If You Don't Get It, You Don't Get It

John Ehrlichman's Attorney: How do you know that, Mr. Chairman?

Senator Sam Ervin: Because I can understand the English language. It's my mother's tongue.

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Attorney:  How do you know that, Mr. Freedman?

Freedman:  Because I have common sense and I know how things work in the real world.

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I received the following message from a lawyer:

"The information that my client used to draft the legal notice is based off of the information and experience provided by my client's professional/expert third party contractor.  I have no information with regard to the guest suite, but with all due respect you have no expertise or knowledge to simply assert that there is no causal connection between you and the guest suite.  I have no such expertise or knowledge to make or disavow any causal connection.  I rely on my client's third party contractor to make those determinations."

My response?

No expertise, no special knowledge is required here.  All a person needs is common sense.

In a situation where a contractor issues a self-serving report calculated to shift all blame for his incompetence onto a third-party beneficiary, common sense says that he will pounce on any fact that tends to prove the fault of the third-party beneficiary.  Common sense says that if the contractor who is so motivated as to the fault of the third-party beneficiary is totally silent as to the beneficiary's fault, that beneficiary is without fault.

As a matter of common sense we can say that where the contractor is silent as to a causal link between my residence and the guest suite, there is in fact no causal connection between my residence and the guest suite.  If there were a causal link, you better believe the contractor would cite that in his report.  "The third-party beneficiary's negligence caused the problems in the guest suite."

This isn't rocket science.