Boobus Americanus as California attorney

Boobus Americanus as California attorney is the subject of this blog post. As I have mentioned in my earlier blog posts I have worked in the legal field in California for many years. While I am no longer located in California I do try to keep with at least some of what is happening there.

I mentioned a Chintzy attorney in one of my earlier blog posts.  Loyal readers will remember him. He is so cheap he is not just a penny pincher he is a fraction of a penny pincher. See my earlier blog post: http://boobusamericanus.blogspot.com/2012/04/boobus-americanus-as-attorneys.html

This guy is a real piece of work.   He must have had a half decent attorney because it took almost 2 years to bring this case to trial in the United States District Court located in Santa Ana, California.  I was thinking that he might be able to delay it until crucial evidence was no longer available.  Not a chance.  The feds had tape recordings that his own client had made of their conversation. Incredible! Finally in May of 2013 he was convicted by a jury of bribing a federal government employee! And Chintzy did not even get any money out of the deal! Talk about not having the sense that God gave a crab apple. This guy is not only a shyster, he is incredibly stupid as well.  As a result of his stupidity he will be disbarred and lose his law license very quickly.

I have to admit I got a certain smug feeling when I read about his conviction.  This guy really was something else.  He was truly a “lawyer in name only”, what I like to call a LINO. The only time this guy wanted to be the attorney was when it was time to collect the money!!

His attitude was something else.  This guy was such a dumbsh** he once turned down someone I had referred to him who wanted to have his criminal record expunged which in this persons case would have been pretty close to a “slam dunk”. Chintzy did not want to do the job because he thought $1,500.00 was not enough money!!  He wanted at least $2,500.00 And this was almost 15 years ago! Yet Chintzy took on another case where the client\s former attorney stated “good luck getting paid by this guy”. Chintzy took on the case very close to the trial date for a measly retainer of $1,000.00!!!

I could write several more blog posts just about Chintzy but I will close with this. His long time law office administrator whom he worked with for around 20 years or so is a twice convicted felon!! And one of the cases actually went to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which in a published case upheld his conviction.

Stay tuned. More to come on the subject of Boobus Americanus as California attorney.

Boobus Americanus and the California legal system

Hello again loyal readers. The Old Cynic is back with Boobus Americanus and the California legal system.  As long time readers are aware, I have worked for many years in the legal field here in California and worked with quite a few people. Some good ones to be sure.

Let me begin with some examples. 

I am working on some cases for an attorney right now that are something else. In one case, his clients are trying to claim that a forklift driver who used to work for them was an independent contractor! Give me a break! The guy drives a forklift for God’s sake.  The attorney e-mailed me the payment records and do you know what they show. Yes folks, they were paying this guy like an employee! They deducted money from his check for taxes, social security, everything that they would for a normal employee! I have no idea what they are planning to do when this goes to trial. I would not want to be the attorney on that case. I do not care what I am getting paid!

And to top things off, the attorney wanted me to research on whether the “employee” who does not have the proper immigration paperwork, hey he is “undocumented”, lol, is entitled to even receive unpaid wages.  I did the research and guess what. Yes he is entitled to all of the same protections that everyone else gets, regardless of his immigration status. It’s California for God’s sake.  I look at it this way. I do not really want to work on these types of cases any more. There is an old legal saying, “Between those who are equally in the right, or equally in the wrong, the law does not interpose.” In other words the law will not get in the middle of a dispute between two people who both have “unclean hands.”  And I do not want to either. I was a legal immigrant to the United States and went through all of the hoops. On the other hand I would bet money that this company knew this guy did not have the right immigration papers when they took him on.

I just finished working on another case for the same attorney where this guy had loaned some money to a California Limited Liability Company. I read the Promissory Note and the terms stated that the money owed was subject to a flat 20% interest, no matter how soon the money was paid back!  If they paid the money back within one week it was still 20%. And to top it off, the guy wanted a late charge of 3% per month!!! Even though the Promissory Note just said a flat late charge of 3%, it did NOT say 3% per month. Even the attorney agreed with me that this guy was going to be lucky just to get the 20% per year interest, let alone everything else that he wanted.

