What needs to be looked into is why this happened given all the
cases that pointed to a problem
The points raised in the June 26, 2007 “Tow Truck Arrests” editorial clearly indicate a serious breakdown in the justice system. However, the court clerks should not be faulted. A clerk’s job is to process the paperwork, not examine it for fraud or inaccuracies.
After investing hundreds of hours helping people defend themselves against Paul Greer and his father, Vincent Cardinalli, people continue asking me “How did this happen?” I believe a portion of the responsibility for this miscarriage of justice rests with the commissioners and judges in small claims court who, either due to laziness, inattention, or indifference, allowed it to happen.
The editorial states that Greer and Cardinalli filed about 2,000 small claims lawsuits in San Benito and Santa Clara Counties. Almost all of these cases were filed in Hollister and San Martin. The Hollister courthouse cases were heard mainly by two judges, Hon. Harry Tobias and Hon. Steven Sanders, while the vast majority of cases in San Martin were heard by Commissioner Gregory Saldivar.
The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office alleges that Greer and Cardinalli repeatedly and knowingly filed small claims lawsuits against defendants who were not responsible for the claims asserted against them, thus forming the basis for dozens of attempted grand theft charges. Essentially, the District Attorney’s office is accusing Greer and Cardinalli of running a scam whereby they attempted to steal from people by tricking courts into entering judgments against innocent defendants. These accusations are consistent with Judge Theresa Guerrero-Daley’s recent decision declaring Greer a vexatious litigant, the court finding that Greer repeatedly filed small claims actions against defendants Greer knew or should have known were not liable.
Now imagine that you are one of the few judicial officers who routinely presided over Greer and Cardinalli’s small claims cases. How many defendants would have to come before you and say, “I never owned that car,” or, “I had nothing to do with the car when it was towed; I sold it years ago,” before you thought something was wrong? Or how about all of the people like Efreen Gonzalez who claimed they were never served with the lawsuit and only found out about it after a fraudulent default judgment was entered against them? How many confused, desperate people making similar claims of never being served would it take before you thought, “Gee … maybe these people are telling the truth,” and looked into it further?
After seeing only a handful of these types of cases, a couple of other attorneys and I became so concerned by what was happening to innocent people that we made several trips down to the courthouses in Hollister and San Martin. We brought copy machines and literally stood there for several hours each day copying hundreds of Greer and Cardinalli’s case files. I can only describe what we found in those files as appalling. Here is just a fraction of the type of disturbing problems we found:
n a case where, despite receiving a letter from a defendant’s father stating that his son was out of the state on military duty, the court entered a default judgment against the son and issued a bench warrant for his arrest.
n cases where courts allowed Greer to charge interest at a rate of more than 20 percent – double the usual legal limit of 10 percent.
n many cases where the courts allowed lawsuits to be filed by Greer’s collection agency, Professional Collections, Inc. Collection agencies are prohibited by law from suing in small claims court.
n cases where courts continued entering judgments in favor of Cardinalli’s nonexistent corporation, A&R Towing, Inc., after being notified that A&R Towing, Inc. does not exist.
Whatever caused these apparent errors, I strongly agree with the editorial that a grand jury investigation is needed. The courts have the power to protect themselves from fraud and we deserve to know why the courts have elected not to use that power. Why haven’t the fraudulent judgments entered against innocent people like Efreen Gonzalez been wiped off the books (and their credit reports) and their money ordered returned to them?
The courts cannot reasonably expect hundreds of small claims defendants representing themselves to know how to prepare the necessary paperwork to apply for relief. The courts also cannot ignore the reality that if these defendants were to hire attorneys to remedy the situation, the defendants would spend $2 in fees for every $1 they get back, if they get anything back at all.
Do the courts intend to do anything about this, or will they continue to turn a blind eye? We deserve to know how this happened, and we deserve to know what the courts plan to do to help clean up this mess.
Greg Adler is an attorney and corporate counsel for Copart, Inc.
