Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California
I was the victim of a relative deliberately filing a false police report. I'm nt sure what my options of recourse are.
I purchased a car, new, for cash several years ago. I paid for the car completely, kept it fully insured, maintenance, etc. I had the car for nearly 4 years. About 2 years ago I had some financial difficulties and I made an arrangement with a local car dealership for them to buy the car from me for cash, then turn around and sell it back to me on a finance contract. I sold the car for $14,000, and agreed to buy the car back for 16,000. The dealership gave me a check for $10,000 and retained the remaining $4,000 as the downpayment for the car loan.
I was unable to qualify on my own for the car loan, so at the suggestion of the salesman I asked my mother in law to co-sign for me. Then it was determined that the best course of action was for her to be on the car loan by herself. I explained this to her completely at the time, and both the salesman and the finance manager at the dealership explained the deal to her thoroughly. When the deal was concluded she handed the envelope containing the documents to me and said "here you hang on to this."
I made the payments myself for a year and a half, and I also maintained full coverage insurance on the car. My mother in law never had to put one penny of her own into the car loan or insurance. Then I losst my job and was unable to make the payments for several months. By that time I had lost my house and had moved into a local motel while I was looking for a new job and a place to live.
My mother in law never contacted me directly to ask me to give her the car back. She knew I needed the ca for transportation, job hunting, etc. A few months ago she filed a police report accusing me of car theft and embezzlement. This report was false in the following aspects: 1) she told the police officer she never knew she was the only person on the loan, 2) she told the officer that she gave me the money for the down payment and I pocketed some of it, 3) I never made any payments, 4) I never provided insurance and 5) she had asked me several times to give her back the car. All of these statements were false and can be documented very easily.
She used the threat of being arrested for car theft as a way to get the car back from me. At the time I was trying to put funds together to pay her back the 3 payments she had to make as well as get current on the car loan again. I never got the chance. Aside from the fact that over the years I had invested over $50,000 of my own money in this car, losing my vehicle has greatly hurt my ability to get around, go to job interviews, etc. If she had not filed this FALSE police report to force me to give her back the car, I would probably have been able to make everything right.
Do I have any recourse against her for telling the police these lies about me?
1 Answer from Attorneys
You should be able to successfully sue her if you can show that she tried to extort the car from you by knowingly making a false report to the police. What did the police do when she made the report? If they decided to treat it as a civil dispute and not get involved, or spoke to you and decided not to get involved, then how was the report a means of forcing you to turn over the car? The police would have acted or not acted on the report. Unless she immediately contacted you after the report and before the police could act, how does the false report result in your giving up the car? It seems that you gave her the car because you were afraid she would file a new report that the police would act upon. She will deny that and you will have to prove there actually was a threat of extortion and not merely something implied. So you need to give us more information for any attorney to evaluate your case.
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