small claims court

[swerve2007]

ok, so it is free etc.
can anyone fill me in on the process (besides registration etc- thats obvious) and claim recovery?
please advise.
thanks guys.

 

[White92]

In our state even if you win,its just a judgement that you win. It's still up to you to collect. I don't know how it is in your state though.

 

[NSXLVR]

I hope this isnt for that STMPO thread I just read

 

[FogCityNSX]

In our state even if you win,its just a judgement that you win. It's still up to you to collect. I don't know how it is in your state though.

I think its that way in California too.

 

[steveny]

In our state even if you win,its just a judgement that you win. It's still up to you to collect. I don't know how it is in your state though.

Yep and the judgment in most cases is not worth the paper it's printed on. Not to mention it costs you additional money to get the paperwork filled out in order to collect. The only winner is the court system because they get paid whether you win or lose. Most of the time you pay a few hundred dollars to get an income execution filled out by the person who owes you then they quit their job before you get the first garnishment. Fun Fun.

I have tons of judgments that are owed to me, anyone want to buy the? 20 cents on the dollar and they are yours or I split them with you, all expenses to collect are yours all collections are split 50/50.

Small claims court = grief

 

[Stephen@NCAutoUSA]

Yep and the judgment in most cases is not worth the paper it's printed on. Not to mention it costs you additional money to get the paperwork filled out in order to collect. The only winner is the court system because they get paid whether you win or lose. Most of the time you pay a few hundred dollars to get an income execution filled out by the person who owes you then they quit their job before you get the first garnishment. Fun Fun.

I have tons of judgments that are owed to me, anyone want to buy the? 20 cents on the dollar and they are yours or I split them with you, all expenses to collect are yours all collections are split 50/50.

Small claims court = grief

Do you mean be like Rocky and break thumbs and collect?

Stephen

 

[swerve2007]

ok,
i have some info from the outside.
you are correct- it is difficult to collect from a private individual without paying % to the collection firm. that said, it is not extremely hard at all to collect from a business entity because of all the legal obligations etc. basically, if the business does not respond to a legal judgment you simply put a lien on it- it pays or its' equipment goes bye-bye.
thanks for replies.

 

[queenlives]

ok,
i have some info from the outside.
you are correct- it is difficult to collect from a private individual without paying % to the collection firm. that said, it is not extremely hard at all to collect from a business entity because of all the legal obligations etc. basically, if the business does not respond to a legal judgment you simply put a lien on it- it pays or its' equipment goes bye-bye.
thanks for replies.

read the thread - absolutely bizarre. you're lucky to have gotten your car back and now have it in good running order.

 

[nsxotic911]

ok,
i have some info from the outside.
you are correct- it is difficult to collect from a private individual without paying % to the collection firm. that said, it is not extremely hard at all to collect from a business entity because of all the legal obligations etc. basically, if the business does not respond to a legal judgment you simply put a lien on it- it pays or its' equipment goes bye-bye.
thanks for replies.

You are assuming the judge just gives you the damages you claim. I don't know your case specifics, but I will say that if you don't have VERY SOLID documentation, you're going to have an uphill battle.

In court - you have to PROVE *damages.* Proving damages is a much higher bar than the "obviously they broke something" mob mentality that occurs in auto forums.

"I took my car to the shop, it was runnign fine. I took it out, it was runnign like crap" is NOT proof that the shop is the one that broke it.

Do you have a written agreement up front for what will and will not be performed on the car prior to the work starting?
Do you have documentation of the complain that a problem wasn't addressed or new problem arised?
Do you have a written response from them?
Do you have clear $$ (damages) documentation by a dealership that fixed the problem.
**Are they willing to put their name on the line and come to court to testify that 'yep, here's the evidence of how they broke it, and here's how we fixed it.'. That's always the tough one.

Proof is about clearly articulating that the car necessitated this fix because of damages they caused.

Keep us posted, but again, to Ross & to the poster, you guys should try to work something out outside of the court.

You go through these a number of times like Steve & I have being landlords and you learn.

