you know how the plumbing board rules and tell
you what happens next.

Sincerely,
Ernst Meyer