LAWSUIT FILED!

I'm being sued, or rather my LLC is being sued.

This is a very long story, but basically here's what happened. In early 2006, I accepted a tenant who was a convicted felon. My company policy is that we won't take a person if they've had a felony within the previous 5 years. This man's felony had been 7 years ago and he hadn't had any significant criminal history since.

About a month after this tenant moved in, he beat the crap out of his shackup girlfriend. He was so out of control that he had to be tazered by the police and then kicked the window out of the police car!

At any rate, a couple of months after this incident, the tenant failed to pay the rent and I started eviction proceedings. He threatened several times to "get" me. A few days before the court hearing for his eviction, he called to say that his mother had been visiting and washing dishes in his apartment when the ceiling collapsed on her, severly injuring her. I knew that this was a scam right from the beginning and I didn't even go to the apartment to look at the "damage".

The next day, the mother called to say that a massive water leak had caused the "accident" and that there was so much water that the wall was about to collapse. I knew that it was a scam, but I thought they might have intentionally damaged a water line to cause a flood. I immediately went to the apartment. There was absolutely no evidence that there ever had been a leak. There was no leak. There was certainly no water on or in the wall and the wall was certainly not about to collapes. With that, I left.

In a few days, the tenant was evicted. When he left (the day before the setout), he stole the gas heater; wrote grafitti on the wall; left piles of feces in the apartment; and left trash and belongings strewn everywhere. I called the police and reported the stolen heater.

A day later, I got a call from the scumbag. He was at the police station and wanted to know if he returned the heater would I be willing to drop the matter. I said "ABSOLUTELY NOT"! I wanted to see him in jail where he belonged and I told him that. The next day, the heater was sitting at the back door of the apartment where he returned it.

Within a few days, I got a letter from one of those low-life, scumbag contingency lawyers who wanted to sue us. I told the scumbag lawyer to go ahead and I would report his scumbag client for fraud (she was working at a bar and for a rehabber) even though she had been "totally disabled" for many years. I'd like to see her in jail too (where she belongs).

Fast forward, nearly two years. I was served with a lawsuit for this incident. This suit was filed in small claims court and they are seeking $3,000 in damages, which I think indicates that the lawyer knows this case has absolutely no merit and he therefore isn't willing to file a real lawsuit that would cost him more money.

I can't discuss our legal strategy until this case is over, but we WILL be suing her for the damage to the apartment and we WILL win. It will be very easy to prove that she is perpetrating a fraud!

Unfortunately, in our ridiculous society, legalized extortion happens every day. My policy is to NEVER settle and to ALWAYS fight these lawsuits aggressively.