Jury for Eviction Case at JP court Texas
Real Estate Investor · Williamson County, TX · Member since 2011 · 1k+ posts · 961 votes
Law is not Logic, nor is it logical. It is written by people who really probably don't understand the issues of real estate (few are investors, if any). It is modified by case law. Every case has different facts. It is up to the judge or jury to decide what is "fact". Jury's are made up of people who generally aren't smart enough to figure out how to get out of jury duty (yourself excluded of course ;-) and there are very specific Rules of Civil Procedure and local Court Rules that have to be carefully followed all the way through the process or it changes the outcome. My Judge friend told me that "everybody lies in court". His words, not mine.
You can call the court clerk and ask about that particular case. The clerk should be able to look on the screen and see if an eviction was granted or if it was referred on for a foreclosure action. Sounds like the defense attorney was trying to establish an equitable title argument. That would drag the case out for months. The plaintiff should stick to software and let the attorney he apparently didn't hire, to do the eviction. What would have cost him a few hundred dollars might now cost him tens of thousands.
Law is not Logic, nor is it logical. It is written by people who really probably don't understand the issues of real estate (few are investors, if any). It is modified by case law. Every case has different facts. It is up to the judge or jury to decide what is "fact". Jury's are made up of people who generally aren't smart enough to figure out how to get out of jury duty (yourself excluded of course ;-) and there are very specific Rules of Civil Procedure and local Court Rules that have to be carefully followed all the way through the process or it changes the outcome. My Judge friend told me that "everybody lies in court". His words, not mine.
You can call the court clerk and ask about that particular case. The clerk should be able to look on the screen and see if an eviction was granted or if it was referred on for a foreclosure action. Sounds like the defense attorney was trying to establish an equitable title argument. That would drag the case out for months. The plaintiff should stick to software and let the attorney he apparently didn't hire, to do the eviction. What would have cost him a few hundred dollars might now cost him tens of thousands.
My guess would be the argument was one of the following:
-She contributed rent in the form of repairs and therefore was entitled to a 30 day notice to terminate and not the 3 day notice for non payment.
-Or more likely that the agreement was a Lease-Purchase for more than 180 which in Texas can be considered an Executory Contract. Although I am not sure where the 30 days would come from with this argument. Maybe that was the period given to terminate as there is no 30 day notice for a mortgage in Texas and a foreclosure would take longer than that.
Judge said this was his first jury for an eviction in 8 years and said something like the jury would set a precedent, but I didn't quite catch that. I assumed the defendant had exercised her right to a jury as kind of hail Mary, but about fell over when I heard the document was entitled in bold type, big as Dallas "Lease Purchase." But just the heading of a standard lease was changed...not even a right of first refusal in a sale was added, leading me to believe the owner just wanted to bamboozle the tenant.
It just saddens me that Americans are not taught even a tiny bit of contract law in high school. Language arts should teach Beowolf, then teach a contract to buy a house and a contract to borrow money. Or a basic lease. Math should teach train timetables. And then spend a couple days analyzing lease a car 5 year contract vs buy a car financed over 5 years contract...present day and in 5 years. Big, big word problem but used by every Texan who doesn't move to Boston and ride the T. Funny thing is Harvard Ed magazine just published an article saying the older a student gets the less motivated he becomes because students do not see the relevance of hs education to their lives.
The defendant in this case was a minority and unlikely educated past high school. If she had known to hammerdown a fixed price in the Lease Purchase contract in addition to the practically worthless contract name change, she would have had a bargaining chip or even a salable asset.
JP courts don't set precedent and every JP court decision can be immediately appealed to the County Court with little effort. Interesting sounding case . . . I would be interested to hear the outcome if you can dig it up and share here.
NOTE: Bret is an attorney but is not your attorney. Any comments are for general purposes only and the thoughts shared here should not be relied and do not create an attorney client relationship with anyone in the forum.