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No claim too small for this court

BY STEVE E. SWENSON, Californian staff writer
sswenson@bakersfield.com | Sunday, Jul 13 2008 12:00 PM

Last Updated: Sunday, Jul 13 2008 12:37 PM

A vicious pit bull attack. A stain on an apartment carpet. A stucco color dispute with colorful language. A car crash where the guy admitted fault and then hid.

All court cases, and not a lawyer in sight.

These are the matters of Small Claims Court, a place where real people meet real people on their own terms.

It’s the stuff that made television’s Judge Judy rich.

But the legal limit for money is $7,500 for individuals or $5,000 for a business.

And winning doesn’t necessarily mean collecting.

The cases in Bakersfield play out nearly every weekday in a small courtroom next to the basement cafeteria of the Kern County Courts and Administration Building at Truxtun and Chester avenues.

For now, Court Commissioner Larry Errea, who was just elected a superior court judge, is the man in the black robe.

Before every session, he advises the litigants to try and work out their dispute — a free mediator is available — because a trial means one side will lose.

Sometimes they lose right there in court. Other times the judge takes the matter under submission and notifies them by mail days down the road.

The judgments turn on the facts and the documentation. If the landlord has a picture of the stained rug and the rental agreement, chances are the tenant will ordered to pay for the damage.

But there are nuances, like maybe the rug was due to be replaced anyway. That could change the outcome.

HOW THE COURT WORKS

First things first. How to file, where to file, cost of filing, how to serve notice (a paper that tells the other party he or she is being sued) and how to prepare a case are matters a person can research on their own or they can use the Self-Help Center in the downtown courthouse.

Then comes the court date, usually in the morning, but evening hearings are available twice a month.

The judge calls the cases to see who is there and who isn’t.

If one party doesn’t show up, the other party still has to present a case to determine if there is enough evidence to prevail.

But if both sides show up, the judge invites them to discuss their case with mediators from the Better Business Bureau. One solution is a payment plan.

In one case, Doralene Hicks and Roxanne Harris used Jeannie Gillen, who has worked seven years as a mediator, to resolve their case.

“Timing really is everything,” Gillen said. “They can be far apart, but if they can get over the bump and have enough time to work with me, some common ground can be found.”

Hicks and Harris worked out a $350 settlement — not as much as Hicks asked for in the beginning, but enough to satisfy her.

Asked about Gillen, Hicks said, “She was good. If you have to deal with someone who is unreasonable, she was good.”

Harris had no comment.

Another mediator, Jack Hardisty, a former Bakersfield planning director, said the mediator’s job is to get people talking with each other.

“Sometimes there is emotion that has nothing to do with the money involved,” he said.

Businesses generally try to settle because they are more interested in making the customer happy, he said.

When a settlement is reached, the judge reads it into the record and dismisses the case. If, however, the defendant doesn’t pay then the case is reinstated and the judgment is entered against the defendant.

Collection of the money is up to the person who filed the small claims action. Web sites are available to explain the process, but they advise that some debts just can’t be collected because the debtor doesn’t have money or property.

If the two sides don’t settle with the mediator, then they present their case before the judge.

And sometimes the cases have all the drama and emotion of the best ones on television.

DOGS, RUGS AND STUCCO

One such case concerned a Boxer mix dog named Doobie who was mauled to death by two pitbulls that broke a fence to get into Doobie’s backyard.

Jane Cothern, the owner of Doobie and two other dogs, said the Oct. 22, 2007 incident “was devastating.” She asked for $7,500 including the direct bills plus punitive damages. But small claims judges cannot award punitive damages, though they can award amounts for pain and suffering.

Cothern brought pictures of the 6-year-old Doobie who tried to hide behind a bush but left her rear end exposed to the chomping teeth of the pitbulls.

Veterinarian Stephanie Paine of the Coffee Road Animal Hospital testified about the “too numerous to count puncture wounds.” She described the attempts to save Doobie with cleaning of the wounds and medication, but the Boxer died two days after the attack.

“I raised her on a bottle,” Cothern testified. “I used her as therapy with my speech pathology students.”

The defendants in the lawsuit were the dog owner, Michael Coulter, and his landlords, Michael and Laurie Cottle.

Coulter said his two dogs, Cervesa, 6, and Omega, 2, were always locked in his yard, but that day a friend must not have securely locked the gate.

Cervesa had killed another dog in the past, but an animal control officer described that as a provoked incident, not an unprovoked one like the Doobie case.

Both pitbulls were euthanized after the attack on Doobie. Coulter said he had always offered to pay the medical bills, the value of the dog and the fence repair, but Cothern had never given him a specific amount. An animal control officer testified Coulter’s dogs were never declared dangerous and they were kept in a chain link kennel.

Cottle, the landlord, said Coulter was the victim of an armed robbery in Los Angeles four years ago and wanted the dogs for protection. Cottle said he never saw the dogs on the loose.

Errea took the matter under submission and no decision had been made by the time this story was written.

Asked afterward about her experience in court, Cothern said she felt it was a positive experience, the judge listened well to both sides and “it was a good way to solve the problem.”

In another case over stained carpet and other rental issues, defendant Nedra Islam said she felt she got a fair hearing and Errea even pointed out something she didn’t catch about carpet replacement discrepancies.

Hope Cohen, the property manager in that case, said she too thought Errea was fair and listened well. But she would prefer never to go to court because of all the time and effort it took.

She spent six hours the day before preparing her case and five hours at the courthouse on the day of the hearing. “If I could avoid it, I would because I hate coming to the courthouse,” she said.

A case over the color of a stucco wall illustrated the depth of anger some cases generate.

Words mothers often tell their children not to use — mother was actually a part of one of the words — crept into the account of what happened.

The plaintiff after hearing the defendant’s account exclaimed, “They obviously fabricated quite a story.”

It’s the judge’s job to sort it all out, Errea said.