Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
“Stereotypical purpose of the law to protect the rights of somebody who isn’t able to obviously represent themselves. And that’s a good thing.”
Michael Campbell – Business Dispute Attorney – Pierce County, WA
“Well, it may be a good thing, and usually the bar recognizes that too. That’s why they have their modest means program, and they have…We have public attorneys, but we don’t have enough of that. We don’t have anywhere near enough attorneys or legal services available to people who are poor.”
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
“I agree.”
Michael Campbell – Business Dispute Attorney – Pierce County, WA
“I can’t represent everybody. I can’t do all to do all cases like that. But for example, I had one most recently, and it’s still ongoing, is a client who was referred by another client, and he didn’t know that he had been sued ten years ago, or nine years ago. Whenever it was. There was a judgment against him that was nine years old. And he finally got his wages garnished.
And he didn’t understand of… for one thing… he wasn’t… never got actual notice of the lawsuit. His wife had bought a car. He thought his wife had… had cash and was paying cash for the car. He didn’t know that she was financing it, but she did finance it. Somebody signed something that looked like his signature on the bottom of that contract. He says he was never there. And when he got, when the wife failed to keep her insurance current, the creditor could have put a policy of insurance on the car to protect its interest, but it didn’t. And then there was an accident.”
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
“I see.”
Michael Campbell – Business Dispute Attorney – Pierce County, WA
“Then there was a total loss. And the creditor sued the wife and the husband. The husband never knew about it. He was away at work when the process server came. The process server found a sixteen-year-old kid at home and gave the papers to him. The kid has since died, so we don’t even have his testimony. But the kid apparently gave the papers to his mother. There was no reason to give the papers to his father. His father’s illiterate, so he couldn’t read them, and he couldn’t have read the contract that he supposedly signed.”
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
“Well, you can’t serve a sixteen-year-old anyway as a substitute service. Am I correct?”
Michael Campbell – Business Dispute Attorney – Pierce County, WA
“In Washington, it says that you can do substituted service on a party of suitable age. That remains to be defined. What that is? That’s not defined in the statute. But a court will probably find a sixteen-year-old of suitable age that you can leave the papers with them. But that’s one of the arguments we can make.
And another argument we can make is that the… Reliable Credit, the car finance company, had the last clear chance to protect its interest. It could have put an insurance policy in place and didn’t. They were long separated by the time this accident occurred. And the husband knew nothing about the financing of the car, didn’t even know about the accident, didn’t know about the lawsuit, and…and didn’t know about the garnishment until he got the notice just this year.
And so, we have a date in court in July to go before a judge and to argue that he is not responsible, should not have been held responsible. The divorce decree gave all of the…all of the debts that were hers to her, and so she should have had that debt. It wasn’t specifically mentioned in the divorce decree, not this car loan, because he didn’t even know about the car loan, and she didn’t bother to tell him about it.”
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
“Well, it sounds like the facts weigh on your client’s side here, but I want to ask a question.”
Michael Campbell – Business Dispute Attorney – Pierce County, WA
“Let me just finish the story. The point is that I agreed to handle the whole thing for $1,000, and I’ve already spent more time on this than triple that.”
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
“Well, it sounds like you’re one of those attorneys that are going to listen to somebody rather than just run a mill. So, I compliment you on that.”
Michael Campbell – Business Dispute Attorney – Pierce County, WA
“Exactly. I can’t do that in every case, but in certain select cases where it’s clear that somebody’s just being hammered by the other side in a completely unfair manner, I’m going to be very sympathetic.”
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