Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

If you were working as the manger and had some influence is whether the money was returned, she might be able to sue you on a negligence count, but she can not sue you for breach of contract as you did not sign the contract personally but rather for the Corporation, if at all. Since the Corporation owns the building, they really are the only one that can be sued as here claim of action is failure of the landlord to return all of the security deposit and neither one of you is the landlord. Serving one defendant does not result in other defendants being served; if yo lived at the same address as your father, she tried several times to serve him and was not able to, and you are an adult who one reasonably could assume would give the summons and compliant to your father, then she could serve your father by substituted serve by giving you his copy of the papers.

So do not give your father the papers, although you can tell him what they are about. Send a letter or e-mail to the former tenant and tell her that neither you nor your father are proper defendants and should be dropped from the lawsuit and you would have an action against her for malicious prosecution if she does not drop the suit against the two of you. You do not have to tell her where the corporation can be served.

Many Small Claim decisions made by judges or commissioners are clearly incorrect, so he/she might say what the heck and find that your father can be named as a defendant because he owns the corporation. Do not have him show up at the hearing, but you should go to see what the judge does and speak up if he seems to be willing to rule in her favor. Even though you should not be named, you need to show up. File an answer stating why you are not a proper defendant and that your father has not been served. If the judgment goes against you, you can appeal to the Superior Court.

If your father's corporation owns more than a handful of rental units and he has not had the contracts you uses recently checked by an attorney [real estate brokers often do not know the law and their contracts are not the best you can have] nor the practices of managers looked at, he should probably do so to lessen future problems [nothing will avoid them, but many landlords fail to send out a letter before 21 day as to the security deposit, etc].

Good luck.

not proof read