Legal advice

[lordairgtar]

Are there any lawyers or law professionals on this site?

[TransAm12sec]

http://www.brewcitymuscle.com/forum/showthread.php?7401-Anyone-need-lawyer-help&highlight=basil

[USMARINE1108]

Are there any lawyers or law professionals on this site?

No offence, but that's like asking "who here has a car they're proud of". What type of lawyer? I have dealt with quite a few between fighting insurance, adoption my little girl and GAL's in the past 6 months or so. If that fits your needs, I can point you in the direction of the ones I chose which all worked out well. :thumbsup

Hope everything is okay.

[lordairgtar]

Okay. I have a nephew who has been suffering various problems medically. All stemming from a beating he took at the hands of some angry tenants that were evicted. He was working as house repair person and repaired the homes of people the landlord had evicted. My nephew I believe worked for cash to help him get his home improvement company off the ground. He was cleaning up a house getting it ready for paint and other repairs when the former tenants came in and beat him pretty badly. damned near killed him. A woman and her two male companions attacked him with empty Vodka bottles and other things. Can't really sue the attackers, they are lowlife scum with nothing. My feeling is that the person who hired him to clean up his properties should of at least provided a safe work environment by making sure these scum would not be coming back....I don't know, I don't understand the legalities of all this. So now, he is having seizures and pains and other issues. I told him he needs to sue the guy that hired him. Obviously there should have been some kind of insurance for proper medical treatment as soon as it happened and further looking at by doctors. Since he was working on several of these houses owned by this guy and living in one of the owned houses, the guy should have a bit of responsibility in this. Maybe I'm just blowing up the collective skirts, but I was just asking about it. He can hardly do any work now and has since moved away to Elkhorn with his family.

[USMARINE1108]

While I understand your frustration, the owner of the property had/has no control over what happened. To go after his personal assets is a dick move in my opinion.

However, the owner should have homeowner's insurance which covers quite a few things.

PM sent.

[95 TA - The Beast]

And I would strongly disagree, the homeowner is a "landlord", ie it is his business and how he makes money. If it was a general homeowner and their own house, then this would have never transpired.

And, given what happened, sounds like a "slumlord". Yes there can be bad tenants, but ones that would go to that extreme are usually only rented to in the first place by slumlords. No-one that cares about their properties, the neighbors of those properties or the neighborhoods that they own in care to rent to true scum. Slumlords (which include big corporate landlords as well) don't care who they rent to as long as they figure they are going to get their rent.

Regardless, since this was this "landlords" business, he should be fully responsible for what happened. You aren't going to tell me that the landlord had no clue these people were such lowlifes. He, himself, probably got threats from them. For him to not even warn the guy doing the work that they were real scumbags is a major problem. And, who knows, maybe he did, in which case it doesn't change the fact that he should have provided for a safe working environment by hiring some security if these people were so unbalanced.

Any way you look at it, he hired a guy to do work and the guy doing the work got hurt as a result of this guys business. Once businesses are involved it is a different story than if it was just an individual doing work for another individual on personal property. There are the principles of "previous residence" and money exchanging hands for said residence which puts the landlord reasonably into a position of responsibility.

It is kinda amazing how cocky a lot of landlords (or previous landlords) get in regards to tenants and "their property", yet don't want to take responsibility for the same and try to pull the "I own it" like it is somehow akin to their primary residence. They don't live there, and probably never would live there, thus they don't care.

[Prince Valiant]

If your nephew has a "home improvement company" or was operating as an independent contractor, then he should have had insurance for this sort of thing. occupational accident policies apply here, and to a smaller degree, umbrella policies.

Given that the people who assaulted your nephew were not employees of the landlord, nor were even tenants residing in the property at the time, it's difficult to argue that the landlord had any reasonable expectation that such an event could occur. If, on the other hand foreseeability could be demonstrated on the part of the landlord, such as the assailants having showed up on/in the property despite the prior eviction, as well as showing violent behaviors during that (or multiple) event(s), then your nephew may indeed have a case.

The type of attorney he would want would be "one call, that's all..." guys and gals, a personal injury attorney.

[Nickerz]

What you're going to need to do is first have him go "shopping." Basically he's going to go to a variety of personal injury and business liability lawyers. From there, he will get a good idea of what "specialty" he'll need in a lawyer. But before you even get involved at this point, the first thing you're going to want to do is first make sure the landlord has money. And I'm talking many many properties, find out what he drives etc. The legal bills alone will bankrupt 95% of small time landlords (with a few properties) and there will be nothing left for him.

Was he smart enough to sign up for Obamacare? He's covered for this kind of thing. Don't tell me he was too pigheaded to sign up. Even still, he could strategically file for a "life event." https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/qualifying-life-event/ That might mean marrying someone he's close to or divorcing them strategically. Of course, do not mention this to anyone.

From there you can have your choice of paths to take. I personally don't see issues with either of these paths. As business owners we can be held liable for the acts of hired help, even if they are "independent" of the organization. So long as such a thing happens to other companies I don't personally see the problem here, its part of the legal landscape there's no reason to be "above" what is legal precedent.

I'm sure no one is going to like this on the forum, but whatever. I don't see why we should subsidize roads, mail, fire and school systems and then let people live the rest of their lives in agony because they were trying to start a business and is a victim of random chance. Personally I'd rather see this kind of stuff just added to everyone's taxes instead of the system we have setup right now.

Anyways, awaiting shitstorm ;)

[lordairgtar]

TA The Beast, Love your answer. Whether it is the correct one, who's to know. I've passed on all the advice from here to my nephew. BTW, I keep staring at your avatar. I guess I'm easily amused by teh bewbies! Go Pontiac Girl!!
Prince Valiant, More good advise and opinion. Personal Injury attorneys are what he needs I guess.
Nickerz, I think he had/has insurance through his wife's plan at her work. I too agree that he's the type of person that needs to avail himself to ACA for better coverage perhaps. I had to do it myself as I could no longer afford my work's plan.

[USMARINE1108]

Well I guess we're all attorneys here, huh? Lol! :durr

If the owner went through the legal process to evict the tenant but the tenant came back, that is trespassing which the owner has no control over. That's not the fault of his business or the owner. It falls under the insurance for the property, that's what it's for. We can't assume he doesn't have insurance and want to burn him at the stake right off the bat.

I own a home and rent it to tenants. I am required to have homeowners insurance on the property. Can't assume the owner of the property doesn't have insurance.

A good attorney will do is hire a Private Investigator to find insurance policies, assets, worth etc.

Give the guy I linked in the PM a call. Of all the attorneys I looked at, he is the one I went with. IMO, he should be at least one of the attorneys you talk to. Good luck.