I’m being sued!
In my last blog of a few days ago, I forgot to mention that I was being sued. Guess I forgot about it, so that’ll tell you how much I’m worrying about the summons I got. In fact, this one is so out-there that I’m not even involving my attorney.
Up until the first of the year, I managed a 210 unit mobile home park. Within the last couple years, our city gov’t has taken a strong stance on cleaning-up the city. One ordinance says that your vehicles must be licensed and operational (ie no flat tires, etc). If not, it better be in a garage or someplace out of site.
Shortly after I turned the park keys over to a new manager, the city drove thru the mobile home park and wrote down every vehicle that was not in compliance to the city clean-up ordinance. The list was handed over to the new management, who had to enforced it or face fines themselves.
After several warnings by management, one person failed to get valid licence plates, so the park manager had them towed. The other day I received a notice that I’m being sued for nearly $3,000 in towing and storage fees.
My first thought was gees, why did you keep the car in storage for so long? My second thought is that how can I be sued when I wasn’t even manager at the time! And I certainly had nobody towed since then.
Apparently the tenant found an old paper with my name on it, and assumed I was still manager and filed a small claims suit against me. So today I stopped up to the courthouse to deny the claim based upon the fact that I didn’t have his car towed. And I also listed that the reason the car was towed is because the city ordered the mobile home park to have it towed or risk being fined.
I know, park management should have taken care of everything filed the claim on my behalf. But nothing would urk me more than to be liable for something as dumb as this because someone didn’t file a letter of denial in a timely manner. And since my name is on the small claims, I took matters into my own hands.
The clerk said that most likely the judge would throw-out the case, but a court date still needs to be set. So a letter will soon be forthcoming. When I do go to court, I’ll have the current manager and a representative from the city with me just in case the judge still wants to hear the case.
Really, if the guy wants to sue anyone, he should be suing the city as they are the ones who issued the orders to have the car removed or licensed in X number of days. Basically the whole thing is just a big waste of time for all involved.
Court won’t be until July or maybe even August, so stay tuned. The circus continues. . .