"SteveLehto" (stevelehto)
08/17/2014 at 12:00 Filed to: None
22
62|
"SteveLehto" (stevelehto)
08/17/2014 at 12:00 Filed to: None | 22
| 62 |
Everyone liked !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! so much, I thought I'd tell you about another Corvette that found itself in a legal squabble I got to handle. As I have mentioned before, I specialize in !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! but people often call my office when they have any case involving a car.
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And before you accuse me of making this one up or of publicizing clients' secrets, I can tell you that this case was widely reported after it went up to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! My client owned a 1968 Corvette. There was nothing crazy-special about it and it was just sitting in his garage. You know: "One of these days I'll restore it." My client met someone whose adult nephew LOVED Corvettes. Hey, who doesn't?
After a lot of badgering and "You'll never restore it," my client agreed to sell it to - let's call the young man - "Biff." They agreed on the price of $3,500. (The sale took place in 1987 so adjust that price for inflation etc.) The problem was that Biff didn't have the money. And his prospects for every having the money were nil, just like his bank balance. Take note: When someone is pressuring you to sell something they can't afford to buy, it is okay to tell them: "Come back when you have the money." The parties agreed that Biff would take possession of the Corvette and make payments.
Before everyone comments about how this was a mistake (it was) keep in mind that most good stories start with the protagonist making a mistake. My client, though, did something to offset the mistake. He put his name on the back of the title at the time of the sale, listing himself as First Secured Party. You know how hindsight is 20-20? This time, my client's foresight was 20-20.
After making "sporadic" payments totaling $1,100, Biff decided he no longer needed to make payments on the Corvette. He also decided he did not need to give the car back. He thought about selling the car. That was when I entered the story. I raced to court (insert comical screeching tire sounds ->here<-), and got an injunction forbidding Biff from disposing of the car until he either 1) gave it back to the seller or 2) paid for it.
Now, you might think that was the end of it but these things always have a twist. When Biff filed his paperwork with the state, he claimed the sales price was only $500 (turns out he couldn't afford the sales tax either) despite my client's bill of sale showing the sale price of $3,500.
It is important to know that this case happened in Port Huron, Michigan, a relatively small town compared to Detroit, which my office was near. For perspective: the population of Port Huron is less than 31,000. the average attendance at a Detroit Tigers game at Comerica Park is 36,000.
I remember the first hearing quite well. I wore a suit and tie, traditional uniform for an attorney in America. Opposing counsel wandered into court late, wearing a polo shirt and dockers. When our case was called and we stated our names for the record, the judge turned to opposing counsel and asked,"How's the boat, Tom?"
The court ruled in favor of the local as they often do when the Defendant is local and Plaintiff's counsel is from "The Big City." According to Tom's boating pal judge, Biff had extinguished the lien when he paid $500 toward the Corvette - the amount he had told the state he had paid for it.
I filed an appeal and the Court of Appeals agreed with me: Biff would have to pay for the car or give it back. My client's documents constituted a valid security agreement. Oddly, this case is so unusual (Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code for the one or two readers who are curious) it is cited in casebooks. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!
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Seriously. They write books on how to write boring contracts, and my case is somehow instrumental in that process. The joke was on us though. By the time the dust settled, the amount of money we were fighting over had to have been less than the cost of the action to either party. But, you can't blame my client for not wanting to give his Corvette away.
Steve Lehto has been practicing consumer protection and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for 23 years in Michigan. He taught Consumer Protection at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law for ten years and wrote !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . He also wrote !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! both published by Chicago Review Press. Follow him on Twitter : !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!
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Joshua J. Roach
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 12:48 |
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Start working at home with Google! It's by-far the best job I've had. Last Wednesday I got a brand new BMW since getting a check for $6474 this - 4 weeks past. I began this 8-months ago and immediately was bringing home at least $77 per hour. I work through this link, go to tech tab for work detail
> http://www.jobs700.com
Briz
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 12:55 |
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I guess I'm missing something, I mean, doesn't this happen all the time? It happened to me, except I did't take it to court, I just took the car back, (always keep a key).
TheCrudMan
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 12:56 |
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Interesting stuff, thanks! Amazing to me that this sort of case would need an appeal...and insane to me that a judge would take the side of a total deadbeat who just happened to be local (Biff, not his lawyer.)
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SteveLehto
> Briz
08/17/2014 at 12:58 |
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And how did you get the title back? In this case, the car had been retitled to the buyer.
The Transporter
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 13:03 |
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Self financing is a great way to turn best friends into bitter enemies.
