This is good news.
Hang tough on them.
Keep us posted…
What events in the case triggered the outlay of such an increase? Although they wouldn’t make the judge happy, they surely wouldn’t result in money in your favor.
It could have to do with the treble damages she is entitled to as a result of the earlier finding that she was owed the money, plus the first rubber check they sent.
Yep, that’s quite a bit of it. Also, the judge was pissed at Former Employer and basically threw the book at her.
Seriously, after the verdict the judge looked at my lawyer and asked if we had filled out a damages form yet. No, we hadn’t, we were waiting for a verdict. The judge said OK, go take one off that stack of forms over there, go to the jury room, and calculate the absolute maximum damages you are entitled to under law.
At which point my [del]shark[/del] [del]attack dog[/del] lawyer sort of grinned and got out his law references and a pen…
First rule of [del]fight club[/del] court is don’t piss off the judge.
Bawahahaha
Waitaminnit! Your lawyer was there in Small Claims Court with you? They let you do that?
Yes. In Indiana that is allowed. The rules vary by state, apparently (like so much else).
Out of the 15 cases that day only four of them had lawyers present so most people don’t have them there but it’s certainly permitted.
Your lawyer (or you, for that matter) should be able to handle the minimal paperwork involved in garnishing your former employer’s bank account(s) if she doesn’t pay the judgment in a timely manner.
I was able to do this to collect a small claims court judgment.
Certainly,but since the collections aspect is a legal thing in progress I’m not going to discuss it any further. I’ll probably update ya’ll when it’s done, though.
Yeah, writing bad checks is not just a civil thing, it’s a crime. You might contact the prosecutor where you are and see if they will see if you can file a complaint. They will issue a summons and/or warrant and it won’t cost you a dime.
Here’s the thing - the civil penalties for that check would get me my money back and would proceed more quickly than a criminal case. A criminal case would cost HER a lot of money and likely slam her in jail… but would not get me MY money back. It doesn’t cost me a dime, but it doesn’t recover any dimes for me, either.
So in this case, civil penalties before criminal is in my best interest.
I heard through a mutual acquaintance that after the debacle in the courtroom (it was a debacle) the Store Owner and the Store Manager went back to the shop whereupon Store Owner proceeded to sob buckets. Store Manager got pissed at her for fairly obvious reasons (she tried to throw Store Manager under the bus) and threw her out of the shop (figuratively, as doing so physically would have required several people).
The smartest thing Store Owner could do at this point is write a check and be done with it. I dropped it into the grapevine that if she didn’t have the whole amount she could write a check for some of it and contact my lawyer about a payment plan, which would save us having to chase her down.
But I don’t expect her to suddenly start acting smart given her track record.
Ah, sweet Schadenfreude!
BTW, did you note my question, a few posts up, about whether the defendant has a right to appeal an adverse Small Claims verdict? Is there any possible concern that something like that might happen?
It was a summary dismissal for Store Owner due to failure to appear - it was a very dramatic, post-verdict, just as we were filing out arrival and the judge was not inclined to mercy.
She has 30 days in which to have it overturned - but that is wholly at a judge’s discretion. I gather those are more for situations like “Your honor I was in a horrific accident the night before and at the time of the hearing I was in the ER receiving CPR, blood transfusions, and last rights but I pulled through”. I don’t think it’s for situations that could have been avoided by getting up a half an hour earlier or leaving one’s home 15 minutes earlier.
It is possible but unlikely. Should it occur we’d all wind up back in the same room, and I still have all my prepwork and evidence.
So the shop is still open and she hasn’t paid? WTF! I kind of figured that they closed down so not paying was at least a little understandable.
So far as I know, they returned to the shop but it was closed all Friday. I don’t know if it was open Saturday or Sunday, and Monday was a holiday so it might have been closed anyway.
She has, if I recall, 30 days to file to overturn the verdict. I don’t think a judge will go for it, but she has the right to file.
Geez, it’s been what, three days? And those over a weekend. It’s not like I’d accept her personal check, give her some time to either get cash or a some sort of money order or cashier’s check.
Also - if the shop is open it might be making money. Shutting down the shop isn’t exactly in my best interest if there is still money coming in, the award money has to come from somewhere…
A strategy I remember from reading a Nolo book about Small Claims Court:
If Defendant has 30 days to file an appeal, you should try to avoid reminding them, and maybe Defendant will forget. Thus, DON’T make any moves to collect, not even so much as a letter to remind them, until AFTER the appeal period is over.
This time period is probably dependent upon the state. Broomstick, you might do well to review your state’s rules as to limits upon time restrictions for appeals from Small Claims.
That being said, I see no reason why collection procedures cannot be started immediately. Should there be an appeal, the procedures will simply be halted until the appeals courts makes its decision. Note, Broomstick, that an appeals process deals with errors in law, not fact; so if the other side wishes to introduce more facts, call more witnesses, etc,; it probably won’t be allowed to do so on appeal.
In other words, an appeal is not a do-over. The other side would have to do some legal research to show that the decision in your matter was legally wrong, and a precedent shows that. I don’t get the feeling that the other side is willing to do–or even capable of doing–such research.
IAAL, but I am not your lawyer, and I’m speaking generally, but my remarks are typical of what one might hear in a common-law jurisdiction. Broomstick, acquaint yourself with the Rules of Court (or Rules of Civil Procedure, as they may be called in your state), just to be sure of appeals deadlines, and other procedural matters.
Lawyer and I have already touched on this. We’re letting the time run out before we do anything.
I thought that’s what my lawyer was for…? We’ve already had a brief discussion about that.
Because if the things are overturned I might have to pay money back?
As the decision was a result of a summary dismissal due to her rather dramatically arriving five minutes after her case was over we sort of never did see the facts/witnesses/etc.
I think “not capable” is what is applicable here. The Store Owner can not hire a lawyer because, with her reputation for not paying the people she hires, none of them want to touch her without advance payment which she is either unable or unwilling to pay. She has demonstrated multiple times she is not competent to represent herself.
Sorry, I forgot that you were represented. Go with what your lawyer says.