Re: email, Trans Union LKH, This is mainly about money. If your attorney did not present the facts correctly, or did not present the FCRA in its proper context concerning transfers, the judge will just go ahead and side with the attorney who has everything together. I am not saying that your attorney didnt do his job, I am just wondering why the judge would grant the transfer to federal, when the law states that you are allowed to sue in a lower court. It just doesnt make sense. Maybe one of our resident legal gurus could explain..
Re: email, Trans Union According to the judge, the statute requires that the case be transferred to federal. I called the judges'' office and asked what statute says that as the minute entry doesn't say which statute was referred to. The answer was the FCRA. Pure bull sh%$. I asked to speak to the judge directly but was told that wasn't possible at this time. They said I should write a letter to the judge.
Re: email, Trans Union I'm not sure what state you live in but I would be careful about writing a letter to the judge. I was furious with a decision regarding my husbands hearing on child support (he was my boyfriend at the time). His ex-wife brought my name into it ( I wasn't even there). In the ruling my name was all over the results of the hearing. So I decided to write a letter to the judge. I received a letter from the courthouse stating judges are not allowed personal mail regarding case hearings and that my letter would be placed in my hubbys file. When I went to the courthouse to get my letter back they refused to give it to me. Needless to say, cause I was 'irrate' in my letter (it was very professional though) it was used against him in a visitation hearing stating I was a hostile person and I would be a danger to their child. Even though I have 2 children of my own. Go figure! Leave it to NH to pull something like this. Sorry to ramble! KHM
Re: email, Trans Union As you are probably only too well aware, divorce court is totally different than any other kind of legal action. So is child custody. And so are child abuse cases. Dirty tricks in divorce court are perfectly acceptable which would not be allowed in any other non-familial type cases. They used to be strictly knock-down and drag out deals. Since I've been married 9 times to 6 different women, you can imagine I have been there a time or two. I've been married to my present wife 3 times and we never did get a divorce and there probably isn't a crying chance that we will either. Out of the 5 divorces, I never lost a one, never paid a crying dime in child suppport, alimony, wife's attorney fees, or anything else. Never spent a minute in jail over it either. Had 3 kids by my first wife, but none by the rest except my present wife. All 5 lost in court. My present wife started a divorce action one time about 7 years after we were married and she saw that she was gonna lose her only son and maybe her daughter too in the process, she thought it might just be easier to put up with me than to lose her kids and have to pay child support on top of it. Her lawyer told her flat out he could not win the case and her best bet would be to go see if she could patch things up. So she did. Wasn't hard to do. All she had to do was quit drinking till she was stone cold passed out and quit going out to dances two or 3 nites a week leaving me to take care of the kids. Once she figured out that she was going to have to quit that nonsense or lose her kids, she took the lesser of two evils option real quick. Never had any trouble since. And I beat DHS on a child abuse case too. While the wife was drunk she beat the shit out of our son one day. I was out of town on business for a couple of days and when I came back I learned about it. Poor kid was all bruised up. Welts all over his legs, all black and blue. And she was dumb enough to send him to school that way. When I got back next day, a DHS case worker came knocking on the door wanting to see this kid. I sent him packing and they came back with a summons to court. We got to court and that didn't work out so well for them either. One of their problems was they didn't have a real judge there to hear the case. Just an administrative judge all dressed up like a real judge and a phony court room to boot. So to the horror of my laywer and the DHS as well, I sent the whole kit and kaboodle packing, never to return again. I never will forget the look of horror on the judges face when I demanded that he produce his oath of office and proof that he had paid the $50 filing fee to the state required to be a judge. I already knew that his oath of office had been administered by his secretary at DHS and that he was paid by DHS and not the State itself and I had the proof of it in hand too. He reclused himself in a big hurry and DHS informed me that they would have another hearing ready to go the next week and I wasn't going to be so lucky next time. So I filed a $2 million lawsuit on them next day. Needless to say, they suddenly lost all interest in next week's trial and wondered if there wasn't some way they could work this thing out. Yep, Sure was. Get the F off my back and don't come bothering me and my family no more. And put it in writing, signed, notarized, and bring it to me. Then I'll drop my lawsuit. It only took a day to work it out and I never ever heard from them again. And my wife never laid another hand on the kid again. But in your case, the problem was that they could claim in court that you might be a danger to her kids and get away with it. And the fact that you had two kids didn't help a bit. After all, you might be the best mom in the world to your kids but what about accepting somebody else's kids? So many step-moms have abused their step-kids while loving their own that the other side could object on the grounds of your letter and get away with it even if nothing could have been further than the truth. Most husbands won't even fight in court over divorces and child custody. So they get clobbered. Most debtors won't stand up and fight over debts. So they get clobbered. I don't get clobbered. I do the clobbering instead.
