Have you ever sued anyone?

[Mark L]

Or been sued yourself?

Seems to be a popular pastime in the States

[Jeff Leites]

In the late 70's, I took a car dealer to small claims court.  If I recall, he had had the some surfaces of my new car repainted when repairing some damage to my new car before I took delivery.  Every time those surfaces got wet, either from washing, or rain, when the sun hit it, there would be what looked like bleached out spots on the water drops.  We settled out of court, and he paid for another paint job.

[jimash]

 I was in a car accident, and was sued for $850,000 .

Made me very nervous.

 

[wheresmyelephant?]

I sued my old landlord a couple years ago for not returning a security deposit on a house my friends and I rented. The people who lived there before us destroyed the house before they left and while she repaired a bunch of it she didn't do all of it. Then when we left she blamed a bunch of that old damage on us and kept all $4700 of our deposit. 

 

After trying to be reasonable about it I researched some real estate laws (I also worked in real estate too so I had some background) and took her to court. Because she didn't document anything correctly we would've gotten 3x the deposit plus interest on a technicality but her lawyer said they would've dragged it out and tried to settle for the original deposit. Told him I knew the law and that we'll take it to the court because I asked around and the judge was very tenant-friendly. They tried to give us a a little more but told them to fudge off because she was such a bitch about it and threatened to sue us earlier because we caused more than $4700 in damage.

Eventually we settled for $10k and a strict payment plan. She was pretty bad about paying us back except when I sent a sheriff to her house to arrest her, then she paid up pretty quickly. 

 

It was a real pain and I was the leader so I had to do a lot of legwork. I did learn a lot though and it's definitely possible to do it without a lawyer if you're relatively competent. 

[MrKnobs]

Sued and been sued.  Not often, thank God.

Sued a bank once for falsely damaging my credit.  I won that one.  I can't believe they actually made me take them to court.  I guess they just have attorneys lying around doing nothing so they figured maybe they needed some work.  It was especially stupid of them as it was the second suit I'd brought against them and they lost the previous one also.  The lesson I learned was that large corporations never apologize, they just dig in their heels and send armies of lawyers.

Once upon a time I owned a commercial studio.  The zoning laws in Bryan TX are pretty lax so there was a house next to us and the sole occupant of that house kept calling the police with noise complaints.  We weren't doing anything illegal so I finally just respectfully told the cops to quit stopping by as "no, I'm NOT going to turn it down at 3PM in the afternoon."

The cops stopped coming but a process server came instead, putting us on notice we were being sued.  At least that let me know for sure who was complaining.

It was indeed the little old elderly woman living in the big old house next door, so I went over to try and talk to her and see if we could work something out.   She slammed the door in my face.

So off to court we went.  In preparation for that I had an acoustics engineer come out and measure noise levels around the outside of the building (it was a big, commerical, well insulated steel building) while we had a loud rock band playing, someone kicking the crap out of a huge kick drum right next to the wall facing her home, etc.  As expected, the noise level from all these things was nearly too low to measure and certainly could not be separated from the ordinary 85 dBA of street noise at the little old lady's property line.

Should be a slam dunk, right?  But imagine the sympathy for a little elderly woman vs an evil studio owner.   I was nervous but prepared, I thought.  The noise engineer cost me a small fortune and he was even there to serve as expert witness.

He never got to speak, I never got to show the judge all the graphs and plots and photos.

Complainant goes first, so her lawyer put her up to cry for the judge and I thought I was doomed until she said, "I need my sleep, I'm not well, and all those car doors slamming at night...."  I actually jumped up out of my chair!

Long story slightly shorter, we all huddled with the judge and I said this was the first I'd heard about car issues, judge said "Didn't you two talk about the problem before bringing it here?"  I told the judge I'd tried, but she slammed the door in my face.  He asked her if that was so, she said, "I was afraid he might hurt me!" and finally the judge, exasperated, said to me, "Is there something you can do about that?"  I said, "Sure.  She lives adjacent to the back parking lot.  I can rope that off at night and make everyone use the front lot."  Judge asked her if that would be OK she said, "I guess so...."

We thought we were done but the judge had the last word.  He declared us jointly responsible for court costs and fined us both, saying "The courts are clogged with stupid suits like this one, next time talk to each other and don't waste my time."

And that was that.  I reimbursed her for her fine, it was a relatively small amount and I hoped it would buy me some goodwill with her for the next problem.

That was an expensive lesson for me, but worth it, I think.  I've managed to avoid any lawsuits after that one. 

Terry D.

[coyote-1]

Was sued once, by a woman who was dissatisfied with my photography skills. Backstory is that in the days before computer photography editing, her boyfriend was a lunatic sax player.... and she was semi-attractive but had a big scar on her lower right jaw. She nonetheless needed a set of photos for some endeavor or other. They were too cheap to hire a pro. He knew I'd done some work in the business so he ASKED me to do them this favor and he'd pay $200. I agreed.

Showed up with my camera and a basic lighting system, and proceeded to do the best I could for the next 90 minutes. i delivered the shots to him a week later, he looked at them and gave me $200.

Some months later I got a notice stating that I'm in default on a judgment against me. Turns out it was this woman, who was utterly dissatisfied with the pics. She believed I should have made the scar disappear! Nowhere was it stated in the agreement between myself and the sax player that it was what was needed. So I show up to appeal the judgment. Ran into her beforehand. She says she's very disappointed with the pics and her boyfriend used her money to pay for them and she got pissed off and dumped him and sued me... and perhaps she'd agree to withdraw the suit if I would take her to dinner (!!!) lol

[rasputin1963]

Never sued,  nor have been sued.     I am a big follower of the Tao and of the I Ching:    paramount in this philosophy is establishing harmony between yourself,  your own needs---      and the imperatives/directions of the people/greater society around you.    At all times. 

The Tao/I Ching path necessitates that one be honest with oneself,   and scrupulous with others,  vis-

[rjt]

Been sued a bunch of times..... never sued anyone.  Mostly it was as a member of a hospital team after a patient committed suicide.  Once I got sued in private practice.  Fortunately, I am pretty compulsive and dotted my I's and crossed my T's when it come to my suicide and homicide assessment of intakes.  After a couple of months I was dropped from the lawsuit and they went after someone else (and won.)  It is a pain.  Nice sunny day and you are driving around thinking "crap, I'm being sued for a bundle."  Bummer.

[MrKnobs]

---

rasputin1963 wrote:

 

In short:  Whenever lawsuits take place,   I often have the uneasy feeling that some major breach,  misstep,  self-delusion,  double-talk  or oversight  

occurred much, 

MUCH

earlier in the unfoldment of events

... usually within one's very own character.  Freud said it: 

There are no accidents.

 

 

I wish this world was populated by peace desiring people like you and me, but it's not.  Unfortunately there are people who sue at the drop of a hat with no anger, for no other reason than you've got money and they want it.  Where was your misstep then?

Conversely, there are people who will steal from you, slander  you, destroy your reputation / career with lies, and the only recourse you have is to sue them, knowing the lawyers will get the bulk of any money, but hoping that they'll learn a lesson that makes them hesitate with their next victim.

Terry D.