Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg in LA
I just finished going to small claims court against my former landlord and management company. They got greedy and witheld money from my security deposit and violated a several civil codes in the process. When I started to point out the civil codes that were violated, the judge just said that those were "Legal questions and that's not what we deal with here".
Translated: We don't care about the civil code laws, we're not going to enforce them.
My thoughts were, if you don't deal with civil code violations in court where do you deal with them.
What did I learn... the lawmakers can pass all the laws they want, it dosn't meen the judges or police are going to inforce them, unless they want too.
The same applies to immigration laws, sadly we know this all too well.
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Greg,
If you were around during 2005 through 2007, you may know of my battle with a shithead landlord. I feel your pain. But small claims court is a throwback to the king's common law courts, and they barely resemble anything in civil court in many jurisdictions. They're basically meant to dispense with smaller disputes so they don't pollute the big boy courts, or, to a lesser degree, so they don't erupt into larger disputes outside the courts, ie violence, murder, mayhem, etc.
That said, I don't understand why a judge or commissioner would say something like that. Were the procedings recorded thant you know of? Personally, I wouldn't ever use the small claims courts in my jurisdiction, and I'd be inclined to extend that to just about any jurisdiction in this state right now. There's really no benefit or protection in it for you. I know it's relatively cheap to file, and you don't need a lawyer, but the old sayings apply that "you get what you pay for" and "any man that represents himself in court has a fool for a client". If your claim is actionable and you have a good case, the courts will award the amount you seek, and fair attorney fees anyway. And you get a real court, with rules, appointed judge or jury, and an appealable verdict. Small claims verdicts are only appealable for the defendant, who can then appeal to a civil court with an attorney anyway, so you lose all that time and money for what?