I am so sick of working in the legal field.  I am getting allergic to all of the horsesh**! Oops I mean horse manure. Sorry about that folks. I am sure that it is all that exposure to the horse manure that has caused me to develop an allergy.  Like people who develop an allergy to latex after wearing latex gloves for so long. Same principle.

Stay tuned. More to come on Boobus American, not only as attorneys but in all aspects as well.

Boobus americanus as attorneys, part three

Hello again loyal readers. The Old Cynic is back with Boobus Americanus as attorneys, part three.  As I mentioned in parts one and two, I have worked for many years in the legal field here in California and worked with quite a few attorneys. Some good ones to be sure. But I have also worked with some real “winners”.

Let me begin with some examples. 

This attorney I will call “Cakewalk”. This guy was something else. He actually worked in insurance defense but he fancied himself as a “litigator.” He was definitely anything but.

I worked on one case where someone had asked for a restraining order against a client, when the client and the attorney showed up at the hearing, the other party did not show up.  So the judge granted their request for attorney fees for having to defend against the charges and appear in Court when the other party did not show up. The judge awarded something like $2,000.00 or so in attorney fees against the party who did not show up. He then prepared a proposed order for the Judge to sign in which he included wording such as” “The Court finds that so and so filed frivolous charges against blank” and similar statements Needless to say the judge did NOT say that and the proposed order was not signed for over a month. When we checked with the attorney service as to why the order had not been signed, they checked with the clerk who works for the judge who told them the judge would not sign it because of the wording that Cakewalk included. When I deleted the wording the order was signed within a week or so.

This guy was something else.  It is my opinion that he was in an unhappy marriage as there was one secretary there who was shall I say, “Intelligence challenged.” In other words folks she was a ditz. She could not even spell simple words correctly! She once took over 6 weeks to contact a client about something important, yet when I had to use her computer for something I could not help but notice that she had downloaded the latest Christmas them screen saver for her computer. When another attorney and I were discussing her, Cakewalk came into the office and said simply, “She has big tits.”  And that was true. But I would rather work with someone who knows what they are doing. If I want to see big breasts I can visit a girlie bar just a few miles away where I can ogle to my heart’s content and I do not have to pretend I am not ogling. What can I say I’m an old fashioned kind of guy.

Cakewalk was like the pompous drunk in that he attracted bad clients like poop attracts flies.  He had one that owed him around $30,000.00 and he was still doing work for them.  And the cases they had were in the words of another attorney who worked with Cakewalk at the time, “dead bang losers.”

One afternoon, the client who owed all that money was in my office for something, Cakewalk came in and started talking tough to him in front of me saying that he needed to be paid something like $8,000.00 or he would not be able to keep working for the client.  If memory serves me correctly the clients would up filing a bankruptcy and I doubt Cakewalk got paid much of what he was owed. Another client he used to have was under indictment from the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Stay tuned. More to come on Boobus American, not only as attorneys but in all aspects as well.

Boobus Americanus and the legal system, part five

Now for part five of Boobus Americanus and the legal system.   As I mentioned in parts one through four, I have worked in the legal field in the State of California for a long time. And I have seen some things that would curdle your blood. 

I am currently working on a case where two women met and began dating, then began a romantic relationship. They started buying real estate together. They bought quite a few properties together, sold a few and then bought more. They should have sold the properties back in 2006 or 2007 when the market was a lot higher, taken their profits and moved on. But no, they wanted to play landlord. They must have thought they were playing Monopoly®.

The one woman I will call Amy had convinced the other woman to take her name off the title to one of the properties claiming that would help her with her tax problems.  She is now refusing to place her name back on the title. Another property was purchased and title only placed in the name of Amy. She told the other woman who I will call Judy that once the escrow finished that she would add her name to the title. She did not add her name to the title.