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SteveLehto
> The Transporter
08/17/2014 at 13:04 |
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There are a few ways to GUARANTEE you will turn a friend or relative against you and one of them is to lend them money they can't easily pay back. This was a step beyond that - with the car involved - but there was almost no way it was going to end well.
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SteveLehto
> TheCrudMan
08/17/2014 at 13:07 |
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Weird stuff happens in court all the time. Judges sometimes just get the law wrong and sometimes they really do "home town" an out-of-town attorney. The good thing is that the Court of Appeals will usually fix those kinds of things (So long as the parties have the gumption to push the matter). I've had clients who had slam-dunk winners on appeal and simply told me they didn't want to waste any more time. In Michigan, an appeal can take several YEARS.
mshefler
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 13:07 |
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Isn't a judge required to recuse himself or whatever that word is when they have a personal relationship with the defendant?
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fiubar1
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 13:09 |
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Why didn't the defendant pay all the fees?
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SteveLehto
> mshefler
08/17/2014 at 13:11 |
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Yes. But here, it was the relationship between the attorney and the judge I was skeptical of. A lot of judges get cozy with attorneys, especially in small towns. And, since judges were attorneys before they were judges, it makes sense that they would have friends out there. A judge in that situation should try (ha ha!) to be impartial and not give someone the benefit of the doubt just because they think the courtroom is a Casual Friday zone.
ranwhenparked
> The Transporter
08/17/2014 at 13:13 |
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I've also noticed that friends and family often seem to have a hard time discerning the difference between "gifts" and "loans", I guess the key is to see what word the person handing over the money uses to describe the transaction, but its still too complicated for some people.
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SteveLehto
> fiubar1
08/17/2014 at 13:14 |
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In America, each litigant pays his/her own fees unless there is a fee shifting statute in place (or some other court rule etc) and those are not always available. Here, the underlying claim was simply a breach of contract and without anything written into their contract saying loser pays - no payment.
In a commercial setting, the lender has all kinds of language in there about what you will pay (dearly) when they are forced to repo the collateral they loaned you money to buy.
PS9
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 13:14 |
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Any idea if this 'Biff' had a sports almanac in his pocket?
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SteveLehto
> PS9
08/17/2014 at 13:15 |
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You know, that looks about right . . . .
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TheCrudMan
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 13:18 |
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Is something in place to keep him from disposing of the car during the appeals process?
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SteveLehto
> TheCrudMan
08/17/2014 at 13:21 |
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I think the injunction remained in place. Either that or we had a stipulation between the parties that the car would not be disposed of. It was a couple years ago and I can't recall which of those two we did. I do know that the car did not disappear during the appeal so we must have done one or the other.
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danaheryvu
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 13:23 |
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last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My neighbour's sister has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can't believe how easy it was once I tried it out.
This is what I do,,,,,,,,,,
jalop1991
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 13:55 |
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Huh. Around here, there's no separate state/county paperwork where the buyer claims the sale price all on his own. You put the sale price on the title, right where the seller signs and where everything gets notarized. To make the "$500 sale price" fiction work, the seller would have to agree to that.
Fictional sales prices happen, but only when both parties agree. In this case that wouldn't have happenedand the buyer's scheme wouldn't have worked.
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SteveLehto
> jalop1991
08/17/2014 at 14:01 |
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What state? In Michigan, I see it all the time where the seller signs the title and hands it to the buyer without filling in all the blanks. It's not a good way to do things but it happens a lot, especially when the parties know each other.
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greenagain
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 14:14 |
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Amusing how the first judge disregards the bill of sale for his local boys. American Justice at it's finest.
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SteveLehto
> greenagain
08/17/2014 at 14:16 |
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I agree. And it happens far too often.
ChrisinKY
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 14:23 |
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My uncle bought a turbo 2000 G20 for at the time my sister's boyfriend. He was working for him and agreed to pay it off. After about 3 payments, he broke it off with my sister and never paid another dime. Then bragged on forums how he bought the car and later tried to sell it. I can't imagine stiffing someone for 12k on a car and never EVER paying for it. What an ass. Uncle didn't have foresight though and cost him in the end.
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jalop1991
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 14:23 |
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I guess that could happen, but it would require the notary to ignore that. And a good one won't.
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SteveLehto
> jalop1991
08/17/2014 at 14:25 |
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Notary? Not all states require them.
And in many states, all notaries do is vouch for the signature. They do not scrutinize the rest of the document (except as to things which relate to the signature).
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SteveLehto
> ChrisinKY
08/17/2014 at 14:26 |
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I've heard all kinds of stories about people buying cars for other people to pay off. It often ends badly. Heck, even co-signing a loan in a situation like that can end badly.
