People's Court: 7-19-12

Friends with Benefits!

Kim is suing Christopher for $5000.00. She describes their relationship as friends with benefits. It seems that Christopher is the one that benefits from the relationship. Kim says that he was living the fast life. He did not have a job and did not have good credit. Why would she think it was a good idea to cosign on a car loan. If he could not afford a car, then he should do without. She is raising two children and I am sure she can use the money more than Christopher. She said that he constantly asked her about the money. When Kim took out a loan to pay for new windows, she takes out extra to loan to Christopher. She hands over $7000.00 without a promissory note. Let's count the things that Kim is doing wrong. 1. Lending the money 2. Not getting a promissory note signed before she hands over the money. I will never understand why money is lent first and the promissory note thought about second. It needs to be the other way around. When Christopher explains the money, he claims it was a gift. Why on earth would a single mother of two children, borrow money to give to him. He must think he is very special. He has paid her back $2,000.00. He says this was not money towards a loan, instead it was just money to give to her, to help her out. It is very clear from the way he tries to evade answering the question, "Why would someone pay back a gift?", he is responsible to pay the money back. Ladies, please take notice, when a man cannot afford something, has bad credit, does not have a job, do not lend him money! If they cannot afford it, they can go without. Kim seems to have learned her lesson. Next time she might not be so lucky to get her money back.

Why Didn't You Tell Me The Diamond Was Not Real?

Margie took her rings to the local jeweler for repair. She dropped them off, got a receipt and returned the next day to pick them up. There was a major mix-up. When she got to the store, Carlos, the owner asked her to sit down. He had bad news to tell her. She could not believe her jewelry was given to someone else. This was not bad enough, she is also told the diamonds were not real. Why is she hearing about the diamonds being fake at this time? Carlos fixed this ring two years before. He did not tell her at that time about the fake diamonds. He did not tell her when she dropped the rings off this time. Why wouldn't he tell her? He claims he was being nice and did not want to hurt her feelings. Margie says it would not hurt her feelings. The rings have sentimental value because they were from a friend. Knowing the truth would not have changed that. It would have been good business for Carlos to tell her the truth. He says two years ago he did not have a diamond tester. Now that he has one and he tested the diamond, he knew for sure. He has the diamond tester in court and tests it on the Judge's wedding ring. Thank goodness it reads diamond! 

Carlos is truly sorry about the loss of Margie's rings. She did not accept the replacement he offered because she wanted real diamonds. Unfortunately, Margie has no evidence to prove the diamonds were real. The Judge administers a little "rough justice" and Margie receives $500.00. Carlos is satisfied with the verdict. Margie is upset because she was lied to. It really is true that honesty is the best policy.

Your Burger Gave Me Food Poisoning!

Charles ate a  burger at Grandma Susie's Cooking Shack. When he gets sick, four hours later, he is convinced it is from the burger. He is suing Susie for $5000.00. He does not have any evidence that he got sick from the food at her establishment. He ate the burger at 7:30 in the evening, got sick 4 hours later. He was sick throughout the night and went to the hospital in the morning. The paperwork he has from the hospital has a diagnosis of abdominal pain of unknown causes.Yet when he hands the paperwork to the Judge he says it will prove his claim. Yes, he sounds like he suffered terribly with gastrointestinal symptoms. Unfortunately, he cannot prove what caused it. Susie tells us that no one else got sick. The Judge says the industry standard for an investigation is at least two cases. The symptoms he had could have been from the flu, it was not necessarily food poisoning. Also, depending on the type of bacteria, it could take 2 to 5 days for symptoms to appear. Some types of food poisoning from shellfish can take up to 90 days. Charles cannot prove his case, he does not have any evidence. He does not receive $5000.00. In the hallway, he is truly disappointed. Susie admits it was scary to be there to defend her reputation. The important thing to remember is to be open-minded. Charles was convinced it was the burger and would not entertain any other reasons for his illness.

Please share your thoughts in the comments. Thank you for joining me.

The harder you fall, the higher you bounce.

-Unknown  

People's Court: 7-18-12

Where Do You Want Me To Start?