Re: email, Trans Union In my state, either party to a small claims suit (whether plaintiff or defendent) has the right to transfer a case from small claims ("general sessions" in this state) to Federal court ("circuit court"). This has nothing to do with FCRA, FDCPA, or any other credit-related law. Rather, this has to do with plaintiff's and defendent's rights to select a venue. Doc
Re: email, Trans Union Doc, I understand where you are coming from, but it plainly states in the federal rulings, that a consumer can file in a small claims venue or any venue for that matter. It seems that it was written to protect the consumer from being hardballed by big corporations, but it looks like it just doesnt stand in LKHs situation. On the other hand, many small claim venues will only allow corporations to sue so many times, and then they must move to a higher civil or higher venue. It keeps the courts from being bogged down with companies going after consumers....I guess it works both ways... Now, I can understand that someone may want to change the venue because of their location, for instance if the person you are suing lives in another state and would have a hard time attending any hearings. The only reason why these guys want to change venue, is because they know it is goint to make things more expensive and less desirable to pursue. They suck in my opinion...
Re: email, Trans Union True, GoDaddyo, they do suck. And I agree with you that the only reason they move it to Federal court is to intimidate the plaintiff. That said, the Tennessee Code Annotated (our collection of state laws) makes it very plain that either party to a small claims lawsuit has the right to have the case transferred to Federal court where a Circuit Court judge or magistrate can hear and rule on the case. My understanding is that this mirrors the laws of most other states as well. So, while the FCRA plainly says you can file in any court you like, most state laws say that your rights go further than that -- after filing in one court, you have the right to change your mind and bump it up a level if you so desire, and the defendant has a similar right. Yeah, it sucks. Don't forget that, as a rule, laws are written by lawyers (and seem to benefit lawyers as well). Doc
Re: email, Trans Union Well, Doc, that just says one thing which is that if you want to do this stuff on a pro se basis, i.e. do it yourself without a lawyer then you are going to have to do your homework. LKH has done quite a bit and he seems to pedaling as fast as he can. I'm doing the same thing and I'm just about ready to go file my first case. I learned how to do it by helping others for free. I had to do it because I didn't have any judgements against me that I could go do anything about. And I sure couldn't charge anybody for helping them even if I wanted to because I'm not a lawyer. And I didn't even think about taking credit related problems to court because I was always into fighting with the IRS and making them obey the law if they wanted to get any money out of me. And then I finally figured out that IRS is subject to just about all the same laws creditors and 3rd party debt collectors are. They are good at pettifoggery and obfuscation and can make up all the fancy lies they want to, but it still boils down to one simple little thing. PROVE I OWE YOU THE MONEY AND I'LL PAY WHAT I OWE. You can't prove I owe you the money then you can just go climb a rope. And don't go sneaking around my back trying to illegally garnish my wages at the source unless you have proven that I'm going to owe you the money in the future and have legally authorized my employer to withhold my wages via an IRS form 8655 on file in his office and have issued him an EIN number. I'll just go to the boss and file a W-9 form with him and that will put an end to the matter until you get all your ducks in a row and start doing things right for a change. And don't you dare come trying to hang a phony "notice of lien" around my neck either because that isn't the way to do things. Liens are liens and notices are notices of intent to file lien. Go get a judge to say I got to pay up. In otherwords, prove it to a judge first. Don't just go pull some sham legal process on me. I ain't gonna stand still for that because I'm an American citizen and I got rights you had better observe. Then after I got to reading this and other forums I realized that I already knew enough to work on credit related problems and start helping others to realize they don't have to put up with the crap that's being laid on them.
