Hello To All, My small claims case against my builder and the warranty company was just thrown out of court when the judge granted the defendant's motion to dismiss. The amount was over $5,000 so I'm assuming this was not a small claims case in which case attorney's would have been barred. How could the judge grant this motion when I supplied voluminous amounts of evidence including pictures, estimates from 5 foundation and waterproofing companies detailing the defect that was in the foundation wall from the first day I moved into this house.
The problem was that the builder left a 2-inch diameter hole in the wall where the casing for the well pump should have been installed. Over the last few years this hole has been getting bigger and allowing more ground water to seep into the basement. The builder had covered the wall with insulation when the house was built and therefore this defect was not noticed for more than a year. The house is covered by a ten-year warranty, but the warranty company refuses to do anything about it. The estimates to fix the problem range from $3,000 to $9,000. Can I refile this claim for $5,000 in the same court thereby preventing frivolous motions being filed by the other side and having this case proceed to trial?
The warranty company is now suing me for attorney fees for bringing suit because there is a clause in the warranty agreement that stipulates that if I bypass their arbitration process and file suit, then I am liable for their attorney fees. These guys are crooks. We wrote a letter detailing the problems we were having with the house's foundation and we gave the builder and the warranty company 60 days to come out, inspect the problems and make repairs. They ignored the letter. We tried for almost 9 months to get them to do something (including an investigation by the State's attorney generals' office )before we filed suit and they just blew us off everytime saying that it was not covered under warranty. And that we would have to pay them $500 if we wanted to take this matter further. The warranty/insurance company filed a motion to collect attorney fees and it was denied by the court. Can they still sue me to recover these fees?
Sorry for the length of my rant. But the little guy gets screwed every time and I'm getting tired of it. All I want is my day in court. Is that asking too much???