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New year, new legal battles

A pile of fresh litigation lands in local court houses - from postholiday evictions to all kinds of unpaid bills.

By Scott Barancik
Published January 5, 2007

TAMPA

Darla Heins is fed up with her daughter, who is serving a two-year sentence of house arrest at the family's Sweet Jasmine Drive home.

Christina, 19, is disrespectful and, at times, verbally abusive, the 49-year-old registered nurse says. On the advice of a paralegal, Heins filed suit in Tampa court Tuesday to evict her youngest child. She cried all the way home.

"It was very hard," she says. "I told her, 'I still love you, I just don't want to live with you.' "

Hundreds of lawsuits are filed each day in bay area courthouses, and the first business day of 2007 was no exception. Local residents and businesses filed 85,000 suits last year, more than enough to support an army of lawyers, judges, bailiffs and process servers. The suits capture many of us at our very worst as we skirmish with customers, lenders, bosses or competitors. Like it or not, our private pains are public record.

There's little room for sentimentality. Though the lawsuits filed Tuesday reveal a mix of spats, evictions and mortgage foreclosures - Happy new year! - accounted for the biggest portion.

In Hillsborough County's court for claims of less than $15,000, 64 of the 78 suits were about evictions. Eight of them were filed by the Pointe at South Florida, which caters to University of South Florida students, and another five by a low-income housing complex in Tampa called the Oaks of Riverview. Tampa real estate attorney Sean Donnelly says eviction suits tend to pile up in early January in part because of tenants who overextend themselves during the holidays and landlords who postpone suing until the new year.

The deluge of foreclosure suits may be more ominous. Such cases are already on the rise thanks to the bay area's recent housing slump, and the pace may be accelerating as adjustable-rate mortgages begin to float higher. Home lenders filed 17 of the 36 Hillsborough complaints Tuesday over sums of more than $15,000.

Unpaid credit card bills accounted for another chunk of cases Tuesday. A lawyer for Capital One, whose humorous TV ads portray a kinder and hipper lender, arrived early at the Pinellas Courthouse on Tuesday to sue nine cardholders.

The remaining lawsuits covered broad territory.

Several cases involved the dead. In Pinellas, the estate of a deceased woman accused several local doctors of failing to diagnose the conditions that killed her. Leon Schwartz sued UBS Financial Services to collect more than $90,000 that he says a deceased friend bequeathed him in a brokerage account.

Auto accidents were another recurring theme. A Morgan & Morgan attorney representing Hillsborough plaintiff Wendy Scolaro cited a catalog of woes, including bodily injury, pain and suffering, disability, disfigurement, mental anguish, loss of capacity for the enjoyment of life, medical costs, lost wages and the inability to earn.

The remaining cases involved disputes over unpaid sums. Palm Harbor dentist Paul Caputo accused a patient of failing to pay for $2,519 of crown work and bleaching. An Illinois exercise-machine maker asked for permission to break into a Tampa health club and repossess its equipment. An affiliate of St. Petersburg's Home Shopping Network was accused of owing a vendor nearly $60,000 for bottles of As Ruff As You Like hair-styling clay and other beauty products.

Darla Heins, the Tampa mom trying to evict her daughter, says prosecutors "railroaded" the young woman into pleading guilty to a crime she didn't commit. She feels sorry for Christina, whom she says began running with a bad crowd after her father died.

The younger Heins couldn't be reached for comment Thursday. But her mother says her only choice was to sue.

"I've been giving to my kids for 22 years, and it's time for me to live my life."

Times staff researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report. Scott Barancik can be reached at barancik@sptimes.com or 727893-8751.

Source: County clerks' Web sites, Times calculations

Gobs of litigation

More than 85,000 times last year, bay area businesses and residents took their disputes to a local courthouse. This tally doesn't include the thousands who filed for divorce.

County Lawsuits

Hillsborough 47,699

Pinellas 22,112

Pasco 8,863

Citrus 3,427

Hernando 2,973

Total 85,074

[Last modified January 4, 2007, 23:17:31]