Re: email, Trans Union Yeah, Doc That's right. Yes, but the problem is that you buy them books, send them to school and all they do is eat the pages. Just go look at what this dumbo lawyer filed on someone I know and am helping. http://www.creditwrench.com/courthouse/jn1.html No affidavits or nothing. Just pure obfuscation and pettifoggery. Lawyers know better than to pull this kind of dumb stunt on people. They just do it because they know they can get away with it. But all people have to do is to start off by studying http://www.creditwrench.com/courthouse/page1.html and they will see soon enough that all they got to do is to copy the forms they see right there and make the obviously necessary changes, fill in the blanks, put in the correct name of the court and go file them with the court. Of course, they will have to go find some competent legal counsel or an advanced law student to make sure they dotted all the i's and crossed all the T's correctly so they don't go make some mistake and end up on the wrong side. But so what? It's worth a few bucks to get it right. But you know what? Wouldn't surprise me if some smart-alec with an axe to grind didn't jump up and claim I'm advertising something. But they are gonna be dead wrong because how on earth can somebody claim I'm advertising something when I'm laying it all out on line for free?
Re: email, Trans Union Well, it looks like I can quit pedaling so damn fast now. I had an appointment today with a local consumer lawyer, since none of the other high profile atty's care or even think they need to respond to someone when they said they would. Anyway, we went over the whole thing and he has agreed to take it. He, like my first lawyer, seems to think I can get this resoved quickly and in my favor as far as getting these few things deleted in exchange for dismissing the lawsuit. I can slow down a little now.
Re: email, Trans Union That's great to hear! I was going to give you the name and phone number of a lady in CA who specializes is this sort of stuff but I didn't know if that would work out for you or not. Just in case, here is her info: Sharon L. Kinsey (831) 465-7565 skinsey@consumeradvocate.net 2425 Porter Soquel, CA She specializes in fraud, lemmon law, auto problems, debt collections abuse, and credit reporting abuse.
Re: email, Trans Union Hey MP. I appreciate the info. If, for some unknown reason something goes wrong (and it better not), then I'lol give a call.
Re: email, Trans Union LKH I just spoke to David Szwak on the phone and told him you had been trying to contact you and he said he would get an email right off to you. He said they were in the middle of moving their offices to some other location, bigger digs and all of that, and he hoped that you would accept his apologies.
Re: email, Trans Union Thanks for letting him know, Bill. He did send me an email and wants me to call him. Wouldn't you know it. I get tired of waiting and finally go to see another lawyer, and now I hear back. LOL Oh well, someone will be upset in the end. What really pisses me off is that R. Stuart Phillips requested I send him copies of everything involved in this case. I sent it Fedex overnight so he would get it asap. That was 2 weeks ago. Now, knowing that I am up against a time table, you would think he'd at least contact me one way or the other. Obviously, he doesn't want the case, but it would have been proper professional conduct to let me know.
Re: email, Trans Union I am about at the point with Experian where I will need to file a lawsuit--but to get things deleted Experian's failure to remove items has really irked me. Good luck LKH--you give me hope. cariba
Re: email, Trans Union Per MP$40, I am posting my last post here also. Just to keep this one alive awhile longer. My atty. had called the atty. for credit data southwest yesterday. Today I got a call from their atty. at my office. By the time I got back to him, he was getting ready to leave, but said he'll call me tomorrow morning to see if we can work out a settlement. He said there is no point to going to court over this. I guess they didn't expect me to come back with an attorney after they had it moved to federal court. Oh well. I'll post the results tomorrow.
Re: email, Trans Union So now they want to louse out behind your attorney's back? I'd inform my attorney about the call and see what he had to say about it first. Once you have informed them that you have an attorney to represent you, it's supposed to be illegal for the other side to contact you directly. Or at least I thought it was illegal if it isn't. If they are starting to want to turn tail and run, I would not want to settle with them at all. Let your attorney rip them a new pie hole. That's what I would do.
Re: email, Trans Union What a disgusting abuse of the legal system. When their gambit to move it out of small-claims backfired, they want to talk. Quadruple your price and please, don't sign a gag agreement.
Re: email, Trans Union Bill is right, if you are represented by counsel, he should not be calling you. He might seems nice, but there could be a trick up their sleeve! In fact, I don't have a ref. book handy, but might be a violation of ethical canon (LOL!) cariba
