There was the matter against our Realtor, and then the matter that had to be refiled against the sellers' Realtors due to an attorney's health issues which forced us to dismiss and refile; separating out the one big case into two separate cases.
As quoted by our own attorney:
On September 17, 2010, a jury found that our Realtor committed negligence, violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and did so knowingly and most importantly, they found she committed STATUTORY REAL ESTATE FRAUD!
The jurors awarded us $125,000 in punitive damages and an additional $43,000 in legal reimbursement costs to our attorney; the full amount requested by him during testimony of legal fees.
However, we were never able to collect these damages; being told that there was a problem with the manner in which the jury verdict form was completed. This nightmare forced us to have to file a motion to either have the judge plug in the correct number in the correct place, or alternatively, to grant us a new trial. The judge denied both motions; and we were forced to take the only remaining step, filing with the appellate courts.
Our case was taken on contingency; but we have found along the way that contingency does not necessarily apply to everything; and most importantly an appeal process.
Today as I ventured on to the county judicial website to check up on the status of our cases, I found that this would have severe implications for our matter against our Realtor. The court website had this posted:
Events and Orders of the Court01/28/2011 JUDGMENT
01/28/2011 JUDGMENT& MEMORANDUM COA DISMISSED FOR WANT OF PAYMENT
01/12/2011 INFORMATIONBILL OF COST FAXED TO & MAILED TO (Plaintiffs’ Attorney Info Redacted)
I contacted our attorney and he confirmed that; as a result of our not being able to come up with approximately $7,000 in appellate legal filing and hearing costs; our Realtor has now escaped any and all repercussions and/or consequences for her actions.
Apparently, the lesson to be learned here is that even with a guilty verdict issued by a civil court jury; you can perpetrate Statutory Fraud, Negligence and violate the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA) without so much as a "time out", while the victims of fraud pay severely.
