Lopez et al v. Castle Lake Homes Corp - Case 15-1-1129
The Final Approval Hearing is still pending but the proposed order granting preliminary approval of the stipulated class action suit against Castle Lake Homes Corp, Masal Partners Ltd and Amak Partners LP is now published on the Cobb County Superior Court site.
The Pleadings and exhibits run 52 pages and were filed 8/22/17.
Members of the class are current and former tenants who paid Castle Lake for water and sewer charges and those who paid any fines to Castle Lake.
A 'Settlement Fund' of $125,000 will be provided by the Defendants to the Plaintiff's lawyers to be held in escrow pending approval of claims.
Plaintiff lawyer's costs and assorted fees are the responsibility of the Defendants.
The recently published documents are to large to publish here but the filing and other court documents are available at the Superior Court Site
Here is a sample of the latest documents.
If you were (or are now) a tenants of CLMHP during the covered dates you should contact the Carroll Law Firm at their below address. If you are in contact with others who may be covered, please forward the information about the coming settlement to them so that they can put in their claims.
What is the Castle Lake suit all about?
This class action lawsuit is premised on the egregious conduct of Defendants, who preyed on low-income tenants in Defendants' mobile home park by illegally taking on the role of law enforcement and ticketing and fining them - sometimes in amounts exceeding their rent - and by secretly charging those tenants for water and sewer usage well in excess of the amounts actually paid by Defendants to Cobb County.
Plaintiffs' Class Action complaint sets forth two classes of plaintiffs:
(1) All current and former tenants of Castle Lake Mobile Home Park who paid any Defendant for purported water and/or sewer charges; and
(2) All current and former tenants of Castle Lake Mobile Home Park who paid any Defendant for any fine or penalty.
Collectively, Defendants are the owners, operators and managers of a 300 plus lot mobile home park in Kennesaw, known as Castle Lake mobile Home Park (CLMHP). All of the 300 plus lots in CLMHP are rented to tenants on a month-to-month basis pursuant to written lease agreements.
Georgia law prohibits fines and penalties in contracts and such penalties are legally void and unenforceable. Nevertheless, Defendants repeatedly ticketed, fined and penalized tenants for alleged trivial violations and for alleged violations not listed in the tenants' lease agreements, such as parking in a neighbor's driveway with that neighbor's permission, hosting a birthday party or playing music.
Defendants threatened eviction, either expressly or implicitly, to all tenants who did not promptly pay the illegal fines, thereby extorting payment from each tenant. Illegal fines sometimes exceeding the amount of the tenant's monthly rent payment.
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4/6/17
As of 1/1/17 no further info is posted on the Cobb County Court site.
11/18/16
Consent Order To Extend Time For Mediation
On Oct 24th the below Order was entered and reads in part:
"The parties have reached a settlement in principle and need time to finalize the settlement agreement on all terms which would obviate the need for mediation."
The mediation process has been extended for 60 days.
The initial effort was to obtain a 'class action' status for the matter which would include many other people, over and above the original 12 who filed the action.
It is likely that the matter will now be settled without having it reach class action status and only the original 12 suing will be compensated. It is also possible that the terms of the settlement will never be known as it is usual for such settlements to be confidential.
From the perspective of the Castle Lake Canadian owners it would be a good idea to settle before the Court made a decision which might have been the granting of class status to the suit. Had class status been obtained it would have opened a huge can of worms for CLMHP owners and taken years to resolve the matter.
The suit will probably be dismissed with predjuice by the end of the year with a payout to those 12 filing the action. It is unlikely the amounts paid will be disclosed.
A summary of the action is below the Consent Order:
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11/7/16
The CLMHP Class Action Suit Continues
MISC UPDATE:
There is more recent activity in this case but it is not available online due to the Court Clerk having deemed it to contain 'sensitive information'. You can go down to the Marietta Court House and both read it on their computer and order it for $1 a page. From my prior experience is chasing after such embargoed items it is simply some moron in the Clerks Office who made an executive decision to not post something. You give these people a little 'power' and they can't help themselves, they have to make you jump through hoops to get public information.
9/30/16 - Notice of Mediation Conference
8/5/16
Civil Suits tend to drag on for years, this one is no exception. Now it is set for Alternative Dispute Resolution.
12/26/15
The next setting for this matter is July 22, 2016
Davey Crockett (From FaceBook) December 12 at 6:45 pm
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008587503434
CASTLE LAKE - ROUND 2 IN SUPERIOR COURT
Regular readers of my various blog sites(*) are well aware of the Castle Lake Mobile Home Park and how 2/3 rds of that downmarket trailer park was abruptly rezoned and brought into the City of Kennesaw, all in a remarkable time of 28 days from proposal to approval and also how badly the low income tenants were treated by Jeff Fuqua ("Atlanta's Most Controversial Developer") and the Vancouver, BC slum lords of the Ergas family.