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jalop1991
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 14:28 |
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Wow. I can't imagine not requiring that the person signing the title prove, to a disinterested someone, that he is who he says he is.
So some states just accept whatever signature is on it? That sounds like a recipe for disaster, in this day and age when faking documents is easier than drinking water.
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SteveLehto
> jalop1991
08/17/2014 at 14:35 |
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Welcome to Michigan.
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Briz
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 14:41 |
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I was listed as the lien holder on the title, so it was pretty simple. I just filed a repo affidavit and an application for title and it was mine again. Although I did have to pay sales tax, as if I were buying it, (go figure).
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SteveLehto
> Briz
08/17/2014 at 14:51 |
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Very few people do that (list themselves as lienholder in a private sale). I suspect you would have run into trouble if the buyer had decided to fight it (for example, by hiding the car).
Of course, this all varies wildly from state to state. Some states make the process very easy while other states frown on "self-help" (that is, without court oversight).
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fiubar1
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 15:06 |
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I guess being born, raised, educated, living and working in the United States I should know that, but it just doesn't match with what I (and I would expect many others) think is intuitively fair.
I can also see the case where this rule means the "little guy" suing someone with much deeper pockets can have a fair crack at it without risk of being on the hook for much larger costs.
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SteveLehto
> fiubar1
08/17/2014 at 15:09 |
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This is an ongoing debate. There is the "American Rule" (which I describe above) and the "English Rule," where the loser pays. There are pros and cons to each. I have seen instances where the cost of litigation has kept someone from litigating an otherwise worthy cause. But, the downside is that you would need to tell a potential litigant (if we had the English Rule) "By the way, if you lose, you will have to pay the other side's attorney fees." That too could be a deterrent to someone with an otherwise good case. There is no correct answer here.
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mshefler
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 16:16 |
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yeah I can see them knowing the other attorneys because thats what they previously were, but isn't there the possibility of them being disbarred if it comes to light that they were abusing the relationship?
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SteveLehto
> mshefler
08/17/2014 at 16:22 |
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The standard for that kind of abuse would be quite high. Simply making a "bad" ruling that favors your friend wouldn't be enough.
Dead_Elvis, Inc.
> jalop1991
08/17/2014 at 17:12 |
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Where's "around here"?
There are states that simply don't issue or require titles for vehicles older than XX years (varies by state - NH & VT are two on the low end for titling; >15 years = no title, IIRC). Washington State doesn't require a sale price on the title, and there's nothing to prevent the buyer from creating a bill of sale after the fact. Sure, the WA Dept. of Licensing is going to charge tax on a book price (NADA? not sure what they use), but if you've got something pretty old or obscure, they'll take your word for it, and there's a process for appealing/contesting assessed value in other cases.
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ron
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 18:44 |
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Virginia is similar.
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SteveLehto
> ron
08/17/2014 at 18:51 |
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It's amazingly easy to run scams almost everywhere.
RichardRJames2
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 18:59 |
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last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My neighbour's sister has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can't believe how easy it was once I tried it out.
This is what I do,,,,,,,,,,
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RichardRJames2
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 19:00 |
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last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My neighbour's sister has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can't believe how easy it was once I tried it out.
This is what I do,,,,,,,,,,
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RichardRJames2
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 19:02 |
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last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My neighbour's sister has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can't believe how easy it was once I tried it out.
This is what I do,,,,,,,,,,
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mshefler
> SteveLehto
08/17/2014 at 21:04 |
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Interesting. Thanks for the response
Jimmy Joe Meeker
> mshefler
08/17/2014 at 22:58 |
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HA!
They all know each other, co-worker level or beyond. It's a club, you ain't in it, so that's why you hire a lawyer, because he is. I learned how they know each other after a road rager went a little too far when I was bicycling. His lawyer kept getting things delayed so I'd have to show up again for the same monthly session. I got to see how they interacted with each other. It's the same faces over and over again.
Remember dialing "popcorn" for the time?
> jalop1991
08/17/2014 at 23:07 |
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California never, to my knowledge, has required a notary for a vehicle transfer. When I got to Ohio, I was surprised at this extra paperwork. Considering that California transfers way more vehicles than any other state, I would think they would have problems if the problems were there to have.
ZombieShooter
> ranwhenparked
08/18/2014 at 03:17 |
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That's why you put it in writing in big bold letters. Two copies minimum. Both with their signature and your signature on them. One copy for them and one copy for you. And if the amount is high enough I'd get a notary. ;)
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StevenG
> SteveLehto
08/18/2014 at 08:57 |
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Sounds like judges should serve only in areas they never tried cases themselves. I know that kills electing judges, but personally electing judges is a dumb idea.
