Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California
Small Claims Ruling Made Based on Perjury
We live in WA State, & filed a Small Claims suit against a CA adoption facilitator in Riverside Co. We won initial hearing, but defendant appealed. We hired atty from 1,500 miles away, who, over phone, seemed a go-getter & quite competent; a partner in his firm. Based on our documentation, our local atty told us we had open/shut case; we felt confident CA atty could handle it.
But in court, our atty was completely different person; acted quite intimidated by the other atty, & didn't present our case effectively. During appeal, defendant's atty made statements we have proof (documentation and notarized statements) were false. Our atty didn't bother mentioning they weren't true.
The defendant won on basis of perjury and our incompetent representation.
We've made several attempts to get Court to rehear case since decision was made on false information. We can't get past front desk. We keep getting denied as appeals are considered final in Small Claims.
Can anyone help us? There MUST be something that can be done about this!
Thank you.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Small Claims Ruling Made Based on Perjury
The original case is final and there is no way to reopen it. Your only option is to sue the attorney for malpractice.
In order to succeed, you will have to show that his conduct of your case fell so far below professional standards that no competent attorney would accept it, and you will also have to show that you would have had a better result had he done his job correctly. Your damages will be the amount you would have received had he done his job right, but because yours was a small claims case this amount will be capped at $5,000 -- or less if your complaint only sought a smaller amount.
Malpractice cases aren't simple, and I doubt that any attorney would take on such a large amount of work for a percentage of a possible $5,000.00 award.
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