There is so much history that leads up to this case, almost 40 years. Lila and Debra's mom met in church almost 40 years ago. They became friends and their lives entwined. Throughout the years, so much happened. They co-signed on the mortgage to the house. At some point, there were changes, so only Lila's name was on the deed. Lila and her family continued to live there, Debra's mom and family moved out. Debra's mom starts to say she was paying rent to Lila, since this is not pertinent to today's case, she does not continue with her part of the story. At some point Debra and her family move in with Lila. Debra claims she has paperwork that shows in the event of the sale of the house, her mom gets part of the proceeds. Lila says this is not true. She does not have that paperwork with her. It is really not what she is in court to pursue. So much going on and it is not for this court to decide on the issues of who the house belongs to or who is entitled to the proceeds of a sale. The lawsuit that brings us here today is about an unpaid loan and unpaid storage fees. The loan appears very straightforward. Debra agrees that Lila lent her $1000.00. She says she is so grateful to Lila for helping her out. Yet, she did not pay her back. Why? Debra claims the $1000.00 is supposed to come out of her mom's share of the proceeds of the sale of the house. The one thing has nothing to do with the other. Why would this be the agreement, when Lila is denying that Debra's mom has claim to the house? The other part of the lawsuit is about storage fees. When Debra moved out of Lila's house, she left her motorcycle in the garage. She does show receipts for $25.00 a month payments. Lila says she owes her $100.00 a week for storing the motorcycle. Unfortunately, they did not have a contract regarding the storage of the motorcycle. Since Debra was paying Lila $25.00 a month, she is responsible to maintain those payments. She also has one month to remove the motorcycle. I would think she would rush over to get it out of there, since it is her baby! She would never even consider selling it to pay her bills. It does not end there. Debra has a $4200.00 counterclaim against Lila. She is suing her for broker's fees, one month's rent and one month's security deposit. Debra claims Lila kicked her out, forcing her to find another place to live. Why on earth would Lila be responsible to pay these expenses? The counterclaim is dismissed. Debra also claims that when she was locked out for three weeks, her fish died. Why didn't she call the police? She says she did not want to make trouble for Lila. This does not make any sense. If she truly had fish that needed care, she should have moved heaven and earth to save them. So dramatic! The sad, sad part of this entire situation is the breakdown of the friendship between Lila and Debra's mom. What a shame that it comes to this! It is not over for them, the ownership of the house is still in question and that case is pending. I wish these two ladies luck in working out this lifelong problem.

We Slept Together! - No, We Didn't!

Randy and Anna are stand-up comics. They are both here today suing each other. I will tell you now, there is nothing funny about these two. They are both mean-spirited and seem to enjoy torturing each other. Also, there is not much of the story they agree upon. Thank goodness they are able to bring their cases to civil court, otherwise it would certainly be criminal. Randy is suing Anna for the cost of the promotional items directly relating to her participation in a play they worked on together. He approached her at a comedy club and suggested they pursue a joint venture based on her "bestselling" book. Anna claims he hired her at $100.00 an hour to write a play based on his failed marriage. Right from the beginning, there is not a meeting of the minds. Needless to say, there is nothing in writing, no contracts, no confirmation e-mails or texts. The saga continues, Randy claims they had an intimate relationship. Anna vehemently denies it and is quite insulting to Randy. She thinks this is her time to do her act, it is not! Randy provides very explicit e-mails that do not leave anything to the imagination. Anna claims someone hacked her e-mail account. She even tries to implicate Randy, claiming he had access to her laptop. For two people that had only a business relationship, they seem to know an awful lot about each other. Anna finally says they were fooling around. What does that mean? She seems to stumble over her words. For someone who performs for a living and has written a book, she did not handle this appearance in a very professional way. She shows such hatred towards Randy, you wonder how involved they really were. There is definitely more to this relationship than meets the eye. What do you think? Randy did manage to go on with the show. He changed the name of the play and found a replacement for Anna. There were certain promotional items that he was not able to use since Anna was not involved in the production. Anna agreed they were supposed to split the costs of the play. She is found responsible to pay Randy back for the promotional items. Now for Anna's counterclaim. She wants $5000.00 for writing a play for Randy. He denies that he offered to pay her anything, let alone $100.00 an hour. Anna cannot prove she had any promise of payment. She loses on her counterclaim. It is a relief when this case is over. It is very painful watching these two people torture each other. Hopefully they will go their separate ways and stay far, far away from each other. Please let me know what you think about the Randy and Anna Show!

Please share your thoughts in the comments. Thank you for joining me.

An obstacle is often a stepping stone.

-Prescott