In our case I felt the Judge KNEW the owners of this management corporation. It was a hunch I got given the fact that she looked at the pictures of the pools of water standing on our roof with the rocks covered by the water and commented "this must be before the roof repair" and I stated no your honor (I hate to call them that) it was after the roof repair. There was complete proof of what the rocks had not accomplished.
It was as if she had never seen the results! She went on to rule in the management company's favor.
Now in Small Claims, you cannot appeal so no one else knows what the judge does. The files are next to nonexistant and discovery takes place in the hall outside the courtroom for about 5 minutes. You don't even get a copy of what your opponent has brought to show the judge.
The process is a horrendous miscarriage of justice, only organized to get the pesky people out of the way -- push the herd through the process. We had not the time to even list out all the laws to the judge that the management company had broken hiring an unlicensed guy to put rocks on the roof. And the ones we did cite she made up some half cocked rebuttal. Hell she was doing the management company's job for them.
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>CB: Well, judges _are_ lawyers, don't forget.
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Duly noted. marta -- Marta Russell Los Angeles, CA http://www.martarussell.com/