A landlord files suite against leaseor claiming damages over and above
security deposit. Landlord enters altered documents in complaint as
proof of partial loss. Is there case law on this point including
remedies for the defendant?

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Request for Question Clarification by bethc-ga on 13 Aug 2002 08:04 PDT

What do you mean by "altered documents"?

Hi Bernie,

Let me first give a caveat that I am not an attorney, that I am not
providing legal advice, and that there is no substitute for talking to
an attorney in the state in which you live.

Now: To get straight to the bottom line, when a claimant submits
fraudulent documents in any court case, it doesn't necessarily mean
the case is thrown out, or even that the claimant's accusations are
suspect. However, if the documents can be proven fraudulent, this
would certainly throw strong doubt on the claimant's veracity,
truthfulness. Thus whatever else the claimant says will likewise by
suspect as well. And there would be a good possibility that the judge
would consider this in making his final decision.

But in your example, even if the lessor is caught lying and submitting
fraudulent documents, but can otherwise prove the accusations, the
lessee will likely loose the case. So, in summary, the case won't be
thrown out; however, this fact is certainly going to have an impact on
the judge's decision. There is also the possibility the lessee can
file a cross-complaint against the lessor.

Your specific question is "what remedies does the defendant have". The
answer, based on the information in your question, is not much. As a
practical matter, you’re not going to sue someone for submitting
inaccurate documents, especially in a civil case. This is really up to
the court to pursue if they wish.

This information comes from an attorney acquaintance of mine.

I conducted a search on the web as follows:

Cornell Legal Information Institute
http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/evidence.html

From this page you can click on the Federal Rules of Evidence, on
which most state procedural rules are based. Apparently, there are a
number of considerations on the requirements of admissibility.
Depending on the specifics of your case, some of these rules may
apply.

According to FEDERAL RULES OF EVIDENCE ARTICLE IV. RELEVANCY AND ITS
LIMITS, Rule #402, evidence that is proven not to be correct is
"irrelevant" and inadmissible.

Links to Civil Procedure Codes for all 50 states
http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/state_statutes.html#civil_procedure

From this page, you'll be able to find links to the Civil Procedure
Codes for the state in which you reside.

California Code of Civil Procedure
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/calawquery?codesection=ccp&codebody=&hits=20

I'm not sure what state you're in so I've selected the California link
as an example. This page has additional links to small claims court
civil rules, and how to submit a cross-complaint.

Find Law
http://www.findlaw.com/

This website's primary function is to help you find a lawyer. However
there is a wealth of information and links to other legal information
and briefs. Click on Laws: Cases & Codes" and you'll find links to
nearly every court jurisdiction in the country.

Internet Legal Resource Guide
http://www.ilrg.com/
This is an unbelievable resource that describes itself as follows: "A
categorized index of more than 4000 select web sites in 238 nations,
islands, and territories, as well as more than 850 locally stored web
pages and downloadable files, this site was established to serve as a
comprehensive resource of the information available on the Internet
concerning law and the legal profession, with an emphasis on the
United States of America."

Bernie, there is so much material on the web that I don't even know
where to continue working on this question. And instead of wasting all
of my research time guessing your specific situation, I'd like to ask
you to answer the following questions before I continue my work:

1) Are you the lessor or lessee?
2) Can you be more specific about the definition of "altered"? Is the
document just slightly altered, or is it an obvious fabrication? Has
it been proven fraudulent in the courtroom?
3) What city/state do you live in?
4) Is there other specific information, other than remedies for the
defendant, you are looking for?
5) Has this case already completed? If so, what was the outcome? This
has a strong bearing on your remedies, including appeal.

If you can answer these questions, I'll go back to work and see what I
can come up with relevant to your particular situation. Thanks for the
question!

Prof

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Request for Answer Clarification by bernie7-ga on 13 Aug 2002 12:24 PDT

We are in CA and are the defendants. This was a high end rental,
$15,000 per month with $30,000 security deposit. The location was an
estate and was used as both residence and business. A Hedge Fund
business with five employees was the business. The landlord knew about
the business. The lease was renewed after two years and an additional
$50,000 was placed in security and rent increased to $16,000 per
month. An additional $30,000 was spent on continuious upkeep and not
charged to the landlord. We had walk throughs at the end of lease and
additional repairs and up grades were agreeded upon but never done to
Landlords satisfaction. It was evident she would not be pleased. Her
suite claims costs of $400,000. She sold the property for 5.3 million
and the costs were actually remodel for resale charging the costs back
to defendants. The altered documents were covering the contractors
notations that the billed expenses were,"In preperation for sale" We
have original copies from the contractors. We have an excellent
Attorney. I was looking for on target case law. Thanks bernie

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Request for Answer Clarification by bernie7-ga on 13 Aug 2002 13:38 PDT

The case was only recently filed and depositions are going forward. A
mandatory settlement conference was held and trial date set for
3/15/03, so, as you suggest, there is time for manuvering. As
mentioned the document presented was the bill form the contractor
which in the original stated the work was done for sale of the
property. The landlord covered the part about resale with the check
she paid the contractor and supplied that altered copy in the
complaint.
As mentioned, this is a California case and we would like not to have
on going expenses. But most of all the staff time is a distraction
from day to day operations.

