Hollister
– A local father-son duo has parlayed a lucrative towing
business into a gold mine of litigation, clogging court dockets,
enraging defendants and frustrating consumer advocates.
Hollister – A local father-son duo has parlayed a lucrative towing business into a gold mine of litigation, clogging court dockets, enraging defendants and frustrating consumer advocates.
Since 1999, more than 2,000 people have been dragged into small claims courtrooms in three counties and ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in towing, storage and court fees to Vincent Cardinalli Sr., of Hollister, and son Paul Greer, a former Hollister resident who now lives in Clovis, according to a Gilroy Dispatch investigation.
Greer and Cardinalli defend their methods and their right to collect money they say they are owed, but critics accuse them of abusing the legal system to shake down unsuspecting motorists. In 2004, the California Highway Patrol blacklisted Greer for three years from its towing rotation for abandoning a call, operating without a permit and insurance, and charging excessive and unjustified fees.
Though Cardinalli and Greer haven’t towed a car in two years – they operated separate companies – Santa Clara County court commissioners awarded the pair $232,000 in judgments over an 18-month period ending in August 2006. Those awards represented 111 cases – less than a quarter of the cases they have filed in the county. And when defendants don’t pay, the duo marshals the power and blessings of the small claims court to raid bank accounts, garnish paychecks and arrest elusive defendants, court records show.
“Don’t blame us. … We’re just trying to get our money back. … Anything you ask about, I’ll be able to back it up,” said Cardinalli, owner of A&R Associates, his towing company.
A former member of the California Tow Truck Association’s governing board, Gilroy City Councilman Dion Bracco tangled with Greer’s B&C Towing in court two years ago. And while he said it’s not unusual for tow companies to seek money they are owed, he criticized methods such as going after a defendant who sold a car eight years before it was towed.
“I would never go after someone who had nothing to do with the vehicle at the time it was towed just because … they were the last one on the registration,” he said.
Bracco has seen it happen in court and said it’s immoral.
“They’ve researched and found loopholes in the vehicle code,” Bracco said.
In 2005, the councilman beat Greer’s small claims suit involving a car abandoned after it was purchased from Bracco’s tow yard.
Others have not been as successful fighting the legal technicalities Cardinalli and Greer throw at them. Nacho and Trini Gonzalez of Gilroy forgot to mail a form to the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Anthony Rhodes of Redding inadvertently left a last name off a DMV form. Othon Corona Arciniega of Hollister was sued instead of his son, who had the same first and last name but a different middle name.
“It’s preposterous to me that I could sell my car and I’m going to be liable for what somebody else does with it. That’s ridiculous,” said Scott Maurer, a consumer rights advocate with the Alexander Community Law Center in Santa Clara.
One company that has beat Greer in two lawsuits is now trying to stop him in his tracks. Copart Inc., an auto salvage firm, has sued to have the former tow truck operator declared a vexatious litigant, someone who files repeated, frivolous lawsuits. On Monday, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Teresa Guerrero-Daley allowed the suit to move forward. If successful, Greer would have to get court permission before filing any small claims suits.
To win their past cases, Cardinalli and Greer have convinced commissioners and judges to rely on technicalities instead of common sense – a crucial standard in small claims court – and in some cases to ignore the law entirely, Copart attorney Greg Adler said.
“Even if you show that you complied with all provisions of the vehicle code and did everything right, you could still lose because Greer and Cardinalli have been promoting flawed interpretations of the law,” he said.
“The arguments are patently absurd, and unfortunately for everyone else, they’ve found a commissioner who hasn’t taken the time to look into the law and get it right,” Adler said, referring to Santa Clara County Small Claims Commissioner Gregory Saldivar, who has served 16 years. Saldivar did not return calls for comment.
Since 2001, Santa Clara County court commissioners, including Saldivar, have issued 222 default judgments against defendants who failed to appear in court, some later claiming they never knew their car was towed or that they were sued. Scores of others appeared in court but lost, usually on technicalities, such as mailing deadlines, court records show.
Father and son often direct the court’s attention to a vehicle registration that lists the defendant as the last owner. When defendants produce a DMV form releasing them of liability, Cardinalli and Greer zero in on errors and omissions, or claim the document was not mailed to the DMV within the five-day deadline.
“It’s smart for anybody who sells a vehicle to walk into DMV, have them stamp (the release of liability) and have them mail it to their Sacramento office,” Greer said. “Or send it certified mail. It’s going to cost them $5 to save $2,500.”
The state vehicle code, however, gives sellers two options. A release of liability form can be sent within five days, or a pink slip can be signed over to the new owner – which most people do.
In a 2002 case, Santa Clara County Small Claims Commissioner James Heath said a defendant satisfied the requirements of the law by just signing a pink slip – one of the two options. Greer lost the case.
In June 2006, he lost again, this time when San Jose Superior Court Judge Socrates Manoukian called the five-day deadline “inconsequential.”
Beyond that, DMV employee Ron Fiorica stated in an affidavit for the Copart suit, “in cases that the (release of liability form) is submitted more than five days after the date of transfer, the (form) is still considered valid and effective. To my knowledge, no (release of liability) has ever been rejected or deemed invalid or ineffective solely because it was submitted more than five days after the date of transfer.”
Mercury Insurance Group did follow the law, yet still found itself in court with Greer eight years after disposing of a car wrecked in an accident. The company consigned the car to Copart, which in turn sold it and filed the appropriate DMV forms, according to a letter from the company to a San Jose superior court judge.
The buyer failed to register the car, so when it was abandoned in 2004, Mercury’s name still appeared as the last owner, Adler said. In 2005, Commissioner Saldivar ruled against Mercury despite evidence the vehicle was disposed of properly.
Mercury faced the same dilemma as other defendants. If the buyer fails to register the car, Fiorica explained, the seller will continue to appear as the owner, even if they file the release of liability form.
“Under Greer and Cardinalli’s line of thinking, you’re liable just because you’re the last registered owner,” Adler said. “If that were the law, then anybody who sells a car could be held liable 10, 15 or 20 years later, simply because the person who they sold it to failed to register it. That’s simply not the law.”
Serdar Tumgoren, Senior Staff Writer, covers City Hall for The Dispatch. Reach him at 847-7109 or st*******@gi************.com.
A search of an online court database fueled the Gilroy Dispatch investigation of former Hollister tow truck operator Paul Greer. When it became clear that hundreds of small claims cases had been filed in the San Martin Superior Court, reporter Serdar Tumgoren delved into the files further.
He constructed a database from case file listings which documented that Greer filed at least 363 cases in San Benito and Santa Clara counties. The database was supplemented with court judgments and other information harvested from a partial review of cases filed in San Martin. Extensive interviews with consumer rights attorneys, court clerks, judges, law enforcement officials, postal workers, small claims defendants and a Gilroy property manager formed the backbone of the story.
