Guest: Okay. Uh, I, uh, I loaned this guy, that used to be a buddy of mine, some tools, expensive mechanic tools, and I couldn’t get them bad for him. He in fact ripped me off. So I called this lawyer that advertised on TV. I never even saw this lawyer, this guy. And he charged me a whole bunch of money, nearly 1000 bucks and cold consultations. And he told me to take the one that stole my tools to small claims court. And I did get my, uh, tools back. Uh, but I was just wondering could I, could I sue the a rip off artist that stole my tools into small claims court again for
Justin: wait, wait, wait.
Guest: I got a receipt.
Justin: So you, you took the court, the clays, the case, the small claims court yourself, right?
Guest: No, the lawyer advised me that I said I called.
Justin: Yeah, but you went a you heeded, the lawyer didn’t go into small claims court with you, right?
Guest: No, he didn’t go.
Justin: So you went and did all this yourself?
Guest: Yeah, yeah, I did. For her. He carved nearly a thousand dollars.
Justin: What did he do for you? I don’t understand.
Guest: Phone consultations and [say this in] court and say that, yeah, ties and shirts and he said get, get a shirt nice shirt and a neck tie, which I did. I was dying choking in court. But anyway, I got my tools there from the took a while. But we know you can
Mark: generally you can’t look, there’s a rule called res Judicata and in a it’s, it basically means you can’t sue somebody twice for the same thing or something that could have been joined in the same cause of action. So I would, you know, definitely call us after the show, but I would generally say no. If you already sued the guy and got a judgment, usually you can’t. You have the same person.
Justin: Do you want to sue him again or do you want to sue the attorney?
Guest: Well, I didn’t, assume I just got my property back. Got It. Yeah. No money off them.
Mark: It doesn’t matter. If you were in court and there was an order, was there a judgment entered? Did the judge say,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah,
Guest: I’ll give this guy back. His tools snap on.
Justin: And you would have asked for any attorney fees at that time and you wouldn’t have got them anyway because attorneys can’t represent people in small claims courses. The bigger concern is what this guy did for you. Write him a letter and tell him you want your money back because he didn’t do anything for you.
Guest: No, I didn’t. I didn’t think I’d do that.
Justin: Do that. Write him a letter and tell him, Hey, you know what? I’d like my money back. You trading, I don’t know what you did for me. Um, I’d like my money back. See what that gets you in a, that’s about all you can do, cause you can’t sue the other guy again who had the tools. Unfortunately. So.