LA Apartments Saga: Part 4
This post is part 4 of 4 posts detailing the process of suing my old landlord for illegally withholding my security deposit. I won.
The Night Before
As mentioned at the end of Part 3, some other employee of LA Apartments/Custom Design Fur Corporation made a last-minute attempt to negotiate a settlement. I was not impressed, so I decided to go to trial. After all, you don’t have to settle.
They were apparently less enthusiastic about going to trial, since after I stopped answering them on the day before trial they decided to show up to my new home. Really. Somebody, most likely that same employee, started repeatedly calling me on the front door intercom to buzz them into the building. I did not do so, but they somehow gained access anyway and taped this silly letter to my door:
Unfortunately for them, there’s no such thing as a unilateral settlement. Especially not by showing up to my home uninvited.
Trial #1
On December 13, 2023, I went to trial. Not physically, I appeared virtually via LACourtConnect – essentially Zoom court. The court set a certain time, but wasn’t a specific appointment for my case. It was a general call for all small claims cases before the department that morning, and then it’s up to the judge to decide how to run things most efficiently.
Most of us small claims plaintiffs and defendants (no lawyers in California small claims!) joined the call several minutes before the court did. Many were on camera – all sorts of people with all sorts of cases. One person seemed to be calling in by phone and a little bit confused, perhaps they thought they had a direct line to the judge. In fact they were telling the details of their case to an air conditioning company. I pointed that out and told them to wait for the judge.
My turn soon came and I explained all of these events to the judge. She said she’d take it under consideration and issue a ruling soon. So my work was done and I waited for that.
And then I won.
12/14/2023 Court orders judgment entered for Plaintiff Eric Dasmalchi against Defendant Custom Design Fur Corporation, a California Corporation on the Plaintiff’s Claim filed by Eric Dasmalchi on 10/09/2023 for the principal amount of $2,881.96 and costs of $56.75 for a total of $2,938.71.; Other: The Court awards $881.96 for actual damages and $2,000.00 for bad faith retention of the security deposit per Civil Code Section 1950.5.
Trial #2
On January 25, 2024, I went to trial again. Custom Design Fur Corporation filed a motion to vacate saying that they “Didn’t feel well on the day of the hearing”. This seemed unreasonable for a couple of reasons, namely that they had shown up to my house the night before and that a company can be represented by any of its employees in a small claims hearing and they probably didn’t all get sick. So I was prepared to fight it, until I got the unwelcome news that the Secretary of State… didn’t finish serving them after all due to a bureaucratic mixup (pro tip: insist that they take all your paperwork even if they say they don’t need it).
While they obviously had actual notice, I for one believe in doing things the right way so I called the court for advice and they said to just show up to the hearing and tell the judge. So I did, and the judge granted their motion to vacate and asked me and their representative if we were ready for the new hearing on the spot. Which we were, so I got to tell my story all over again.
The representative that showed up to trial #2 seemed fairly competent, but couldn’t answer many of the judge’s questions and blamed some things on the West LA office. I even got to lay into them a bit for showing up to my house, explaining to the judge that I saw it, coupled with the incessant phone calls, as an attempt at intimidation. The LA Apartments representative asked me the name of the employee, and when I gave it they told me and the court that they no longer worked there. How convenient.
They didn’t have compelling counterarguements to any of my points. At one point they even said the security deposit was for “wear and tear”, which, no. At that point I figured I could keep quiet and let them keep digging, with a few well-timed head shakes.
The judge again took the matter under consideration and I walked out of the courtroom unsure of the outcome. I held the elevator a few seconds for the Custom Design Fur Corp representative, as we rode down they asked if I liked my new place and I said I did.
And then I won again.
01/25/2024 Court orders judgment entered for Plaintiff Eric Bryce Dasmalchi against Defendant Custom Design Fur Corporation, a California Corporation on the Plaintiff’s Claim filed by Eric Bryce Dasmalchi on 10/09/2023 for the principal amount of $2,881.96 and costs of $56.75 for a total of $2,938.71.; Other: The evidence supports bad faith retention of the security deposit per Civil Code Section 1950.5(f)(l).
Pay Up
After the court issues a small claims judgement, the defendent has essentially 30 days to pay or appeal. If they do neither, you can start adding interest and pursuing the various lawful means to enforce your judgement.
LA Apartments/Custom Design Fur Corportation did neither. I was almost expecting them to appeal, which triggers a new trial in the Superior Court, but perhaps they didn’t want to pay an attorney.
No appeal nor payment came, so I added interest to my judgement and started looking into other means to collect. The interest form apparently jogged them into action, and on April 16, 2024 they finally paid me.
Why Do They Do This?
California remains in a severe housing crisis that hits lower income tenants the hardest. It’s not hard to imagine LA Apartments trying to retain deposits from tenants who either don’t know their rights or are unable or apprehensive to exercise them. What’s surprising here is that after I called them out on it, they refused to budge for much too long. Some of it just seemed to be sheer incompetence. In the end it cost them a $2000 statutory penalty when they could have just returned my money months earlier. I suppose time will tell if that’s much of a deterrent for the future. I hope these posts help at least a little bit.
I’ve rented a couple places since, first another place in the same neighborhood from another management company. That building was slightly newer and nicer, and importantly that management company was far more organized and professional and we had no issues at all.
Now I have a big corporate landlord, which I also expect no issues with (the role of landlords in society being perhaps a topic for another blog).