English teacher loses her mother's entire estate after her lawyer turns out to be a former student who uses case to settle the score

Author image for Sienna Varady
Sienna Varady
May 23, 2024 1:00 PM EDT

Some people consider their high school years to be some of the best they have ever experienced, while others detest the memory of those years and everyone who contributed to making them so challenging to endure.

The story down below is an account of a frustrated lawyer.  The original poster (OP), who is a lawyer, recently took on an estate matter that piqued his interest. The case was going well at first, and the OP was largely happy with the direction it was going. But as soon as OP discovered who the client was, things quickly spiraled out of control. When OP found out that he was taking care of her estate case, he saw this as the ideal chance to get back with his ninth-grade teacher for all the years he had been mistreated under her watch.

Having said that, make sure you check out the story below if you're interested in learning the specifics of what happened and how OP settles the score! After you're done reading, remember to check out the account of the customer who takes up three seats on the plane and ignores the flight attendant's pleas to make room for a mother with a newborn!

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    "What comes around goes around..."
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    A lawyer's petty revenge on his grade 9 English teacher
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    The revenge I took on my grade nine English teacher was so petty that I hesitate to write about it. But Mrs. Bristle (for that is the name I will give her) was cruel to me every chance she got, and she made my first year in high school a misery. So when a file with her name on it arrived at my office, my first thought was not that I would b ther (for I was certain that I would) but rather, of the revenge I would take along the way.
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    I was pushing forty when Mrs. Bristle's file hit my desk, some estate litigation where a mother's last will and testament left my clients next to nothing, and gave their sister, Mrs. Bristle, pretty well the entire estate. When I saw the defendant's name it looked familiar, and after a bit of Googling, I confirmed what I suspected: the defendant, Mrs. Bristle, was my former grade nine English teacher.
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    I remembered Mrs. Bristle very well. She was supposed to be teaching us the wonders of English literature, but what she really taught us were her rules, by which she meant her arbitrary whims, expressed in vague language, backed up by petty punishments for non-compliance. There was an art to getting along with Mrs. Bristle, and while most of the other kids learned it easily enough, somehow I did not. I have trouble learning unwritten rules, and in Mrs. Bristle's
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    class where unwritten and constantly changing rules were the order of the day, I didn't stand a chance. Mrs. Bristle admonished me almost daily for 'not paying attention'. I did detentions, re-wrote assignments, and made visits to the principal's office, all because I apparently wasn't listening, wasn't doing what I was told. Many was the time when Mrs. Bristle took me to task for missing some obvious but unstated part
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    of an assignment. One time I handed in a sonnet, and received an "F" because the rhyming pattern was Petrarchan, not Shakespearean. But she would be nice to me, Mrs. Bristle would always say when she tossed my work back at me. She would give me another chance to hand the assignment in with the arbitrary changes she required, in the end giving me a good mark, but then heavily downgraded for being late.
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    Mrs. Bristle's case worked its way through the early stages, and every time I exchanged an email with her (for she was a self-rep, no need for counsel, she claimed) I thought about the unpleasant time I'd spent in her class. I had a rough time in high school, and I always resent anything that makes me dwell on it.
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    one sibling against four, undue influence, holograph will cutting out most of the siblings, competing with an older will, a formal one, where the shares are equal." Adam nodded appreciatively. "Nice fees, if the estate's got the cash." "It does," I said. We chatted for a bit, and then sat there in silence as we each did the last bit of prep for the cases we had that day, making notes, reading documents and drinking coffee.
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    My alarm dinged just before ten, and I made my way to the examination room, and Mrs. Bristle, the teacher who'd greatly disliked the grade nine version of Calledinthe90s. I was curious to see if she would like the older version any better. *** The examination started, and Mrs. Bristle and I sparred for a while, me tossing vague questions her way, and criticizing her when she did not understand. I kept her on the defensive for close
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    to three hours, until it was getting on to one p.m. "Aren't you in a conflict or something?" she said to me just before the lunch break, when she'd finally made the connection, and understood that the lawyer asking her questions was a former student. "No conflict," I said, dismissing her concerns with a wave of my hand. "During the lunch break, there's something I need you to do."
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    "I don't want to answer questions during lunch. I need a break." The examination had been rough on Mrs. Bristle. She was not used to being asked questions, to being held to account, to being constantly challenged, and even having her grammar corrected now and again. "You'll get your lunch break. But while you're eating a sandwich or whatever, keep this copy of the holograph will next to you.” The will on which