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Clarification of Answer by prof-ga on 13 Aug 2002 14:27 PDT

Okay, Bernie,

This is very helpful. Let me go back to work. It may take me until
tomorrow a.m. sometime but I'll keep you posted.

Prof

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Clarification of Answer by prof-ga on 14 Aug 2002 08:26 PDT

Bernie,

Thanks for the additional information. With that plus my additional
research, I think I have a grasp on what's going on. I spent some
quality time with my attorney acquaintance and got the following
information. Let me take this in a couple of steps.

1) Your situation - I'll go ahead and repeat to you the "lecture" the
attorney gave me. He said it is quite frequent for consumers with a
good attorney to try to freelance and do case or other legal research
on their own. He strongly advises against it. You may get wrong
information, or you may be pointed in a direction that is at
cross-purposes with that of your attorney. Most importantly, you and
your attorney need to develop a single strategy that you both agree
with and can move forward with together. That said, let's move on. :)

2) Your case - Based on your information, submitting falsified or
altered documents into evidence in a court trial is grounds enough to
win in a civil suit, and can additionally open the perpetrator to
criminal charges. Charges can include fraud on the court and
obstruction of justice. However as a practical matter, the DA is too
busy to pursue such cases except for the worst ones. Nonetheless, the
threat of prosecution is great. Further, the lessor's attorney is
highly unlikely to allow the submission of altered documents since
this opens him up to the same charges. In any case, a civil judge
would pretty much throw the book at anyone who attempted to win a case
using altered documents. You'd win hands-down, especially if you know
they are submitting false documents.

3)The bottom line is that case law is not relevant in this situation.
It's like looking for case law for murder. You're not going to find
any because case law has no bearing on whether this person is
committing a crime or not. She clearly is breaking the law, if she
does what you say she's doing.

4) It all comes down to whether or not you can prove the documents.
And that would seem to be rather easy and straight-forward in this
case. Your attorney can demand the complete original document during
discovery. You can also subpoena the contractor and ask him what he
wrote on the original document.

I hope this information helps. I understand I don't have any case law
for you, but in this situation I'm convinced it's not relevant.
Nonetheless, if you wish me to continue looking to see what I can come
up with, please respond. I'll keep working! Thanks for the question.

Prof

I am assuming from your description that:

1. A tenant vacated premises;
2. The landlord sought damages against the tenant beyond the damage
deposit;
3. At some point, the landlord tendered documents in support of his
claim that the tenant claims are altered.
4. You are asking about the tenant's remedies.

In litigation, there are proceedings before trial, during trial, and
after verdict. The manner in which the tenant would respond depends
upon the stage of proceedings. The tenant has the most ability to
respond and protect himself before trial, and the least after the
verdict (when time limits for seeking relief, which may be quite
short, can also come into play). You should indicate in your request
for clarification whether or not trial has occurred, and if there is a
verdict.

As intimated above, it is also important to know what the document is,
and whether or not there are people other than the parties (the
landlord and tenant) who can testify as to what was in the unaltered
original. If the case has been tried, it is important to describe what
efforts were made at trial to prove that the document had been
altered.

The tenant's remedies may also likely to vary to some degree depending
upon the state or province in which the problem occurred, whether it
was a residential or commercial lease, and whether there was a special
type of lease agreement (e.g., a "Section 8" lease for a federally
subsidized property).

If the document purported to be the original has been altered, and it
is possible to get temporary access to that original for the purpose
of examination and testing, it may be possible to prove this through a
forensic evaluation of the document.

You have paid for a good answer, so I do hope you provide additional
information so that you can get an answer which adequately addresses
your situation and concerns.

Assuming the documents were disclosed through the discovery process
(e.g., in response to a request for production of documents), and the
plaintiff does not know that you have the original documents, your
attorney can probably make the most beneficial use of this information
at the plaintiff's deposition. A deposition, in case you are not
aware, is a proceeding conducted under oath before a court reporter,
but usually in an attorney's office. It is not a court proceeding,
although the witness at a deposition gives sworn testimony.

If the witness does not know that your attorney knows of the
"cover-up", he can ask her to authenticate the copy, that she is
familiar with the original and the contents of the document, and that
nothing important has been covered or concealed. Either at that time,
at a later point in the proceedings, or at trial, he can challenge
that testimony by presenting the original documents. (In many cases it
can be more powerful to "impeach" a witness - challenging her
testimony based upon contradictory statements or evidence - after the
deposition, rather than giving the witness the opportunity to try to
explain away a contradiction on the record of the deposition. That
way, if she doesn't come clean of her own volition at the deposition,
she looks like she was intentionally hiding the truth - but if she
comes up with a good excuse on the spot she can deflate the value of
the contradictory evidence.)

If she does not know you have the originals, your attorney probably
wishes to avoid doing anything which would tip her off, as would
happen if he brought a motion for discovery sanctions. If at all
possible, you don't want to tip her off so she will know that she has
to concoct an excuse prior to her deposition. (Excuses? There are a
million of 'em: "My secretary made a mistake, I'm so sorry." - "You
were supposed to get a second copy of that page without the check on
it, I'm so sorry." - "Our only copy at the office had the check on it
- that's the way we keep our records. Of course if I had known there
was something important under the check I would have told you.")

I think it would help you to do what prof suggests, and discuss
strategies for this information with your attorney. I am sure he plans
to make as much out of the "cover up" as is feasible under the law.