Then in early 2012 their relationship began falling apart.  They own five (5) properties here in Southern California as joint tenants. Judy contacted the attorney that I do some work for to have him file a complaint to partition the five properties they own together, and to request that the Court order that Judy’s name be placed on the title to the other two properties.

I began preparing the complaint which took a long time as I had to include the entire legal description of the properties in the complaint. I work out of my own office for the attorney but his support staff who work at his office are so incompetent that I cannot trust them to attach any exhibits to anything! It is really hard to find decent help nowadays. I think the main reason is that most attorney’s want to pay as little as possible for the people who work for them.  I can command a decent rate because I know what I am doing, at least most of the time.

The attorney wanted me to prepare a whole slew of causes of action. I had prepared the initial complaint with just 3 causes of action, including the cause of action that would allow him to file a lien against the two properties that are only in the name of Amy. This would prevent her from refinancing or selling the two properties. But Amy and especially the attorney wanted to load the complaint up with as much horse manure as they could. Unbelievable.

I swear some of these attorney’s are something else. They want to add everything that they can. It is like they think they are building the ultimate cheeseburger or something. Give me a break! Go to Jack in the Box® if you want the Ultimate Cheeseburger®.

I e-mailed him the complaint last week and he e-mailed back saying that he wanted more causes of action. Guess what? Amy went to an attorney and filed her own complaint last week and then contacted Judy and told her that he was placing a lien on ALL of the properties, including a property that Amy had bought before she even knew Judy.  So now I had to turn the complaint into a cross-complaint, also known as a counter suit.  And Judy gained the upper hand because Amy and the attorney took their sweet time getting me the correct information.

Now Amy has the upper hand as Judy cannot refinance or sell the property that she has owned for over ten (10) years. And Judy keeps changing the information. The details change and certain amounts of money allegedly put into the properties changes. Either Judy is a scatterbrain or she is trying to pull something.

It is amazing what people will do once their relationship goes bad. They want to use the legal system to get back at the other person. You would not believe the number of cases like that I have seen in my many years of working in the legal field here in California.

To me these two women are nothing but two lemon sucking ditzes. Hey if they want to have a relationship together that is their choice. But do not use the legal system to get back at each other. Because once you start throwing mud around it gets on everyone. And when you get into Court if both parties have mud on them it gets really hard for a Judge or Jury to figure out who is who. As the old saying goes, do not come into Court with “unclean hands.”

I am working on another case where this husband and wife bought a vacation cabin in the mountains of Southern California.  They rent it out on a short term basis for holidays and that sort of thing.   It is a two story property and the stairs leading down to the first floor are very steep, although there is a warning sign posted warning that the stairs are very steep and that someone can fall down the stairs.

However, they did not have liability insurance to cover them in the event that someone injured themself at the vacation cabin.  They do have the renters acknowledge that they have agreed to the terms of their guest rental agreement which states that they release the owners from all liability. Guess what happened?

Someone rented the cabin and fell down the stairs. She was injured quite severely and has sued the couple. Normally I do not work on defending personal injury cases because virtually everyone has liability insurance. Their insurance company hires an attorney to defend them.

This couple must have smoked a lot of dope when they were younger because in my opinion anyone who does not have liability insurance in California is nuts. This is the most sue happy State in all of the United States. You have probably heard the joke about why New Jersey got all of the toxic waste dumps and California got all of the lawyers. Because New Jersey got first choice!!! Give me a break. I have a vision of this couple, particularly the guy, probably the type who has one of those pictures hanging on his wall with some trite platitude like “Teamwork” or someone climbing a mountain, something like that. In other words a total idiot.  The type of idiot who tries to save money on his insurance premiums by using a release in the guest rental agreement which may or may not hold up in Court.

This guy is going to spend at least ten or twenty times what it would have cost him in insurance premiums to defend this lawsuit, and that is assuming that he wins!

Give me a break. I know California is like granola, full of fruits, nuts and flakes but that is unreal.  Stay tuned. More to come on Boobus Americanus and the legal system.

