My mom has been having this problem with our neighbor, for the last year. But Yesterday, my mom goes to the laundry, the cops come to her and arrest her. They tell her that the neighbor has order a citizen arrest. That they have saw her scratch their car.(Which is a complete lie). They have no prove that she has cause the damage. We had to spend the whole day yesterday trying to bail her out. So far it has cost us $2300 to get her out. We want take our neighbor to court and sue her for the $2300,plus other damages she has cause to us. We want to pursue our legal rights to the fullest extent of the law , we are willing to spend as much money possible. We will be sueing for false calm against her. We got a lawyer already. Anyone has any experience with false calm against anyone? Can we get damages from them? Our neigbor has no prove, no evedence, its just their word against my mom. She is being accuse of Felony Vandalism. Thanks for any advice.
Are you in the U.S.? Your story doesn't add up. It's not a citizen's arrest if the police arrested her. Also, there's no way she could have been held in jail just because your neighbor made up a story that she scratched her car. Also, it's a really bad idea to use the court system to try to "legally mess them up" just because you're upset.
Actually, a citizen can cause an arrest in the US. It is not common, and subjects you to liability, but it is done in some jurisdictions. You make the charge, usually verbally or in writing in the presence of the officers, but the police do actually come and arrest the person based on a citizens claim of arrest. They are almost always dismissed and not pursued by the prosecuting attorneys office. As far as advice. If you already have retained an attorney, they will be your best source of advice on this matter. You probably need two attorneys. One to make sure there is no CRIMINAL issue related to the arrest, and another to pursue and CIVIL claims you may have against the arresting citizen. As a general rule, your recovery is limited by what your actual damages are. In most cases, like the one you describe, it is hard to show any actual damages that are worth pursuing. The act of humiliation, a lost day, unfortunately do not ammount to much in terms of money.
It is a bad idea to use language like "mess them up". If you mean, pursue your legal rights to the fullest extent of the law, people would not take issue. You do not want to make it sound like you are retaliating with threats or unjustified claims of your own. Words have meanings. Chose yours carefully, especially in the legal world.
My advice: First, get your mom out! Get her home! $2300 is not too much! If you don't have enough money, I can try to help you get them!!! But anyway, pay them $2300 !!!! ASAP!
Good to know! I've never heard of that... seems like it could be easily abused? On the other hand, maybe it contributes to that warm n fuzzy community policing feeling... so people feel like they've been heard, and something has been "done" about their problem. Anyway, listening to your lawyers is always good advice, the judge can sort it out from there. Poor judge...
try to find out as much as you can about the case, record stuff like where your mom was when the keying of the car occured, did you have disputes before this? etc, the more that you have on your side, the stronger your case will be.
$2300 to bail bonds man, wouldn't that mean that her bail was like $23,000 ? Did you just pay her full bail to the court?
To this story. Anyone can make a complaint to the police. To do a citizen's arrest, it has to be done while the crime (or supposed crime) is happening. One can not call the police and have them arrest someone. The police will investigate complaints, etc. To get arrested like that, there had to have been a court order, which means someone must of done something wrong plus not gone to court to answer the charges made originally. Yes, there is more to the story here than was told.
Yes her bail bond was that much, but you get that back once you go to court, you don't get back the $2300 fee that you give to the bond guy. Yes we payed the full bail.
She was out the whole day, she went to pharmacy, supermarket, etc.. We have 1 year of dispute with this person.
Disprove the crimial case first. Then pursue the civil action. If you can't beat the criminal case, you will not win the civil case likely.
wow very harsh issue.... thank god I'm not in the states.....Other wise I'd be getting accused everyday for no reason
Laws do vary from state to state. Here you could very well be arrested based upon a sworn (under the penalty of perjury) complaint.
Our neighbor came down and told us write a apology letter and pay for the damages, and they might drop the charges. Yea right, write apology letter, and show that to the judge, which will shows that she has admitted to it. They think we are stuped, that we are going to write a letter like that to them. lol lol
Neighbor told our other neighbor, that they were hiding behind a car and they were watching this happend. If they were hiding and watching this, why didn't they come out and say something.
Shahab6 said - We want to pursue our legal rights to the fullest extent of the law , we are willing to spend as much money possible. Dont tell that to your lawyer, he will charge accordingly!
I'm not sure how things work down in the US, but up in Canada you would have two options: 1) Sue them for damages. Assuming your are telling the truth in that they cannot proove their claims, then you would be rewarded for all the costs as other people have mentioned above. - or - 2) Sue them from criminal negligence. This involves telling the court that the neighbors violated the law and convinced federal officers to act based on this. Instead of being awarded money that you lost, you can press for jail time. But because of this case, you'd probably be lucky if they got 2 years in jail, most likely a few months at best. But it would be permanently on their criminal record and they would be on probation for many years after, so if they did anything stupid again they would instantly go back to jail without a trial.