This is a problem with litigating about events from decades ago: memories fade, people die, corporations dissolve, businesses fail, files are sent to storage and then to landfill, and evidence disappears. Grain by grain, time buries the past. As the poet said, the lone and level sands stretch far away.
The opinion also has some other memorable language:
The simple explanation is neglect: someone dropped the ball. Someone forgot to follow through on the settlement by filing a parallel negation of the lien on the Los Angeles house. Trial judges of experience routinely see these kinds of omissions by lawyers, because everyone makes mistakes. (Judges of course are no exception.) A mistake is the best explanation for the persistence of the long-outstanding but long-ago satisfied Panrox lien on the Los Angeles house.
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