Boobus Americanus and the legal system, part three

Now for part three of Boobus Americanus and the legal system.   As I mentioned in parts one and two, I have worked in the legal field in the State of California for a long time. And I have seen some things that would curdle your blood.  I have seen the legal system here in California up close and personal, and let me tell you what I have seen has horrified me at times.  I do want to point out that I have also seen many good things as well. But the bad things I have seen are really scary.   But Boobus Americanus thinks everything is just fine. Oh there might be a few problems but they are the exception, not the rule. You know what I say to that. Bull****!!  Problems are in many cases, the rule, not the exception.

I collected Court judgments in California for many years until just a few years ago.  I had two judgments assigned to me back in 2002 or so that were very large, over $500,000.00 each.  The judgments were default judgments meaning that the defendants did not file any answer to the complaint.

They were against two individuals who were also partners in an auto sales business where they sold used cars. The individual who assigned the judgments to me who I shall call Mr. D. had sued them both individually, as partners in their partnership, and the partnership itself. The first person, I will call him Mr. C. had actually signed an agreement with Mr. D. in which he borrowed a certain sum of money which was to be secured by used automobiles. Mr. D. never got paid anything back and he alleged that they sold the cars and kept the money, and also defrauded him. That is the reason for the very large amount of the judgments. 

I began collection proceedings and sent a garnishment notice to a finance company which Mr. D. had told me about. This finance company financed the cars for the partnership, and as the car buyers made their payments the finance company would release money into the account of the partnership. I was able to get over $65,000.00 from the first garnishment. I then scheduled judgment debtor exams for Mr. C. and his partner, Mr. T. When Mr. T. was served I received a call from his bankruptcy attorney informing me that he had filed a bankruptcy. I then requested that he fax me the bankruptcy information which he did.  His attorney also told me on the phone that Mr. T. would fight any further attempts to collect on him as he did not sign anything, and had no knowledge of what Mr. C. was doing. I had to stop my collection efforts against Mr. T. at that point although I still got to keep the money because the account with the finance company was in the name of the partnership, not the individuals.

I reviewed the exhibits that were used to obtain the default judgments and it was then that I found that the attorney was right! Mr. T. had not signed anything in any capacity! Yet the Court found him personally liable even though he had not signed anything!  His partner could legally bind him as a partner on behalf of the partnership, but he could not bind him personally to any contract. Anyone who knows the law would realize this.  Yet that did not stop the Judge, who is no longer sitting on the bench, from entering a judgment against Mr. T. personally, for over $550,000.00 even though he did not sign the contract, either personally, or in his capacity as a partner.

I also worked on a case with the pompous drunk "attorney" I mentioned here, http://boobusamericanus.blogspot.com/2012/04/boobus-americanus-as-attorneys.html and here, http://boobusamericanus.blogspot.com/2012/05/boobus-americanus-as-attorneys-part.html .He had a client who was suing a furniture company claiming the furniture they had sold him was not what they had promised. When I first got the case the client was still saying that they had not credited him back for the furniture which he had returned.  So I had prepared the default judgment paperwork for a certain amount. Later the client finally informed the “attorney” that the furniture company had in fact credited him back for the furniture which he had returned. So instead of the default judgment being around $18,000.00 or so, it was only about $4,000.00. I prepared the revised judgment paperwork But because I was working in the downstairs office I did not print out the paperwork and bring it to the second floor. Instead the office manager who was his girlfriend asked me to just save the documents in the client folder and she would print them out and submit to the Court. I saved the revised documents in the client folder and that was that. Guess what? Unbeknownst to me the office manager used all of the correct documents, except that the proposed judgment she submitted to the Court was for $18,000.00. And the Judge signed the judgment for $18,000.00 even though the supporting documents all stated that the judgment was for only around $4,000.00. When I received the filed documents back from the Court I immediately noticed the error and notified the “attorney”. He told me to go ahead and try to collect the $18,000.00 judgment even though he knew for sure that the amount was not correct. 

Now that is scary.  And those are only a few of the stories that I have to tell. Stay tuned. More to come on Boobus Americanus and the legal system.