CVN screenshot of plaintiff legal professional Abraham Sandoval displaying an image of fireside injury in his shopper’s dwelling throughout his closing argument
Compton, CA – A California state court docket jury has returned a $500,000 punitive damages verdict towards an actual property agent accused of concealing a house’s intensive fireplace injury from the eventual purchaser.
The Los Angeles County jury present in favor of plaintiff Jose Jimenez in a trial that started on July 21. Jimenez sued his actual property agent Louis Teque and Capero Investments Inc. in 2018 after buying a house he claimed he couldn’t dwell in attributable to critical fireplace injury brought on by faulty wiring.
Jimenez accused Teque of failing to supply essential disclosures in regards to the dwelling’s situation in official documentation earlier than closing on the sale, however the protection maintained Jimenez knew in regards to the dwelling’s situation and declined to undertake voluntary inspections that might have revealed the injury.
The decision additionally contains $106,852 in compensatory damages largely associated to Jimenez’ ongoing funds on the unoccupied home and his previous and ongoing funds for rental housing.
The complete trial was webcast gavel-to-gavel by Courtroom View Community, which maintains the world’s solely on-line video library of civil trial proceedings.
After the trial legal professional Abraham Sandoval of Sandoval Regulation, who represented Jimenez, advised CVN the decision far outpaces their preliminary settlement demand of $100,000, which might have lined the financial damages awarded.
“The Defendants refused to make any reputable supply both earlier than or through the trial,” Sandoval stated. “Subsequently, it was our place we have been going to go to verdict it doesn’t matter what.”
An legal professional for the defendants didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Sandoval stated the documentation supplied to Jimenez clearly omitting any reference to the house’s substantial fireplace injury performed a key position in persuading the jury to award punitive damages.
“I targeted on that closely and in addition on the quite a few admissions by the agent and brokerage throughout trial that that they had prior data of defects with the house,” Sandoval stated. “As a substitute of revealing them as is their inarguable obligation, they hid them and drafted false disclosures to mislead their very own shopper in order that they might shut the transaction and earn commissions.”
Sandoval characterised punitive damages awards in Compton as “only a few and much between” and stated he felt the jury reacted strongly to the concept of a neighborhood pushing again on predatory conduct by actual property brokers.
“I requested the jury to ship a powerful message that any such conduct is just not acceptable in our neighborhood,” Sandoval stated. “We can not enable skilled actual property brokers to falsify disclosures and in any other case mislead their very own shoppers to their determent, after which look the opposite approach.”
Providing his recommendation to newer trial attorneys, Sandoval highlighted his choice to not interact in pointless confrontation with protection witnesses however to as an alternative deal with redirecting them to supply the proof Sandoval needed to get in entrance of the jury.
“In the end, all of those Protection witnesses, by way of their testimony, helped Plaintiff,” Sandoval stated.
Sandoval had sort phrases for his opposing counsel within the father-and-son protection crew of Alex and Maximilano Galindo of Curd Galindo & Smith LLP, describing them as “glorious attorneys.”
“However on this case, as I advised the jury throughout closing, there was a mountain of proof, and in the end none of it was refuted,” he stated.
The trial occurred earlier than Decide Michael Shultz.
The case is captioned Jose Ivan Rodriguez Jimenez v. Capero Invetments Inc. & Louis Brian Teque, case quantity 18CMCV00035, in Los Angeles County Superior Court docket.
E-mail David Siegel at [email protected]