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StevenG
> SteveLehto
08/18/2014 at 08:57 |
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Even an obviously bad one? How high is that bar?
minardi
> SteveLehto
08/18/2014 at 09:27 |
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Would it not be the court cost the responsibility of the loser?
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SteveLehto
> StevenG
08/18/2014 at 09:53 |
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A great idea in theory but who would want to be a judge then - if you had to move and do it somewhere far from where you lived.
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SteveLehto
> StevenG
08/18/2014 at 09:54 |
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Define "Bad." It would actually have to be corrupt, or close it. As in, the judge takes bribes or somehow breaks the law. Dumb decisions are a dime a dozen as they say,
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SteveLehto
> minardi
08/18/2014 at 09:57 |
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This topic came up in the comments elsewhere but No. In America (generally speaking) the parties bear their own legal costs under most circumstances unless there is a fee-shifting statute or rule. This is called the American Rule. In England (and other places) the loser pays. There are arguments pro and con for each - but there was no such rule in the case described above.
By way of example, the Lemon Law in Michigan (and most other states) allows for the attorney fees and court costs to be paid by the manufacturer in the case of a successful case by the consumer. That is who pays 99% of my fees.
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StevenG
> SteveLehto
08/18/2014 at 10:48 |
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So even if a judge always rules for his friends so long as he finds any excuse to do so, he is in the clear?
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StevenG
> SteveLehto
08/18/2014 at 10:49 |
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I would imagine the demand would still outstrip supply. We have no current shortage right?
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SteveLehto
> StevenG
08/18/2014 at 11:03 |
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That accusation has been raised before. It is so hard to define these things that you almost never hear of any official action (even if there is a lot of griping in the community).
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StevenG
> SteveLehto
08/18/2014 at 11:27 |
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Wow, I just assumed there was a process for these. Since at some point it has to be pretty obvious that X% of appeals are granted under some conditions.
TheCraigy
> SteveLehto
08/18/2014 at 11:29 |
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I may have missed this, but who ended up getting the car? Sounds like the appeals court gave your client the right to take possession of the car, but did he? And how did the alleged costs of improvements to the car get handled?
Biff/Mr. Murray sounds like a real piece of work. Was his counsel working for free or did he spend thousands because he chose not to pay the remaining $2,400?
I wonder what exactly went down between the two of them :D
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SteveLehto
> TheCraigy
08/18/2014 at 11:32 |
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You didn't miss it - I realized later I had left that out. The court said he had to pay or return it so he paid. And I do not know if he was paying his attorney or not but if he was, the attorney fees had to dwarf the amount owed on the car.
BTW, I re-named him Biff since (as you may have noticed) his real first name was Steve and I have a fondness for that name otherwise.
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SteveLehto
> StevenG
08/18/2014 at 11:39 |
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There is a Judicial Tenure Commission in Michigan that oversees disciple for the judges. The only stories you ever hear about are extreme. The judge smoking pot in public or the one who has sex with the litigant whose case is before him or the one who steered court appointments to her married lover who later whacked his pregnant wife in hopes of being with the judge. Run-of-the-mill unfair rulings kind of pale in comparison.
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StevenG
> SteveLehto
08/18/2014 at 11:47 |
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I don't think that first one fits with the others. Seems kinda tame.
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SteveLehto
> StevenG
08/18/2014 at 11:56 |
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Judges have a Canon of Ethics and one rule they live and die by is that they cannot even give the "appearance" of impropriety. The pot smoker did it long before there was medicinal or legalized marijuana and probably sentenced other pot smokers every week in his courtroom. While I agree that he did not do AS BAD things as the others, he certainly opened up the court to ridicule. And it's all about appearances.
Voodoo-u
> SteveLehto
08/18/2014 at 14:13 |
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And this is why the court system is forever going to be a joke: humans. You can write all the laws you want, but at the end of the day, the judge doesn't give a shit about you or your case. He's more interested in how his buddy's boat is working.
sadfasdf
> SteveLehto
08/20/2014 at 16:19 |
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As long as people can convince themselves that justice might exist sometimes, the state still has sufficient legitimacy to continue.
Rick Brasche
> SteveLehto
08/20/2014 at 17:32 |
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I raced to court (insert comical screeching tire sounds ->here<-)
Actually firth thing I thought of was the old Adam West Batman sting.
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SteveLehto
> Rick Brasche
08/20/2014 at 17:33 |
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That would work too. ZINNNGGGGGG!