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    Mrs. Bristle's case relied was a holograph will, meaning that Mrs. Bristle's mother had written the will entirely in hand from start to finish. The mother, or more likely, Mrs. Bristle herself, had downloaded a holograph will form from the web, and had completed it in accordance with the website's instructions. Holograph wills are special. You can do a holograph will without a witness, without a lawyer, without anything at all, so long as you did it right. But if you got anything wrong, if you m
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    "You want me to read the will again over lunch?” Mrs. Bristle said. "No. Instead, I want you to make a handwritten copy of it." “You want me to write it out? Whatever for?" "There's an allegation that the will wasn't written by your mother, and that you wrote it up instead.” An allegation that I'd made up myself, that morning, while I was sitting in the lawyer's
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    lounge, drinking coffee and munching on a muffin. My clients had not challenged the will's handwriting; it was obviously their mother's, totally different from Mrs. Bristle's own writing. But I had decided otherwise. Mrs. Bristle was appropriately outraged at being unjustly accused of forgery. Said she could prove it wasn't her handwriting, could absolutely prove it.
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    "Then let's settle the forgery issue once and for all," I said, “write out the will in your own hand, so that our document experts can examine it, compare it with the original, and make a determination." "I don't need the entire lunch break for that," Mrs. Bristle said, "and I'd rather eat lunch at the restaurant downstairs." The will was barely a page long, at most three hundred words, that being all it took for the mother to allegedly
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    disinherit most of her children, and inexplicably leave everything to Mrs. Bristle. The mother had written up the will herself, but she'd been ninety at the time, while living in Mrs. Bristle's house, and very much under her influence. "I've retained five different experts," I said, "and each of them will need copies.” "Five experts? Why so many experts?” "Each expert needs ten samples, for comparison purposes. It's going to take you a while, Mrs.
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    Bristle. I suggest you get started." I overrode her protests and once she started to write, I left her in the room, and went to the lawyer's lounge to eat their small sandwiches and drink more of the excellent coffee. After a while I stopped by the examination room to look in on Mrs. Bristle. I wanted to check in on her progress. Mrs. Bristle asked for more time, complained of writer's cramp, and asked me again if it was really necessary for her to write out the holograph will fifty times in her
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    assured her that there was nothing for it, that it was absolutely necessary. I returned to the lounge to check my emails, leaving her hard at the homework I'd given her. After a while my colleague, Adam, popped into the lounge. He asked me how it was going, the examination with the teacher, the teacher who had treated me so badly. "I'm making her write lines." Adam laughed, and laughed harder when I explained that I wasn't kidding, that I really was making Mrs. Bristle
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    write lines, and how I was doing it. His laughter attracted attention, and a few other lawyers asked what was up. “He's making his teacher witness write lines," Adam said, and the lawyer's lounge hooted with laughter when I told everyone what was up. It was one of the pettiest things I've ever done to anyone, making my grade nine teacher write lines. But the writing lines thing was just a warmup. The real revenge had yet to come. I returned to the examination room after a while,
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    to check up on Mrs. Bristle, see how she was doing. "This is taking forever," she said, “and I really don't get why you need it." She had writer's cramp, and was shaking her hand to get the kinks out. I picked up the stack of holograph wills she'd created, and flipped through it. She was nowhere near finished. "On second thought,” I said, “maybe it isn't necessary. I think you're right. I don't need any
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    handwriting samples from you." "Why not?" she said. "The will is invalid," I explained, adding that because her mother had used a pre-printed form off the web, the law would not recognize the will. "A holograph will has to be entirely in the testator's handwriting,” I explained, "every single word entirely in handwriting from start to finish. This will doesn't qualify, because your mother used a standard form, a form printed off the
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    web, with instructions and boxes and questions and so on, and when you do that, then the will is no longer a holograph will. It's a regular will, and regular wills need to be properly witnessed. This one isn't witnessed, and that means it's not a will. It's just a piece of paper.” "Are you trying to tell me that you only figured that out now? What kind of lawyer are you, anyways?" "What kind of lawyer am I? I'm a lawyer who makes a witness skip lunch, and sit in a small
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    room all alone, and write lines. Sound familiar, Mrs. Bristle?” She said nothing, and just stared at me. I closed the door on her, leaving her alone once more, and left for the Middle Temple Tavern where the lawyers all hung out. It was time to hoist a Guinness and enjoy my petty triumph.
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