Jury Duty

[DGuller]

Does this story have 1,001 parts?

[Habbaku]

So the hauler gets there, backs his truck up to the septic tank cap (which was on a riser), and when he opens the cap so he can get the pump hose in there, there is an explosion of back pressure that lifts the cap AND him clear off the ground.

  This story's gettin' good.

[Barrister]

My very first trial of any significance, ever, was over a malfunctining septic field / tank.   

[Caliga]

Does this story have 1,001 parts?

You are: tiresome.

PART 4

So the hauler is like "umm sir I believe you may have a problem here" and hooks up his pump and cleans 2,200 gallons of solid material out of the septic system.  Now, the tank capacity is 1,000 gallons, which is his normal haul for this guy.  Basically, the tank itself, the distribution box, and the lateral lines were clogged full of solid waste for some reason.

Now, remember how I said earlier that the new owner had made a bunch of improvements?  One of the improvements was that he had expanded the size of the parking lot.  The sellers argued, but for some reason it could not be definitively shown to us, that the new owner had expanded his gravel lot onto the leach field, which effectively destroys it as the gravel + parked cards compacts the soil and disrupts normal soil percolation.  The new owner seemed to be insinuating (but did not convincingly prove via his testimony or his attorney's) that he was either not informed as to the location of the leach field, or was misinformed, and also that he didn't expand the lot onto the leach field. 

So anyway, the new owner then called a plumber and the first thing the plumber did was walk to the back of the field, and sure enough they discovered that there was effluent oozing out of the ground at the back end of the field, down the slope toward the back of his property.  Now, it just so happens that the adjacent property belongs to the US Army Corps of Engineers, and is a State Park and Conservation Area that drains into Taylorsville Lake, which is a very popular fishing and boating area.  I myself have a boat I moor at the marina, and swim and fish in that lake.  Obviously, the station owner immediately realized that it would not be a good business practice to pollute this property.

So, he then paid this plumber (who was working in conjunction with the county board of health inspector( to completely replace and expand his lateral field and distribution box.  The new owner tried to argue that the distribution box was faulty, because the outlet pipe was submerged when the plumber and inspector exposed it (we got to look at delightful photo exhibits of the box), but nobody seemed to be able to prove or even recall when exactly these photos were taken or who took them.   He spent a total of $12,000 on this project.

At the beginning of calendar year 2005, the new owner's consulting payment to the sellers came due again.  He showed up at the sellers' place of business--after they sold the station they bought the hotel up the street--and tried to give them what was due minus the cost of the repairs he'd made to the septic system, which he felt must have been defective when he purchased the property.

[Caliga]

My very first trial of any significance, ever, was over a malfunctining septic field / tank.   

Not surprising, since it apparently happens all the time in rural areas.  One of the witnesses (the hauler) mentioned something about being in court "all the time" for septic disputes.

Incidentally, I have a septic system too, and I've had it pumped bi-annually and have always made a point of inspecting my leach field for soft ground/leakage. 

[DGuller]

You are: tiresome.

Philistine.

[The Brain]

Come on Brain, that was too easy.

This head movie makes my eyes rain.

[Caliga]

PART 5

So the sellers were like "Fuck you, give us all our money" and the new owner was like "NOWAI", and the sellers refused to take his check, and have refused all of his additional payments (two of which are held in escrow by the court).  He has also not paid any of the interest on his promissory note because of this, nor the $150K principal, which the sellers have called in early, which they are within their rights to do since he has failed to pay any interest.  When he was questioned about why he didn't pay on the promissory note, his answer was "times are tough, and plus I've spent close to $200K between the cost of the septic repairs and legal fees due to this lawsuit."

In his defense, he argued that the sellers knew there was a problem, because in 1999 a guy who runs a local construction business, and who came in to testify, was out at the grocery shooting the shit with the former owners, and as a favor had agreed to dump some topsoil onto the leach field.  The plaintiffs had difficulty explaining this witness away other than by saying he had had a stroke and "was ill"... this same guy also mentioned on the witness stand that one of the sellers had owed him $1,500 from a subcontract deal on a house the seller had acted as developer on and had never paid up.

Also, the defense argued that the distribution box was defective because the photos presented showed that the water levels were above the outlet pipe--under normally operating conditions, the inlet pipe is fully exposed (as it's located higher in the box than the outlet pipe) and the outlet pipe should be half submerged.  The photos presented showed only one pipe (which appeared to be the inlet pipe) and it was half submerged.  The outlet pipe was totally below the scum layer.

Ok, so in terms of parties involved and amounts asked:

The plaintiffs were the former owners, who were suing in the amount of $150,000 (promissory note principal) plus accrued interest in full, as well as the full amount owed in consultancy fees, which I believe totaled $46,000 and change.

The defendant was the new (current) owner, who was basically asking that the promissory note be declared void due to the septic issues.  He was not asking to be excused from paying the consultancy fees, though for some reason we were asked to rule on that as well.  He also had a counterclaim seeking unspecified punitive damages against the plaintiffs.

[garbon]

Isn't a bit late to be checking out Lechfeld?

[DGuller]

So, did the new owner go through all the trouble just to collect $12,000?

[Habbaku]

Seems like a fairly open and shut deal in favor of the plaintiffs.

[sbr]

Seems like a fairly open and shut deal in favor of the plaintiffs.

That's what I would think considering it was sold "as is".

[Caliga]

Actually it might be kind of fun to pollify this and see what people think before I reveal the details of the verdict. 

[Caliga]

Seems like a fairly open and shut deal in favor of the plaintiffs.

That's what I would think considering it was sold "as is".

It was sold "as is" provided the sellers disclosed any pre-existing conditions that they were aware of related to the safe and proper operation of the business.  I thought I said that earlier, sorry.

[Barrister]

Seems like a fairly open and shut deal in favor of the plaintiffs.

It comes down to patent versus latent defect, and whether or not the previous owner knew of the problem.