Insurance Claim1

Years ago, I remember my mom demanding that we kids write letters to Santa.  We'd rummage through the Sears catalogs searching for toys that we'd never get.  I mean, we'd write down whole pages and never see any of it.  Got great stuff every Christmas, great memories of Christmas morning, but nothing I ever asked for. I don't know what it was with Santa but I can't remember a single thing I asked for that I ever got - until I got a credit card.  Things changed after that.  Oh, yeah - Nerf, here I come.  After a while, though, I learned that while having a credit card was all fun and games, you had to pay off the balance - eventually.  What with December being the month of debt, I can already see the line of people coming into my law library with legal problems. Take, for instance, the couple that came in just the other day.  Now that was a couple that understood the power of a credit card!  They had 23 credit cards between them for a ...

About a week ago, I was working with a guy who had come into the library. Seems Guy had been charged with raping a 3 year old baby girl. Three. THREE ! Pretty shocking, right? Took pretty much everything I had to stay on topic as I guided him around our resources to help him develop a defense. Why? Because until he is convicted, he didn't do anything.  Right?  Am I right?! The other day, I was reading a story about another politician who had been accused of sexual misconduct.  The thing is, the words "charged" and "accused" are not the same thing.  Seems Roy Moore had been  accused of engaging in sexual impropriety, including unwanted sexual advance and sexual assault, when both alleged victims were in their teens and Moore was in his thirties. I think the operative word here is "accused" meaning that Mr. Moore had/has not been tried and convicted in a court of law.  I'm sorry but accusations in and of themselves are not worth the paper t...

For whatever reason, this year has been the year of the rat at my house. No, I'm not talking about the Chinese Calendar .  I'm talking about the #$@#@$ rats that I've been trapping in my attic. Really been a pain in my backside but you gotta go get 'em before they start to multiply and/or gnaw on wires and things. As I was preparing to catch another rat (OK, we've only trapped two so far, but that last one was HUGE), I got to thinking about law and legal research.  Specifically, I was thinking about how I go about getting prepared to do a research project.  For instance, when I'm trapping rats, I start by setting up the ladder (to get to the attic), Then pull on my lightweight pants,  Strap on my knee pads (to crawl on the studs),  Slip on my dust mask,  Put on my 1,200 lumen headlamp,  Put on my glasses, Put on my lucky Cubs baseball cap and, finally,  Slide on my heavy-duty gloves and up into the attic and go a-hunting When I'm ...

Recently, I have noticed a rash of lawsuits by corporations who issue credit cards.  Most all of these actions are pled under the common count claim of money had and received . Wait, before we get too deep into this, what is a "common count, anyway?" According to Black's Law Dictionary , COMMON COUNTS means: In a plaintiff's pleading, in an action for debt. Boilerplate language that is not founded on the circumstances of an individual case but is intended to guard against a possible variance and to enable the plaintiff to take advantage of any ground of liability that the proof may disclose.  In the action for indebtiatus assumpsit , the common count states that the defendant had failed to pay a debt as promised. The thing is that as far as COMMON COUNTS go, there are five separate COMMON COUNTS . They are: For money had and received (popular with credit card companies) For work, labor, services, and materials rendered and requested by defendant (works lik...

You gotta wonder what judges are thinking when they hand down decisions.  Sometimes, you think they're going one way and then they go another.  Sometimes, they come up with decisions that are so "novel" that you gotta wonder where they came up with that one. For example, I was reading the Daily Journal the other day and found People v. Garcia, 2017 DJDAR 10777 (2017).  Now, I'm not complaining about this case.  In fact, I'm applauding the courts decision - it's just the way they got to their decision that is baffling. The facts of this case are that Pedro Garcia was staying as a guest at his sister-in-law's house.  At some point while he was a guest, he forcibly raped and sodomized his 12-year-old niece (who was also at sister-in-laws home as a guest and was a family member).  Garcia was, subsequently, convicted of forcible sex crimes against a child under 14 AND first degree burglary. See, the masalah is that burglary is generally associated with...

I think it was Woody Allen who said, "Eighty percent of success is just showing up."  Good thought since most people who need legal help think they're so unqualified that they can't even help themselves. Take, for example, the lady who came into my law library the other day.  Seems she lives next to a house and they share a common driveway.  In fact, she and he both have a common easement.  For those that don't know, an  EASEMENT is a right to cross or otherwise use someone else's land for a specified purpose.  In this case, she needed the common road to access her house. The duduk perkara was that the other guy was acting like a jerk by blocking her access to the driveway.  He'd park his car in the middle of the road or block it with chairs and rubbish.  It got so bad that when she had to call an ambulance one evening, they couldn't get through because of the rubbish blocking access. When lady had had enough, she called the police but...

You gotta wonder the timing of some things. Take, for instance, November.   November is the month for Thanksgiving and Veterans and wouldn't you know it but just the other day, I had a young Marine come into our law library seeking assistance? Seems a few months back, he was serving overseas. When he got home and was sifting through his mail, he found that he had been served a complaint for a sizable sum of money. Because he didn't respond after 30 days, a default was entered against him. So, let's recap.  Military man is serving overseas and while he was deployed, he was served and a judgement was entered against him.  I think that the operative words here are: WHILE HE WAS DEPLOYED .  The thing is, courts really don't like it when people take advantage of persons serving in the military.  Really, REALLY. I guess because politicians don't like it they created the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) in 2003 under 50 USC 3901-4043 . ...