Monday, December 26, 2011

False Foreclosure? Occupy the Bank, Romney Says - NYTimes.com

False Foreclosure? Occupy the Bank, Romney Says - NYTimes.com
ROMNEY: That might be something to go down to their office — big office in Boston — go sit in their front lobby and say ‘I’m gonna sit here until you sit down with me and look at these documents.”

PYRA: Occupy Bank of America?

ROMNEY: “Yeah, exactly. Yeah. If you are in the right, and you’ve got the documents to prove it, I’d go after them. The other thing you can do is file a suit against them.

PYRA: I can’t afford a lawyer, so –

ROMNEY: Ah, just file it in small claims court.

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The Mittster goes radical.

2 comments:

Clerk, Small Claims Division said...

Dear Mr. Pyra:

We are returning your small claims action unfiled for the following reasons:

1. The matter in dispute exceeds the dollar amount jurisdiction of this court.

2. This court lacks jurisdiction to award the relief being sought.

Clerk of the Small Claims Division

Anonymous said...

On the other hand, the Republican Party wants to make it harder for individuals to sue corporations (cf "tort reform").

So when a Republican suggests litigation as an alternative to regulations, he is being disingenuous.

I don't know about Massachusetts, but some states allow lawyers to represent parties in small claims court. So if the homeowner can't afford a lawyer, and the bank shows up with one, the homeowner is probably going to get screwed, regardless of the facts.

If the Republican Party was serious about "tort reform" (and they're not), they would be putting forth ideas other than "loser pays" or limiting punitive damages -- proposals designed to protected monied interests. Capping attorney fees might be a good place to start, but that would put a lot of corporate lawyers out of work.

In spite of all the right-wing rhetoric about how greedy parasitic lawyers are hurting America, they only want to limit the activities of lawyers who represent individuals against corporations, but not the other way around.