Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California
Is it legal for sheriff dept to stop the owner of personal property (her name is Cindy) from defending it from a company hired to trash it.
The personal property owner (Cindy) is a benificiary to 1/4 of a private residence (in trust in LA CA) where she has lived for over 20 yrs.
Cindy was recently evicted by her older sister (trustee).
15 days is the time limit to claim pp after "eviction", that had past.
A contract between the trustee/benificiary/sister and Cindy was created by the atty for the trust and signed by all the benificiary's (4 total, all siblings).
The contract allowed Cindy to clean up the real property (residence in trust) and pack her pp and store it in the garage untill 24 hrs before the close of escrow.
The trustee decided (about 1 week later) to breach the contract.
With about 15 hrs notice (by ph. msg. rec.) sent a company over to the residence and hammered the locks off of the front door and completly removed all the contents of the house, yard and garage without permission of the pp owner (Cindy).
Cindy called the sheriff dept. but they would not help.
The sheriff dept. said, "she was evicted and the post eviction contract meant nothing to them and it is a civil matter".
The sheriff's held her at bay for four days while this company trashed/stole/broke four generations of personal property.
On the fifth day clean-out co. went back and broke into the garage and removed (stole) all of the contents.
Sheriff dept. was called out again but did nothing.
We need some legal advise.
Location is Los Angeles CA.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Cindy has been too late all along, and she is again now. The sheriff acted entirely properly. Her only option was to go in for an emergency restraining order based on the agreement regarding the personal property. The sheriff would have enforced the order, but they don't enforce agreements that are not turned into court orders. She can sue the trustee for breach of the agreement, but there is nothing else left because she did not do what she needed to do when she needed to do it.
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