The trailers on those 52 acres are now gone, the retiries, low income residents and the large Hispanic population are all scattered to other parks, counties and even other states.
The land clearing for the new 450,000 sq ft retail and residential buildings is well advanced. You can have lunch at the IHOP and watch the blasting and earth moving while you have lunch, which was quite likely prepared and served by former CLMHP residents as several cooks and waitresses once resided at the park and probably still work at IHOP.
What you may not be aware of, is that 10 months ago a dozen former residents and trailer owners of this park banded together and filed what is hoped to be a 'class action' suit against 3 of the corporate entities of the Canadian slumlord* for various misdeeds over the years in the administration of the MHP(**).
The matter is alive and well, slowly winding its way through the convoluted Georgia legal system. It is likely to be in the courts for several more years as these cases are seldom short and sweet.
The latest activity is just last month but going back one month more you find an interesting letter from the Plaintiff's law firm (see attached) and to show you just how litigious this is I will briefly quote from the Carroll Law Firm's 10/15/15 letter to Judge Kell. Keep in mind that delay is usual for Defendants in such proceedings, they benefit from drawing out such suits and 'papering' Plaintiffs as you will see is being done here:
"Dear Judge Kell:
I represent the Plaintiffs in the above-referenced class action lawsuit, which was filed on February 13, 2015. Plaintiffs would like to request that the discovery conference pertaining to class certification issues, as contemplated by OCGA 9-11-23(f)(1), be scheduled so that a scheduling order regarding class certification discovery and motions can be established.
Plaintiffs would also like to address at the conference voluminous discovery requests that Defendants have recently served on the class Plaintiffs. Collectively, Defendants have served Plaintiffs with 2,448 Requests for Admission, 756 Interrogatories, and 216 Requests for Production. Because such discovery relates to the merits of the case rather than class certification, and because the class certification discovery conference has not yet occurred,
Plaintiffs have objected to such discovery as premature".
While the millions of dollars of profit for the sale of those 52 acres is probably long out of reach of the Plaintiffs, there remains another 23 acres of the CLMHP and while it remains in the County the land is extremely valuable with the major retail and townhome development just across Noonday Creek from the shabby park.
Even with the delays by the CL lawyers, any future class judgment against the park owners is likely to result in substantial payouts to all those who have lived under egregious conditions mandated by the park owners(***).
Eventually the case will be tried for those 12 original plaintiffs and perhaps, if the class is certified, there will be hundreds or thousands who might benefit from this civil action.
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* http://castlelakekennesaw.blogspot.com and http://castlelakemhp.blogspot.com/
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** 1) Castle Lake Homes Corp, 2) Masal Partners Ltd LP and 3) Amak Partners LP. These are the offshoots of the Vancouver, B.C., Canada firm called 'The Ergas Group', owned by a wealthy Jewish family of property investors in Vancouver.
----------------------------------------------
*** What is the Castle Lake suit all about?
This class action lawsuit is premised on the egregious conduct of Defendants, who preyed on low-income tenants in Defendants' mobile home park by illegally taking on the role of law enforcement and ticketing and fining them - sometimes in amounts exceeding their rent - and by secretly charging those tenants for water and sewer usage well in excess of the amounts actually paid by Defendants to Cobb County.
Plaintiffs' Class Action complaint sets forth two classes of plaintiffs:
(1) All current and former tenants of Castle Lake Mobile Home Park who paid any Defendant for purported water and/or sewer charges; and
(2) All current and former tenants of Castle Lake Mobile Home Park who paid any Defendant for any fine or penalty.
Collectively, Defendants are the owners, operators and managers of a 300 plus lot mobile home park in Kennesaw, known as Castle Lake mobile Home Park (CLMHP). All of the 300 plus lots in CLMHP are rented to tenants on a month-to-month basis pursuant to written lease agreements.
Georgia law prohibits fines and penalties in contracts and such penalties are legally void and unenforceable. Nevertheless, Defendants repeatedly ticketed, fined and penalized tenants for alleged trivial violations and for alleged violations not listed in the tenants' lease agreements, such as parking in a neighbor's driveway with that neighbor's permission, hosting a birthday party or playing music.
Defendants threatened eviction, either expressly or implicitly, to all tenants who did not promptly pay the illegal fines, thereby extorting payment from each tenant. Illegal fines sometimes exceeding the amount of the tenant's monthly rent payment.
