[jeffnc]

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Anyone can sue anyone, however collecting on the judgement will prove difficult

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QFT. I've won several "cases", and still managed to get ripped off every time.

Once, had some work done on the house. It was a disaster and I went to small claims court. They never showed up (that's how slack they are.) Judge awarded me the "winner". Piece of cake, right? No, they never had to pay. There was no real penalty if they didn't. They just never answered the letter they received from court.

For me to pursue, I had to file "execution of judgement". In layman's terms this means "they were penalized, now actually do the penalty. Funny, huh? Of course that cost me $100. A sheriff went out to their residence to "collect". They said they didn't have the money. The sheriff looked around and saw some stuff, but he couldn't take it. They're not allowed to take
- cars that could be used for the guy to get to work
- any items that was related to his business
- any item that they felt couldn't be easily auctioned off for easy profit (like a couch)

So, the guy's business had a "lien" on it which meant it was very difficult for him to get business loans. Big deal. The business went under a year later and he never had to pay me.

In another case tenants trashed my rental house to the tune of $12,000. It cost me $5,000 in lawyer fees to get the money, and then I only received half of it - i.e. $6,000. So I was in the hole $11,000.