Don't Give Me That Juris-My-Diction-Crap

Actually jurisdiction matters, a lot. Jurisdiction controls where you file your case, resolve your disputes, and how your claim is going to be handled.

And talk of jurisdiction leads to this fun example of lawyers not exactly being competent outside their own area.

Opposing counsel in this case is a prime example of why you shouldn't dabble outside your actual competencies. 

Case 1:  Lawyer sues my client for not paying rent for their store.  That Landlord has not been doing repairs promised since 2019, including a leaking roof damaging my client's stuff. My client finally got fed up and said the company isn't paying rent until the place is fixed.  Hilariously, aside from one nasty-gram in early 2020, which I responded to, landlord and his lawyer did nothing until October 2022.  No repairs were ever made, and there are 14, count 'em 14, distinct leaks into the space. No attempts to collect the rent were ever made either.  Client has been looking for replacement space, but it's difficult finding the right spot for what the client does.

Lawyer files a landlord-tenant casein District Court, but names the owner and not the company and doesn't even attach the proper lease. She insists she can because she wants to go for personal liability so she's ignoring the limited liability company and suing the owner personally.

That doesn't work well for her, I file a motion noting the lease is with the company not the owner, there's no personal guarantee, and the owner has no liability, and I get it dismissed.  Case is done by the end of the second hearing.

Case 2:  Lawyer tries again in District Court, this time naming the company, but re-using the old notice to quit with the owner's name on it and demanding a supplemental complaint of $144,000 in damages for unpaid rent.  I again file a motion to dismiss for both these reasons.

In the first court hearing in Round 2, as Michigan's process now since Covid is that the first L-T hearing isn't really a hearing, its a compulsory meeting where the parties are to try and work things out.  If they can't it goes to the second hearing. I point out that she can't do that. The District Court's jurisdictional limit is $25,000.00 and $144,000.00, last time I checked, even though math isn't my forte, is greater than $25,000 every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

She loudly insists she can do it, she's right, I'm wrong, and my client better settle.

Well, no, she's not right at all.

In the second court hearing, today, the judge starts by looking over my motion and the complaint and immediately states she does not have jurisdiction over the supplemental complaint of $144,000 in damages for unpaid rent. 

Ruh Roh Shaggy.

Yes, jurisdiction matters.  You need to know where and how to properly file your case.

I agree with the court that there's no jurisdiction, but state I'm certainly willing to be helpful and stipulate to keep it in the district court, so long as the maximum damages are properly restricted to a maximum of $25,000. Yes, that can happen if you mess up your jurisdictional limit like that and try for more than $25k in a court that can only award $25k. 

For some strange reason, opposing counsel does not agree to that. 

No idea why she's not happy staying in District Court, as she was so insisting she could do at the last hearing.  Ah, well.

Case dismissed for a second time. My client has also moved out in the meantime as well and sold the business to another company.

She may get this right eventually, but not right now.   Turns out, asking around, this lawyer is a family lawyer and doesn't do commercial litigation or commercial landlord-tenant litigation, and it really shows.  

Consensus is she's not very agreeable, bombastic, and likes to try and intimidate other lawyers, put on a show for her clients, and throw her weight around. 

Consensus is correct, but she's really the opposite of intimidating, as arrogance without the competence to back it up is just entertaining to watch.

Now she has to file in Circuit Court, we then get to answer that, counter-claim for damages and point out that her client is the first breaching party to the contract and at the end of it she can go after a company that now has zero assets even if she wins.

Rent Control: A Misguided Progressive Economic Policy Strikes Yet Again

Kinda hard to have sympathy for people looking to repeat the same problems of the past and having learned nothing from the past lessons.

Ignorance of economics is not supposed to be an excuse.

The Detroit News: As housing prices surge, rent control is back on the ballot

Because limiting the income landlords receive on their rentals to -- under many of the proposals and laws already passed and described in the article -- below even the rate of inflation, is really going to encourage landlords to provide new, more, and better housing stock.

Yes there are  ore tenant voters than landlord voters which is how this stuff gets through, but having landlords lose money on every tenant  is hardly going to encourage them to keep renting properties out - they will not makee up the loss in volume.

It's the same stupid progressive magical thinking, using other people's money (in this case landlords) to pay for their fever-dreams.

While one might sympathize with tenants facing higher rents in very desirable areas to live as depicted in the article, with many of those areas limiting housing development and supply by local ordinance,  what exactly did they expect?

Combine:

a) high inflation with and the cost of everything from utilities to repair materials and labor costs going up; 

b) very high demand for rental space by people with Biden bucks in their pockets bidding up the rent and investment companies (often Biden and Dem contributors and promoters of ESG theories) looking for high return;  and

c) then throw in the reality of landlords getting hosed for two years with the CDC allowing tenants to live in rental units without having to pay rent for two years with landlords being unable to evict them and getting stuck eating the costs.

 Put all that together and you get the current big increase in rental costs, courtesy of misguided progressive economic policy.  

Adding yet another progressive misguided economic policy of rent control to try to fix the prior progressive misguided economic policy brought to you by the same people is not going to make it any better.

Biden And The CDC Just Thumbed Their Noses At The Supreme Court

The CDC's eviction moratorium, properly found to be unconstitutional, but then it was inexplicably permitted to last until it expired July 31 by the Supreme Court as they promised it would end as scheduled.

So what does Biden and the CDC announce today?

An extension of the moratorium with an announced "temporary" moratorium lasting until October 3, covering about 90% of the country and possibly more depending on how you read the footnotes in the order.

Biden is expecting the moratorium will last long enough to achieve some of the Democrat's goals, even as its unconstitutional as it will take time for any litigation to make it to the Supreme Court review:

Biden said that pending litigation will "probably give some additional time" for rental assistance funds to flow. The president said his hope is the new targeted action would in some way cover close to 90% of Americans who are renters.

In short Biden and the CDC just made Kavanaugh their bitch for his ridiculous decision to allow the moratorium to continue even as he declared it was unconstitutional based on a false promise from the government that it would end as scheduled.   Let's see if he falls for that again, assuming the Court even gets a chance to renew it before the CDC declares a new temporary moratorium after October 3.

Gov Half-Whit To Michigan Property Owners And Businesses: "F You, Pay Me."

MiBiz: Whitmer vetoes property tax deferment bills

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer vetoed two bills that would have effectively deferred summer property tax payments to relieve struggling businesses and property owners during the pandemic.

This is the same governor that has ordered that tenants have not had to pay the rent for the past four months with no fear of being evicted.

Now landlords, not having received any rent for those months by her order, are still expected to come up with the property taxes for those properties on time or risk them going into tax foreclosure.

Commercial ventures, closed for months by her orders, and some like gyms which are still closed, will still have to come up with their property taxes on time without relief or sympathy from the governor for their loss caused by that same governor-ordered inability to operate and have revenue to pay those taxes.

Also, she provides no relief for homeowners affected by the economic disruption - they have to pay their property taxes as well.

If you're a tenant, you're golden in her eyes, after all, she cares about them and they're her core voting block.

If you own property or run a business, she doesn't give a damn about you except for your tax payments which better be in on time.

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.