20161004.02ack
1. Your honor: I represent myself as appellant in this controversy.
The issue in this appeal is the interpretation of an order issued by this Court
three years ago in 2013-P-1536. 

2. The Appeals Court ruled as follows: 

"The judgment is reversed. 
We remand this case to the Superior Court for entry of a new judgment 
that directs the board to conduct a hearing to determine 
whether the order that the plumbing must be completely removed 
is justified by the specific violations that are noted 
in the inspection report and substantiated by photos. 
Both parties are required to provide competent evidence to the board 
concerning the effect of the deficiencies 
and whether they support an order to completely remove the plumbing. 
The board shall be directed to make specific findings 
about why the entire system needs to be removed or,
if that is not necessary, what needs to be fixed by a plumber."

3. With this order the Appeals Court was responding to an effort, 
now of 8 years standing, by the Board and by the Town,
to secure the destruction of plumbing
I installed 10 years ago without a plumbing permit
at 3 Red Barn Road on Nantucket.

4. This controversy is now before the Court for the third time. 

a. The first appeal was from a destruction order in the absence 
of any inspection at all.

b. The second appeal was from a Superior Court judgment that
confirmed a destruction order in which the Board stated that
it had not reached a decision as to whether destruction 
was necessary.
 
c. This third appeal concerns the Hearing which the Appeals Court
then ordered; at which the Hearing it required the parties to correlate 
specific deficiencies, if any, 
listed in the plumbing inspector's Inspection Report and Condemnation Order
with specific deficiencies demonstrable on one or more of the 35 photographs.

5. Subsequent to the Hearing, the Board issued a report which identified
"poor workmanship" as the only deficiency cited in the Inspection Report,
claiming that poor workmanship was a specific deficiency. 

6. I argue that poor workmanship is not a specific deficiency 
because poor workmanship is a description insufficient 
to enable a licensed plumber to identify repairs
required to make the system code compliant.
Poor workmanship is a non-specific deficiency
which can be remedied only by replacing the entire system, 
the need for which the Appeals Court would not
permit to be taken for granted.
Since poor workmanship is the only deficiency cited and
in the context of the Appeals Court order,
poor workmanship does not qualify as a specific deficiency,
the defendant's claim that „poor workmanship“ is the (only) „specific“ deficit  
serves as a concession that there is no case.
No further argument is required.

7. However, given the Superior Court's imperviousness to that argument,
I must continue: I argue that the August 6, 2014 Hearing was invalid, 
because the Board ignored all testimony at the Hearing
the Board did not hear, 
but made its ruling on reliance of a secret re-interpretation 
of an exhibit which had been in its possession for two and a half years, 
a secret re-interpretation
which I, as appellant, never had an opportunity to rebut.
I assert that the Board's Final Decision and Order
is not responsive to testimony at the Hearing.

8. Assuming arguendo, as the Superior Court found, 
that the Board was indeed responding to testimony given at the Hearing, 
then that testimony becomes relevant as do the procedural irregularities.

Meyer's first witness was Christopher Gordon, a licensed plumber
who had paid the Town $560 for a plumbing permit but was prohibited
by the Inspector from doing any work on Meyer's installation either
in preparation for or subsequent to the Inspection. Gordon testified
that he found a few deficiencies which could be easily rectified,
none of which required removal of the entire system, and which would
not affect the functioning of the system if left unchanged. Gordon's
testimony was partially lost, because the audio recording furnished
Meyer by the Board lacked the sound trach from the microphone closest
to Gordon. Both the Board and the Town failed to cross-examine Gordon
or otherwise challenge his testimony.

My second witness Anthony Esposito, a Massachusetts registered civil
engineer was prohibited from testifying for me because he was not a
plumber, circumstance which did not disqualify him from being asked
to testify against me.

Nantucket's only witness was Mr. Edmund Ramos, who was presented to the
Board as an "Assistant Inspector" although the General Laws make no
provisions of "assistant plumbing inspectors", his name is not listed on
the roster of Nantucket officials and he testfied that he is concurrently
engaged in the plumbing trade on Nantucket. Mr. Ramos testified to seeing
"faulty pitch" on 33 of the 35 photos. He dismissed the Inspection
Report and the Plumbing Code as "paperwork". He quoted no specific  
deficiencies cited in the Inspection Report. He admitted concerning
Photo #1, that he couldn't tell from looking at the photo which pipe
was pitching the wrong way, but he knew that faulty pitch was present.
Mr. Kilb, the attorney for the Board clarified Mr. Ramos testimony to
the effect that Mr. Ramos was testifying not only what he saw on the
photos but what he remembered from the inspection four years previously,
an hypothesis which Mr. Ramos confirmed. Chairman Kennedy cautioned
Mr.Ramos not to report seeing too much on the photos, since one can't
really see many deficiencies unless one is in their presence.

