CT Blue

I practiced law for many years, but as I’ve confessed countless times, I know very little about the areas of the law that usually crop up in the news. Never handled a RICO case, for instance. But here’s a case in Nashville that I do know something about:

People already struggling to make ends meet are being hit with a double whammy: Their former apartment manager is accused of stealing their rent payments.

Now, their former property manager, Casey Oiler, is under investigation. Oiler is accused of taking those payments, and it isn’t just in Manchester. WSMV 4 Investigates has confirmed that Oiler has also been charged in Warren County, and is under investigation for stealing rent payments in Decherd.

The Jackson, Tennessee-based company recently admitted in a letter to tenants that it isn’t their fault their rent payments are stolen. However, the company still wants residents to pay up again.

One tenant interviewed for the underlying article complained:

Making Wilear angrier was the letter that Volunteer Management sent to tenants last month. In it, the company told renters that they have until the end of the year to repay what the company admits was stolen.

A portion of the letter reads, “I understand this is difficult times, and this was not your fault, but this is the way Corporate and our lawyers want to handle this.”

I started out in legal services representing scores of low income tenants. In private practice I represented both tenants and landlords. One of my landlords was a Housing Authority, and we tried hard to realize our mission, which was to keep people housed. If they weren’t paying their rent we worked out repayment agreements. My largest private landlord was a guy who always amazed me since he bent over backwards to try to help his tenants.

In any event, at least in the days before the right wing took over our judiciary, this landlord would have been laughed out of court. If I make a rent payment to a person authorized by the landlord to take said payments and the payment is accepted, then I owe the landlord nothing. You would fail first year contracts if you tried to make a contrary argument on an exam. I can understand why in this case the landlord’s “lawyers want to handle” it this way, but I can’t quite understand how they figure they can get away with it. I refuse to believe that even the judges in Tennessee will refuse to enforce basic contract law.

The article to which I’ve linked, at Crooks & Liars ends like this:

Those poor people need a lawyer.

Indeed they do. Back when I was at legal services I would have jumped at the chance to take a case like that. I’m not sure there’s all that much left to the Legal Services corporation given our current Congress, but hopefully there’s somebody out there who will make mincemeat out of this landlord’s lawyers.

As a side note, the law firm for which I worked had a bookkeeper who embezzled some of our funds. It never occurred to us to double bill our clients for the losses. Also, that’s what insurance is for. If you have employees handling your money, you should have insurance to cover such losses.