A Hollister towing company owner has filed more than 340 small
claim lawsuits
Hollister – A county resident has filed more than 300 lawsuits in the past three years in San Benito and Santa Clara counties small claims courts and, according to one defendant, is essentially making a living from the practice.
Paul Greer, owner of Hollister-based B & C Towing Company, filed most of the suits in small claims court. The small claims system processes cases faster and are relatively inexpensive places to sue because attorneys are not allowed to argue the cases. The plaintiff in a small claims case can recover up to $7,500 in damages.
Greer’s lawsuits have caught the attention of San Benito County District Attorney John Sarsfield.
“I am concerned. Mr. Greer is playing fast and loose,” Sarsfield said. “It’s clearly abusing the small claims system and if we can make a case against him, we will. I don’t like frivolous lawsuits or scams.”
Greer’s frequent lawsuit filings also have concerned Gregory Adler, an attorney for Copart, a Fairfield-based company that sells salvage cars to wreckers and dismantlers.
“It raises eyebrows,” Adler said. “The sheer volume is something I’ve never seen before.”
Greer is suing Copart for $2,500 in towing and storage fees in Santa Clara County, but Adler is fighting back. Greer could not be reached for comment despite repeated requests. Lawyer Arthur Cantu, who represented Greer in a criminal case that was recently dismissed, declined to comment. Sheryl Noel, another one of Greer’s attorneys, also said she could not comment on Greer’s legal actions.
In a dismissal motion filed in the case last month, Adler argued that most of Greer’s suits are designed to yield hefty profits from storage fees and settlements. In the motion, Adler outlined what he alleges is a “scheme of fleecing hundreds of innocent defendants.” Adler alleged that Greer is towing wrecked and abandoned cars to his lot, then racking up thousands of dollars in storage fees at a rate of up to $60 a day before suing the car’s last registered owner – typically the insurance company that bought it from the person who wrecked it.
After cars are picked up
Sometimes Copart sells the cars to licensed auto wreckers or companies that strip out all the valuable parts and abandon them. When that happens, private towing companies such as B & C Towing are called to pick up the vehicle, Adler said. The towing companies impound the car where it accrues storage fees or take it to a junk yard.
“As you can imagine, this (storage fees) adds up quickly,” Adler said. “Obviously, when someone abandons a vehicle after stripping it, the probability of that person coming to claim it is virtually zero.”
In his motion, Adler maintained that most towing companies don’t sue because they know that the insurance company sold the car and has a notice of release of liability at the Department of Motor Vehicles and wouldn’t be found responsible for abandoning it.
“He’s basically racking up storage fees and then trying to cut a deal with the people he sues,” Adler said. “He’s hoping that we’ll pay him off and try to make the lawsuit go away.”
Undersheriff Pat Turturici said San Benito County rotates between five or six towing companies on a regular basis to purge local streets of unsightly abandoned vehicles. He said B & C Towing company was in the rotation, but later removed from the list after the California Highway Patrol stopped using B & C when they learned the company violated several contractual agreements, according to court documents.
What court documents show
San Benito County court documents show that most of the cases Greer has won are the result of default judgments entered after the defendant failed to show up. Other local towing companies don’t have near as many lawsuits as Greer. Both Bracco’s Towing and Quality Towing have one small claims case listed in the court records database. A & R Towing, owned by Greer’s father Vince Cardinalli, Sr., has more than 150 small claims cases.
Last year, Greer sued State Farm Insurance for storage fees in two separate cases alleging the company was responsible for several abandoned vehicles towed after the insurance giant sold the cars to Copart, which sold the cars to salvage companies.
The lawsuits, filed in Santa Clara County, were particularly troublesome to State Farm because when it had sold the cars it had secured a release of liability from the DMV, said San Jose attorney Chris Rudy, who is representing the insurance company. State Farm became increasingly unsettled about the suit after a small claims judge found in favor of Greer in both cases last September. State Farm hired Rudy to appeal the decision a month later in Santa Clara County Superior Court.
“It’s a small amount of money, but it’s the larger legal issue here that they’re concerned about,” Rudy said.
Rudy said that because State Farm has a release of liability, it can’t be held responsible for what happens to the car after it is sold.
“It’s just like you don’t expect to get a parking ticket or a speeding ticket for a car you already sold,” Rudy said.
Rudy’s appeal is pending in Santa Clara County Superior Court.
If enough evidence exists that Greer is filing frivolous lawsuits – lawsuits he knows won’t be upheld – he could be civilly prosecuted and labeled a vexatious litigant, Sarsfield said.
“Basically, that means the court could prohibit him from filing any lawsuit at all with out first asking the court for permission,” Sarsfield said. “He would have to convince a judge that his case was meritorious before even filing.”
