After reviewing the history on consumer protection law and regulation (a history that has been developing since the 1600’s in England), I’ve found that history, our constitution, and even the tenants of our western social system provide the precedent needed to prove the case.   One would think that with so many lawyers in our society, that something so big would be easy to deal with, but lawyers don’t work for free.  In my experience, even if you pay them, they sometimes drop the ball… sometimes on purpose. Law firms who are biased towards corporate money will even torpedo their own case under the auspices of representing consumer’s rights (It happened to me in my Wells Fargo lawsuit over wrongful foreclosure).  It sounds ridiculous and illegal but without a system of accountability, who is ever going to know?  A law firm who represents the down-and-out knows full well that they can manipulate the individual without and kind of repercussions, particularly if the partners are well connected, as was the case with my attorney.  It makes me wonder if the state bar is actually effective in reigning in corruption.  After all, like blue collar criminals who know the threshold of pain with law enforcement, the white collar variant would likely know the altitude of the regulators’ radar, making it possible to fly under it.  

From 1914, forward, Americans benefited from a general assumption that consumers must be protected.  While those benefits were slowly eroded throughout the late 20th century, we have a 600 year history of consumer related case law which shows that free society protects the little guy from the big bully.  This history also shows the occasional shifts back the other way towards “sellerism”, but the overall long-term trend in America is toward consumer protection (“consumerist”) policy.  This stands to reason because western free society that came out of the enlightenment era war on aristocracy is what we now know to be “free society”, i.e. democracy.

After filing the lawsuit, the bank’s attorney’s requested a motion for summary judgment (MSJ hearing: September 17th).  If we had won (that was looking probable based on the feedback that my attorneys gave during preparation), then we would have started to prepare for a trial.  The trial phase would require a different attorney that has lots of experience in that area (this fact was not disclosed to me when I hired the attorney).  My attorney tried to excuse themselves from the case but the judge required them to stay onboard until I got a new attorney.  There were no attorneys that would take the case on a contingency basis so money would need to be raised to fund the trial if a trial had happened. 

We did not make it past the MSJ hearing because the judge decided there was no finding of fact in our petition.  In hindsight, I believe that the petition was not properly written but I can’t be sure without a pro-consumer minded attorney working with me to review the MSJ documents.  This would be someone with knowledge of consumer protection law.  When that’s done, then we’ll have a better Idea of what all of the options are moving forward.  DeLeon and Washburn are done with the case and I believe that there may have been a conflict of interest in their involvement.  They were chosen based on a referral through my church which gave me confidence that the law firm would act in good faith.  In retrospect, they may have been a bad choice due to a bias toward corporate money, the main source of revenue.  It’s looking likely based on how the MSJ part of the case was handled. 

After I was dumped by two law firms after they explicitly stated that they wanted to be involved in my consumer protection lawsuit, it was suggested that I pay $750.00 per month.  This whole situation was so confusing, and the legal system so aggressive and aggressively complacent, I agreed to pay it.  After having time to decompress and consult other professionals, I reduced the payments to $100.00/mo.  Since then, my conscience continued to haunt me regarding all the deceit that occurred without any way to hold legal professionals accountable for both incompetence and fraud.  I maintain, to this day, that I was victimized by the first law firm, and defrauded in the case of the second.  As a result, I reduced my payment to $1 per month which sent a clear message to the law firm that the money to pay for their services was not going to come any time soon.  Rather than debate the legitimacy of their invoices (which is highly suspect), they have written off the remaining, substantial balance. 

When I reduced my payments to $100/month, my original fear was that I didn’t know what would will happen if I stop payments altogether asserting that my attorneys did not act in good faith (in other words, because they did not provide the services promised).  At the time, I was working with take home income of $32,000 per year (before business expenses).  I was also paying $250.00 per month to the second mortgage company (the loan was originated as an 80/20) on the house which I had lost in the crisis (I continued paying the mortgage for another 5 years until it was paid off in early 2019.)

The opportunity for the public to use my case as an immediate pressure tool in the area of housing law has now passed due to statutes of limitations.  However, this case study can still be used as a springboard for pressing changes in the regulations especially if others share their stories as well.  A dialogue of shared experience will eventually find its way to congress at the state and federal levels.

My hopes are that, in time this blog will turn into a consumer protection effort using my situation as a case study.  Operating a non-profit is not really in my wheel-house, so a partnership of some kind will be needed to make this happen.  My vision for how this would work:

1) Retaining a consumer protection attorney who can advise on how to follow up my lawsuit in an effort to push the system for an explanation as to how its position on this issue can be justified to the public.  My theory is that it can’t and the only way of proving it is for a legal expert to review the case and the bahavior of not only the Wells Fargo employees and lawyers but that of my own law firm who I believe is guilty of deliberately tanking the case.   This expert would start with review of the MSJ documents and to advise on where the project went off the rails and what should have been done so that the old lawsuit can be thrown out.

2) Find and document other stories.  After more than $40,000 in charges incurred by two different law firms, me being shuffled around like a deck of cards by the system, lots of misrepresentation by so many people, all of the legal debts have been settled. While this case is over, there will be new cases that crop up in the future that will be useful in getting us back to where my lawyers dropped the ball.  Getting the game board reset will most likely be necessary to get any answers because it has to happen in court… or the media but I don’t think traditional media is a disinterested party willing to cover it.  There will be another crisis at some point in the future that will horse collar new people who have not been through the last one and so will not see this coming when they try to use home ownership to start building their lives and families. 

3) Advocacy to obtain “official consumer status” for homeowners and other legislation that gives all of us protection from the kind of deceptiveness, and misrepresentation that was experienced in the crisis; the very kind of protection intended by congress with federal FTC and state DTPA legislation.  This is much needed to compensate for the power imbalance in the market that has been increasing in recent decades.  In order to get full protection, it will probably require a U.S. Supreme court challenge to the recent Texas case law that classifies home owners as “not consumers” for the purposes of DTPA legislation.