My rejoinder is that "faulty pitch" cannot be assessed with the unaided
eye even in physical presence, much less on a photograph. I argue that 
Mr. Ramos' report of seeing faulty pitch unaided is spectral evidence, 
evidence from dreams, fantasy or imagination, which has been banned in 
Massachusetts since October 1692.

9. The testimony was subject to serious procedural irregularities,
specifically,
a. that Meyer's witness Gordon was not permitted to rebut the testimony
of Nantucket's witness, Mr. Ramos,
b. that Meyer's witness Mr. Esposito was found unqualified to testify for
Meyer, but was qualified to testify against Meyer.

10. The Superior Court's finding that these irregularities did not prejudice
Meyer because they properly excluded cumulative evidence reflects the
assumption that the Board had the authority to make a ruling independent
of all evidence presented at the Hearing, i.e., arbitrarily.

11. Turning now to the Board's secret re-interpretation of what
it claimed to see in the photos, 
I note that there were before the Board three contradictory interpretations,
those of Gordon, Ramos, and its own prior interpretation, 
to which, in order to support its order that the plumbing be destroyed,
it added then a fourth.
To support my assertion that what the Board purported to see in the 35 photos
is untruthful, irresponsible and malicious fantasy, I motioned the Superior
Court for permission to file an appendix consisting:
a) of a synopsis of four contradictory interpretations of the 35 photos, 
given in sworn testimony or on file at the Hearing, to which I added 
my own comments on the Board's second and final photo-interpretation 
which had been concealed from me,
b) a set of publically available documents concerning 
i) visual perspective,
ii) projective visual tests such as the familiar Rorschach ink blot test,
iii) the definition of "full S-trap"
iv) Appeals Court opinions in the two previous appeals, and
v) the U.S. Supreme Court Decision in FTC v. North Carolina Board of
Dental Examiners.
The circumstance that the Superior Court denied my motion to file this
appendix and gave to the Attorney for Nantucket verbal assurances,
documented in the transcript of the Superior Court Hearing, that it
would take no notice of items in the Appendix raises the question to
what extent, if any, the trial court is obligated to take notice of 
relevant publically available information, where such notice would 
be determinative of the outcome of a proceeding. 

12. The Board's assertion that the installation must be destroyed because
the large number of alleged deficiencies makes the repair impossible is
incongruous. Assuming, as Mr. Ramos claimed, 90 percent of the installation
required removal, then the remaining 10 percent which would not require
removal would, by definition be code compliant and would differ in no way
from the initial 10 percent of a new code compliant installation. If Meyer's
10 percent code compliant installation could not be completed for what ever 
reason, then neither could a new installation hypothetically code compliant
but only 10 percent complete. In fact, if my hypothetically 10 percent
code compliant installation could not be completed, then no other plumbing 
installation at the same 10 percent stage could ever be completed.

13. I argue that FTC v. NC Board of Dental Examiners is on all fours with
my assertion that where a majority of the plumbing board and its chairman
are competing in the trade that they regulate, and where the Commonwealth
flagrantly fails to enforce the Boards prohibition of do-it-yourself plumbing,
and where there is no precedent of interposition to Federal law by
Massachusetts, the Appeals Court should declare that do-it-yourself plumbing
is not illegal.

14. Unless it dismisses my appeal, then when it fashions relief, the following
facts, documented in the record before it, become relevant:
a) that in the Nantucket plumbing inspectors office there is posted a list
of addresses for which the routine issuance of plumbing permits is prohibited,
b) that the Nantucket plumbing inspector refused for 50 days to issue a
permit to Christopher Gordon to perform the plumbing at 3 Red Barn Road,
even when the issuance of such a permit was mandated by the Appeals Court.
c) the Plumbing Board regularly revokes the license of a plumber who does
plumbing without a permit.
d) Plumbing permits are issued by the Inspector at his pleasure
and the Inspector's refusal to issue a plumbing permit may destroy
a plumber's business.
e) Therefore a plumber who is not a fool, - to use the Chairman's word
for Mr. Gordon, will curry the Inspector's favor.
f) The Nantucket plumbing inspector's order to plumbers under his jurisdiction
to boycott my installation was breached only by Mr. Gordon, who was immune
to retribution because he was about to move to Florida.
g) The Town resorted to fictitious evidence in legal actions
against me for the past 12 years.
h) The plumbing inspector is an employee of the Town of Nantucket.
i) The Town has used and is using legal process as an instrument of attrition.
j) The Town has consistently flaunted the Appeals Court directives
and misused judicial procedure
j1) by failing to provide and Inspection of Integrity and Fairness
with a report of detailed findings and reasoning, 
j2) by filing as an Inspection Report a tract of fictitious propaganda,
where propaganda is technically defined as
"the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, 
manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response
that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist."
j3) by making no attempt at all to identify specific deficiencies 
cited in the Inspection Report and demonstrated on photos
but presenting only one witness who dismissed the plumbing code 
and the inspection report as paperwork.