A South Carolina jury awarded the default judgment against a now-defunct property management firm that had called with an eviction threat over two-months’-behind rent; the tenant in a deposition “said she had asked the manager to refrain from speaking with her mother because of her fragile health.” [Charleston Post and Courier]
5 Comments
Does this mean I can ask the Federal Government not to charge my 95-year-old father any taxes, and when they do, collect $1.75 million?
Bob
But what is the lesson here? Someone files a dumb lawsuit against and company that can’t pay a verdict anyway? So what?
The only winner is the lawyer who now puts his “$1.75 million verdict!” on their website.
What’s astounding is that public opinion–which is reflected in juries–seems to think that people who don’t pay their rent are somehow victims. How dare the landlords try to collect!
I really wonder how they showed the causality of the act to the event in this case. Is it known that people die from phone calls, should phone calls just not be forbidden. I do understand the family had a terrible loss and that the phone call was inconsiderate, however it seems a long stretch to go to “You lose your freedom of speech if the other person might get a life threatening shock from what you say”.
So what? They got a judgment that isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. It would be news if that case ever got to trial and survived motions to dismiss or summary judgment.