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008587503434
CASTLE LAKE - ROUND 2 IN SUPERIOR COURT
Regular readers of my various blog sites(*) are well aware of the Castle Lake Mobile Home Park and how 2/3 rds of that downmarket trailer park was abruptly rezoned and brought into the City of Kennesaw, all in a remarkable time of 28 days from proposal to approval and also how badly the low income tenants were treated by Jeff Fuqua ("Atlanta's Most Controversial Developer") and the Vancouver, BC slum lords of the Ergas family.
The trailers on those 52 acres are now gone, the retiries, low income residents and the large Hispanic population are all scattered to other parks, counties and even other states.
The land clearing for the new 450,000 sq ft retail and residential buildings is well advanced. You can have lunch at the IHOP and watch the blasting and earth moving while you have lunch, which was quite likely prepared and served by former CLMHP residents as several cooks and waitresses once resided at the park and probably still work at IHOP.
What you may not be aware of, is that 10 months ago a dozen former residents and trailer owners of this park banded together and filed what is hoped to be a 'class action' suit against 3 of the corporate entities of the Canadian slumlord* for various misdeeds over the years in the administration of the MHP(**).
The matter is alive and well, slowly winding its way through the convoluted Georgia legal system. It is likely to be in the courts for several more years as these cases are seldom short and sweet.
The latest activity is just last month but going back one month more you find an interesting letter from the Plaintiff's law firm (see attached) and to show you just how litigious this is I will briefly quote from the Carroll Law Firm's 10/15/15 letter to Judge Kell. Keep in mind that delay is usual for Defendants in such proceedings, they benefit from drawing out such suits and 'papering' Plaintiffs as you will see is being done here:
"Dear Judge Kell:
I represent the Plaintiffs in the above-referenced class action lawsuit, which was filed on February 13, 2015. Plaintiffs would like to request that the discovery conference pertaining to class certification issues, as contemplated by OCGA 9-11-23(f)(1), be scheduled so that a scheduling order regarding class certification discovery and motions can be established.
Plaintiffs would also like to address at the conference voluminous discovery requests that Defendants have recently served on the class Plaintiffs. Collectively, Defendants have served Plaintiffs with 2,448 Requests for Admission, 756 Interrogatories, and 216 Requests for Production. Because such discovery relates to the merits of the case rather than class certification, and because the class certification discovery conference has not yet occurred,
Plaintiffs have objected to such discovery as premature".
While the millions of dollars of profit for the sale of those 52 acres is probably long out of reach of the Plaintiffs, there remains another 23 acres of the CLMHP and while it remains in the County the land is extremely valuable with the major retail and townhome development just across Noonday Creek from the shabby park.
Even with the delays by the CL lawyers, any future class judgment against the park owners is likely to result in substantial payouts to all those who have lived under egregious conditions mandated by the park owners(***).
Eventually the case will be tried for those 12 original plaintiffs and perhaps, if the class is certified, there will be hundreds or thousands who might benefit from this civil action.
-----------------------------------------------
* http://castlelakekennesaw.blogspot.com and http://castlelakemhp.blogspot.com/
----------------------------------------------
** 1) Castle Lake Homes Corp, 2) Masal Partners Ltd LP and 3) Amak Partners LP. These are the offshoots of the Vancouver, B.C., Canada firm called 'The Ergas Group', owned by a wealthy Jewish family of property investors in Vancouver.
----------------------------------------------
*** What is the Castle Lake suit all about?
This class action lawsuit is premised on the egregious conduct of Defendants, who preyed on low-income tenants in Defendants' mobile home park by illegally taking on the role of law enforcement and ticketing and fining them - sometimes in amounts exceeding their rent - and by secretly charging those tenants for water and sewer usage well in excess of the amounts actually paid by Defendants to Cobb County.
Plaintiffs' Class Action complaint sets forth two classes of plaintiffs:
(1) All current and former tenants of Castle Lake Mobile Home Park who paid any Defendant for purported water and/or sewer charges; and
(2) All current and former tenants of Castle Lake Mobile Home Park who paid any Defendant for any fine or penalty.
Collectively, Defendants are the owners, operators and managers of a 300 plus lot mobile home park in Kennesaw, known as Castle Lake mobile Home Park (CLMHP). All of the 300 plus lots in CLMHP are rented to tenants on a month-to-month basis pursuant to written lease agreements.
Georgia law prohibits fines and penalties in contracts and such penalties are legally void and unenforceable. Nevertheless, Defendants repeatedly ticketed, fined and penalized tenants for alleged trivial violations and for alleged violations not listed in the tenants' lease agreements, such as parking in a neighbor's driveway with that neighbor's permission, hosting a birthday party or playing music.
Defendants threatened eviction, either expressly or implicitly, to all tenants who did not promptly pay the illegal fines, thereby extorting payment from each tenant. Illegal fines sometimes exceeding the amount of the tenant's monthly rent payment.