 

[swerve2007]

i did send him a last offer yesterday that he covers SOS bills- no response of course but the true insanity of the situation is that he doesn't think he did anything wrong- it was my fault for pissing-off the inept tech by pointing out his errors and he was just trying to help me out by puting the car together- wrong or not, doesn't matter to him. anyway, if (or when) it is necessary, i am completely certain that SOS would provide me with a statement of the condition of the vehicle in 'as found' state- afterall it is just a statement of truth, nothing implied here, and when notarized, that statemend will be sufficient without having anyone from SOS to attent the proceedings. from that we could even go as far as criminal negligence considering that the engine assembly was not correctly secured and was nearing failure which would result in the car basically coming apart- afterall we are not talking about screwing me out of few bucks but potentially killing me. i have a copy of my original email to ross describing the problems and his replies are well documented here on prime (as well as the original text messages). ugly? yes. do i want to bother with the mess? no, not really, but i can't bring myself to sucking up the costs and letting someone get away with not only lies and a hack job but a total disrespect.
btw, SOS is still chasing electrical shorts and glitches although most of the mechanical issues are already fixed.

 

[Cairo94507]

Not sure about your state, but here in CA small claims is capped at $7,500.

 

[Hrant]

Without passing any judgment as to why you are seeking such advice, take nsxotic911's advice to heart - if not to the letter.

Moral of the story, caveat emptor.

 

[SilverStone05]

Caveat emptor, indeed.

Vendor sounds unprofessional on the forum and unskilled by hearsay.

But if customer was privy to this information prior to engaging in a business transaction, well.....

You're going to cause yourself more grief by pursuing this in court. You've got to deal with waits, paperwork, your precious time spent and worst of all....gov't employees. (shudder)

Crappy situation, and I'd be pissed.

But personally I'd let it go and learn an important lesson.

 

[nsxtasy]

I am not a lawyer. However, I really really doubt that you could get a small claims court to give you a judgment that the defendant should pay bills you incurred somewhere else. They may get you a refund of whatever you paid the shop - IF you can prove they didn't do the work they were supposed to do. But getting a judgment that says they should pay for someone else's work, even to correct something the defendant was supposed to have done? Don't hold your breath.

Many jurisdictions call it "pro se court" rather than small claims court, "pro se" being the Latin term "for yourself", where you can file your case yourself without needing a lawyer. The costs to file a pro se case vary from one jurisdiction to another, and so do the limits on judgments. (I've never heard of any as high as $7500; I'm not doubting they exist, but around here, limits range from $500 to $2500.)

 

[swerve2007]

I am not a lawyer. However, I really really doubt that you could get a small claims court to give you a judgment that the defendant should pay bills you incurred somewhere else.

keep in mind that the bills from 'the other shop' were necessary to bring the car back to safe operating condition, especially that 'as delivered' the vehicle was an accident waiting to happen (engine mounts coming apart- remember. i already spoke to a lawyer and if i was really spiteful, i could pursue criminal negligence very easily. they are a business, not a shade-tree mechanic, and as such they have to meet certain obligations.
caveat emptor indeed- hence my rant obout it for others' benefit.

 

[Vega$ NSX]

keep in mind that the bills from 'the other shop' were necessary to bring the car back to safe operating condition, especially that 'as delivered' the vehicle was an accident waiting to happen (engine mounts coming apart- remember. i already spoke to a lawyer and if i was really spiteful, i could pursue criminal negligence very easily. they are a business, not a shade-tree mechanic, and as such they have to meet certain obligations.
caveat emptor indeed- hence my rant obout it for others' benefit.

However, also keep in mind a legal perspective. Words like "necessary", "safe operating condition", "accident waiting to happen" are very ambiguous and subjective words. As nxstasy said, I think the extent you are going to see $$$ judgment in your favor will be for a refund of services but you are going to have a hard time to get costs beyond that.

Say you made drill bits and the one you sold was defective. If someone bought your defective drill bit and put it in a super high end drill press, but because it was imbalanced properly ended up destroying this multi-thousand dollar drill press. Do you really think as the manufacturer you’d have to spend thousands of dollars for a new drill press for a $5 drill bit you sold? Not likely. At most the manufacturer will probably obligated to refund the $5 of the cost of the drill bit but not anything beyond that.

There is just no way for you to prove that all of the things you “had” to fix was caused by the shop you took it to. Worst off, there is no way to put a value on any added benefit you got from taking it to SOS. Meaning, one could argue that SOS may have added value to you engine (even if some parts are still not working) which you benefit from and you cannot sue for that value.

 

[swerve2007]

your comments are valid and i appreciate your input, however some things, like loose engine mounts coming apart are pretty much undeniable negligence with not much room for legal semantics. you all know what would happen if those mounts failed while i was driving (and they were about to). i am completely sure that stmpo has absolutely no intention to do anything about it and if thats their attitude, i will have to adjust accordingly.
once again, thanks for your input.

