Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Well That's Frustrating - Courts, Law, and Hidden Forms

Since Court Clerk Counters are closed to the public dealing with the courts on matters is becoming increasingly difficult.

I had a commercial landlord-tenant eviciton case that I filed via a court's drop box outside the court on June 23rd.

It took them until today to process it and they decided to dismiss it.

Why did they dismiss? Because I hadn't said it was a commercial landlord-tenant eviction as the commercial tenant has not been paying the rent for the past three months.

Actually I had, rather specifically, prominently in the cover letter.

But they threw out the cover letter while processing the filing so they stated I had not informed them that it was a commercial landlord-tenant eviction.

Personally, I think the case caption of Landlord Company Name, LLC vs Tenant Corporation Name, Inc would have been a fricken clue even without the cover letter. Not to mention the property is listed by suites and both Landlord and Tenant are actually in the same office building.

Did they call, did they inquire? No, they just dismissed it so I have to file a motion to reopen it and I emailed them the cover letter to let them know I had in fact sent it.

I also had to add and send over a new form the state came out with that states the eviction is not from a CARES Act covered property, which it isn't, as again, its obviously commercial.

Said form is buried in the State Admin Office website on the second page of Landlord Tenant files and there's no announcement on the District Court or State Site site that its needed, it's basically a nice double-secret form.

Nice of them to require a new form without providing notice of it at all on the District Court site that states their requirements step-by-step (every district court in this state has their own idiosyncratic requirements for landlord tenant actions, and its rather stupid as the governors executive order banning residential evictions actually goes beyond the CARES Act restrictions but at least there's no additional form (that I know of) that you need to file that you're not violating the never-ending executive order banning residential evictions.

Ah, for the good ol' days when you could actually walk in, talk to the clerk, they would look at your filing, and get it all done and let you know about their idiosyncratic procedures instead of these days of delay and when they just dismiss instead of contacting you about adding a form you have no idea was needed.

Sheesh.

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