I have posted many times on this board about my trials & tribulations with a small claims lawsuit that I filed a year ago. I filed it against an OC (large bank) for incorrect reporting, no permissible purpose in pulling a credit report, and not marking the accounts as "in dispute." It was for 5 violations of the FCRA, $5K in my state. The OC appointed a local attorney who has literally drug me through a paperwork nightmare for the past year. Early on in this process I offered to settle this case for deletion only. They would not settle (that was about 9 months ago). Since then we have had depositions, interrogatories, and discovery all in small claims court! Yes, you can do that in this state. Now we are scheduled for our FIFTH hearing to determine if the OC must answer my discovery questions. (I filed a Motion to Compel Answers) The judge will rule on it in 2 weeks. Several weeks later there will be a hearing to determine if the OC can get a summary judgement in the case once and for all (motion based on really flimsy & flawed reasoning). My whole goal in this was to get them the OC to report it correctly. When that failed after numerous tries, I filed a lawsuit. I never wanted the money. I wanted the items deleted. Period. Now after a year has passed, 2 of the 3 CRA's have deleted the items through disputes! Now only 1 CRA is reporting anything at all. THe inquiry was removed voluntarily after I filed the suit. I would really like to get this whole mess behind me. Now, 2 weeks prior to the "Motion to Compel Answers in Discovery" hearing, would it be wise to send the attorney another letter and tell them that I will settle for deletion off of the 1 CRA? I feel sure they don't know the other 2 have deleted.
Who is the OC? I'd like to know who they are so I won't accidently mess with them. Who have you sent the settlement offer to the attorney or the OC? This lawyer may be putting up such a big fight to bleed money off the OC in legal fees and not forwarding your settlement offers to the OC so that he may continue to do so. Anyhoos, I'd try to contact someone from the company preferably high up and flat out ask them "Hey, do you realize just how much money its costing your company just to continue screwing my credit reports? I've offerred your company a settlement agreement several times that would no have cost your company a dime. I believe the law firm you have hired is just putting up such a big fight only to bleed your company out of legal fees and so I have decided to contact you personally to see if you have actually recieved my settlment offers. With all the depositions, interrogatories, discoveries, etc. I am willing to bet that your legal costs have already exceeded the amount I originally filed suit for. Your company would have done better to just go ahead and paid me the 5K I asked for in the beginning. We both have spent too much time and resources in dealing with this, now I propose that we cut our losses and end this mess now so we both can move on, below is my settlment offer." Then you give them your settlement offer.
That might get you in even more trouble. Remember that if you have hired an attorney to defend they may not contact you for any reason. They must contact your attorney only. So although you are pro se you may have to follow the same rules too. Maybe you don't have that option. I don't know about that but its a thought. Some of these "patriot" type programs have you filing all sorts of junk on the creditor and the sole purpose is to cause them so much grief that they might just give up and not pursue the matter. Not worth it to spend hundreds of hours proving how they got the money they loaned you, how money is created, define what money is, money is not money, Modern Money Mechanics, ad infinitium, ad nauseum. So what happens? The lawyer files answers stating that if they were forced to comply with this or that demand it would be too burdensom on the plaintiff or that the demand has no bearing on the outcome of the case or is not relevant to the issues of the case. Then they often file counter demands for the production of books and records, demand for production of all books, materials, plans and sources of information relied upon by defendant to pursue these issues. They know that all the yik-yak thrown at them by the defendant didn't come from any lawyer, ( if it did they want him disbarred from practicing law for being so stupid) so if they can find out how this knucklehead got so "bright" they can sanction him or punish him and get his junk thrown out of court. Of course, all those demands makes the interrnet educated pro se shake in his boots because he knows that if he produces all that is demanded of him he is a dead duck for sure and the glueru who sold him the garbage suddenly would not help him or had already skipped the country with the fool's money. Whatever. He is stuck without the knowledge to beat the demands and with nobody to help him. His real problem was that he was so desparate to find a quick fix to his problems at any cost that he didn't do his homework but rather was willing to believe the next fool who had a magic "million dollar letter" The letter may very well have been almost magical in the results it produced but if the user don't do his homework and understand how to use it, when to use it, what to expect then he can and very often ends up in deep doo-doo. Something like a product called "Charlie's Wheels" which is a cardboard wheel placed on a grinder and used to sharpen knives. Works like a dream but if the wheel is spinning in the wrong direction it can grab the knife, jerk it out of your hands and imbed it right into your chest or almost anywhere else it happens to fling it. Best you do your homework before you attempt to use it. Anyway, the whole point is that you might just want to study all their demands very carefully and see if you can't borrow some tricks from the lawyers themselves in other cases. For instance they demand books and records. Now what do you do? Simple. Their demand for production of books and records is an attempt to intimidate, is irrelevant to the outcome of the case or whatever and since no law requires that anyone keep books and records you do not keep any books or records and therefore cannot comply. Or that the 5th Amendment to the Constitution protects you from having to provide evidence or testimony that might be used against you in a court of law. Or that you are unaware that any such material as demanded exists. Or that you do not remember how the cat got to the vet in the first place (from another thread here) Whatever. The whole point is that I think you need to quit worrying about compliance and start looking for reasons to deny their motions. That is most likely what they would do to you if the shoe were on the other foot and would only comply with the most reasonable demands that they could easily provide. And what is the court doing to help you pefect your case? You should have invoked the help of the court right from the git-go since you are pro se and if you have not done that maybe you should think about invoking that in any way that you can.
I agree with Dixi and Bill. The attorney is taking the bank for a ride. He doesnâ??t care about either his clients interest or yours. He's billing about $150-200 per hour fighting your Small Claim. He's probably having fun doing it. I have no less then 3 blood relatives who are Civil attorneys and I can vouch for the fact they do have some serious mental problems. A definite God complex. To regress back to a personal war story. I had a lawsuit about 9 months ago with an attorney who acted the same way. It was for a $150 paid collection(I sh*t you not). They ignored all my threats to sue and stumbled right into my small claim. The dopes decided to fight. The attorney got all cocky and went off on some pretty wild tangents. Filing all kinds of discovery motions and crap. Well I did a bit of both of what's suggested. I went straight to the corporate office in Mn and contact the President through a fax explain the lunacy of what is going on, plus I sent a CRRR with a threat to the yahoo attorney that I was writing the judge to explain his abuse of the legal system, his attempt to deprive me of my civil rights and how I was contacting his local bar association for abusing the legal system and taking his client for a ride and harassing me. Well my bluster worked. I received a call from the corporate office and 15 minutes later I dropped the suit. So you have to be willing to be the skunk in this piss*ng contest and not back down.