 

[DocL]

your comments are valid and i appreciate your input, however some things, like loose engine mounts coming apart are pretty much undeniable negligence with not much room for legal semantics. you all know what would happen if those mounts failed while i was driving (and they were about to). i am completely sure that stmpo has absolutely no intention to do anything about it and if thats their attitude, i will have to adjust accordingly.
once again, thanks for your input.

The one thing to remember is that nothing happened to you while you were driving the car, and there is no irreversible damage. I agree that you got shoddy work done on your car and the shop in question has poor ethics. However, it was your decision to take it to a shop which could not handle the scope of repairs that your car needed. I'd chalk this one up as a lesson learned and move on.

 

[swerve2007]

i don't quite agree with the logic- it was a classis bait-and-switch con not being delivered the service promised, quoted and paid for in-full. hindsight, it was obviously a poor decision on my part based on what we know now but all the elements that contributed to this fiasko were under stmpo's control and me pointing out the apparent and obvious failures only exacerbated the problem instead of fixing it- hardly a 'fault'.

it would probably be much easier to 'move on' if he wasn't allowed to promote his products here anymore as i don't believe in his voluntary banishment (someone from his shop is still posting here) and his posts are continuously spreading a false aura of 'quality' on prime to the point that a large number of people still defend his outfit.

thank you for your opinions.
would moderator please close this tread.
thank you.

 

[nsxotic911]

Swerve and STMPO - Work it out guys!

STMPO, if not 100%, I'm sure you screwed up somehwere and at least offer credit back for the service to salvage youre reptuation. Chalk it up to new business, bad employee and miscommunication. You will salvage the business. You may also save yourself criminal pursuit. Most importantly, you will eliminate all the stress NOW. Money will burn, you'll feel entitled to it b/c you paid, lost time, $$ etc.. but the stress will leave you.

Swerve - If he offers cash back for the service, take it and run.

If both of you don't take my advice, then you will be playing Russian roulette 'till the bitter end. There will not be a winner, it will be measured to the degreet of the loss for both parties and I can tell you that mental and phyiscal health cost is not worth it.

Lesson learned here: SOS wins again (just kidding Chris! )

 

[nsxtasy]

i don't quite agree with the logic

If you think you can convince a judge of your logic in pro se court, then go ahead and try. Just make sure to let us know how it turns out (because if we don't hear from you, we'll assume you didn't win your case).

 

[swerve2007]

the logic i was referring to was "no harm-no fault" of DocL post, not yours, just for reference, but i don't fully agree with what you said either:
how about someone is doing an oil change for you and forgets the drain plug- the engine is a total loss- is he now only responsible for 5 quarts of oil? thats what you are saying.

by your own admission you are not an expert (and neither am i) so your opinion is just as valid as mine- we can argue all night and it will still mean nothing. please do not act so defensively because my situation here is pretty annoying as is.

if i do decide to pursue this it will be purely as a matter of principle and i will probably not bother with 'small claims' but go with the 'criminal negligence' as the lawyer suggests (btw, BAR assiociation in each state has free consultations if needed).

 

[swerve2007]

would the moderator please close this tread.

 

[nsxtasy]

if i do decide to pursue this it will be purely as a matter of principle and i will probably not bother with 'small claims' but go with the 'criminal negligence' as the lawyer suggests

"Small claims" does not refer to the size of the claim or the reason for the claim, but rather, to the fact that individuals can file suit without needing a lawyer. In small claims court, you can use whatever reason you want to try to justify your case.

I am not a lawyer, but the term "criminal negligence" sounds to me like a justification for criminal charges rather than civil charges. Criminal charges are felonies and misdemeanors against a defendant; civil charges in cases like this are typically judgments for financial liability in specific amounts.

would the moderator please close this tread.

When you open a topic for discussion, anyone can comment. A topic will not be closed just because you want it closed (or if you're not pleased with some of the responses). Disclaimer: I don't own or run this site, but that is the way this site's owner runs it.

 

[Ponyboy]

From my experience with dealing with two vendors here on Prime: although small claims case may be the right thing to do and you may be totally in the right, it's likely to drain more money out of your pocket and time out of your schedule than you want or expect.

In my two cases, both in California, there was a monetary ceiling that I could sue for and, in one case, I spent as much money in process servers as I did on the product itself. That was the limit of how far I would go. Ultimately, it's up to you to decide if the case is worthwhile enough to bring before a judge.

There are lawyers that will help you in your case to make sure all your "ducks are in a row" (as much as possible) but, by CA standards anyway, they can't litigate on your behalf during the trial.

I feel for your situation and genuinely hope, for both parties involved, that your grievances will be adequately addressed out of court.