For a Good Time, Sue Your Friends

I spent most of today in a five-hour mediation session that went nowhere. The goal was to come to some sort of settlement, but now it looks like this lawsuit is going to trial in March, which really, really sucks.

For those of you who don't know, all the units in my building are suing the builders because when the units were sold, they were represented as 2700 sq. ft. But we found out two years later, that they're actually 2250, which is a difference of as much as an entire bedroom. I was very close to the builder and his family from the time when we met and his wife was dying of cancer (the whole story is somewhere on this blog, but I'm too tired to find the post), so you can imagine this whole ordeal has been really upsetting. I had even called him when the other units were preparing to sue and I said I wouldn't join because of my relationship with the family. I ended up calling him and asking him straight up if our units were only 2250, and he said no, that it was a mistake with the county, so to find out all this was really disappointing. But given all of the evidence to the contrary, and the fact that when it comes time for me to sell this place, I will have to represent it as a 2250-sized unit, I went ahead with the suit. I hate being played for a fool and this all comes down to principle.

This was the first time we all sat down face-to-face with our lawyers present. First of all, I like semantical arguments so I liked listening to the cases, presentations and rebuttals. It's an intellectual sport, really. I'm good at analogies and my lawyer kept making bad ones, so I would jump in and help out (ie. The square foot issue is like paying for a minivan that seats 8, and getting a sports car that seats 2. It doesn't matter that the sports car is a great car, too. It's about a consumer's right to receive exactly what it was that they were told they were paying for. Either you add on the other 6 seats, which obviously, isn't possible, or you have to find some way to compensate for the difference).

At one point, when the builder looked me in the eye and said, "I didn't lie to you. I would never lie to you. [My son] would never lie to you," I didn't feel good. I have hoped all along that maybe, somehow, this has all been an honest mistake, but from a business standpoint, this is about a balance of value, business ethics, consumer rights and getting what one pays for. If they just do what's fair and balance this whole thing out, I walk away and easily put this nasty business behind us.

I obviously can't talk much about this situation since we're going to trial and their lawyers can easily find this website. But this whole thing sucks. Never, ever do business with friends.

The funny thing was that during the break, I looked at my cell phone and saw that I had 12 missed calls. They were all from Michael. I guess he was worried that I hadn't been on Instant Messenger all day, so he WALKED to my office, saw that I wasn't there, and then was walking around LA looking for me. Luckily, I was about 3 blocks away from my office. I told him I couldn't come down and see him, but asked if it would make him feel better if I directed him to where I was so he could wave at me. So I was on the phone with him, directing him to a spot across the street where I could see him (from the 21st floor) and he waved up to the building. It was really cute. After I got off the phone, my lawyer said, "I didn't know you had a child."

I thought that was funny. But it's true. I've always felt like a second mother to Michael.