Seymour's Blog

Wesley Charles Repossession Story

  I was sitting in my office at about 8:55pm getting ready to leave for the gym. I actually had a very long day, and the night before I only had two hours of sleep. I was extremely busy. Fortunately, we are very well organized and run a very effective office that produces results for our clients. I am very proud of the way my team handles the entire day, especially with the fact that the office manager was out sick for the day. One of our case managers had left on Friday to give birth to her first daughter.

     It had been a very busy day, and many of the clients who came in were loving the cats, BJ and Spooky, who are extremely friendly cats. BJ tends to sleep all day long, often times on clients laps. On the other hand, Spooky is a real active acrobat. It is hard for people to believe her age, which is just one year younger than BJ. She is more fit, slim, and trim than big BJ who looks like he weighs about 25 pounds, but most of it is hair.

     I wrapped things up and one of my personal assistants, Corinne, had just left at about 8:00pm. I have a dedicated and hard working staff. Today was Corinne’s birthday. She worked in the office from about 10:00am to 8:00pm. She is helping me get much better organized, and helping us make our office the best it can be.

     After Corinne left, I went through some e-mails and notes. Having only had two hours of sleep the night before, I thought I would rest my eyes for a few minutes before going to the gym. I put my feet on my desk, closed my eyes for about five minutes. Then, the phone rang.

     To my surprise, it was Wesley Charles (his name is changed to protect the innocent). He is one of our Chapter 13 bankruptcy clients who has filed bankruptcy more than once. In fact, I remember seeing him in the office the other day, and I figured he was just calling to catch up on the status of his case.

     I had not been personally working on his case, but he was in the hands with our top paralegal, Mildred, and other members of the team. I was surprised to hear from Wesley this late in the evening.

     I was surprised when Wesley told me “There is a man out here trying to repo my car”. Well, I started thinking how can that be, because as far as I knew, Wesley was in bankruptcy. I looked in the computer and saw his bankruptcy filing. I told Wesley to give the man his case number, and if he has any sense he will leave you alone and go away. The repo man didn’t want to hear it, then I looked further in the computer to the latest records that had been entered, and I noted that in fact, Wesley’s case had been dismissed twenty days ago on February 2, 2010. It looked like Wesley was in trouble.

     I told him his case had been dismissed. Wesley said “yeah, but we just filed another bankruptcy”. It didn’t take me long to check our list of filed cases, and there it was right in front of me, the last bankruptcy case filed today for Wesely and his wife Sharona. I have a new case number, and gave it to Wesley and told him to give this to the repo man..

     The repo man was not interested. He said he had orders to pick up the vehicle. I asked Wesley to put the repo man on the phone, and the repo man refused. I asked Wesley to get the repo man’s name and driver’s license number. I heard some bantering back and forth.

     I told Wesley to block the man physically from repossessing the car. Wesley told his wife to go out there and block the car. She wouldn’t go, and I didn’t blame her. I said to Wesley “you’re the one who should be blocking that car out there”. It didn’t seem like anything was doing any good and the man was going to repo the vehicle.

     I continued to tell Wesley to tell this man he would be in big trouble, because he was violating the law and Wesley’s rights. Furthermore, the repo man kept saying “I’ll take my chances”.

     For the $50 or so the repo man was going to make for repossessing the vehicle, I told Wesley to tell him he was risking his job, and his financial future. This strategy was not working.

    I asked Walter if he had a recorder because I wanted all of this recorded, but he didn’t. I also asked Walter if he had a camera to take some pictures, and he said he didn’t. A couple minutes later, I heard his wife say in the background “I am getting a camera”. Walter said it was hard for him to think under these circumstances. I don’t blame him.

 What was I to do?

     I picked up the phone and called the local Vineland police. The dispatcher answered the phone and I said “I am Seymour Wasserstrum, attorney for Wesley Charles. Someone is trying to repossess his vehicle illegally; I’d like a police officer to be sent out there to stop that.” The dispatcher asked me to hold on and thirty seconds later, she came back on the phone and said “I spoke to my boss, and he says this is a civil procedure”. That was not an acceptable answer to me. I said, “you mean this man is illegally repossessing my client’s vehicle, breaking the law, and you are not going to send an officer out there to stop this?” She kept repeating “this is a civil procedure”.

     Then, I remembered something I learned in law school, my first year in criminal law. The professor said that the repossession of a vehicle as only permitted if it could be conducted without a breach of the peace. A breach of the peace is where there is a big commotion, possible fight, etc.

     I said to the sergeant, what if there is a breach of the peace, they are not allowed to repossess the vehicle is there is a breach of peace are they? He said to hold on again. He got back on the phone and said “I am sending an officer out there right now.” I thought that was great because I thought this officer would protect my client’s rights and not permit the repo.

     The next thing he told me surprised me even more. He said the repo man had not yet hooked up his car because Waesley’s car was being blocked in the driveway by Sharona’s car. I said, “Wesley why didn’t you tell me this ten minutes ago?” If I would have known that the car is blocked, I would have figured there was no way this repo man would touch the car because he is not allowed to move another car to get to my client’s car.

     Within moments, the police arrived. The police officer got on the phone. I was thinking maybe now that there was a police officer there, I started thinking maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to call the police because now the police might let the man repo the car since we didn’t have any proof of bankruptcy, however, I would get it to him, even if I had to drive there myself.

     The police officer was very nice, and I told him that my client’s bankruptcy was filed just today, and I could give him the info if he needed it. The officer responded saying that “If the vehicle is not hooked up, the owner can argue that he refuses the let this repo happen.” Of course, most clients get their vehicles repossessed at 3 or 4 am in the morning when they are sleeping and don’t know about it until the following morning.

     I told the officer that this bankruptcy was filed, no if and or but, and this was an illegal attempt of a repo. If the officer said there would be consequences if my client was lying, and not in bankruptcy.

     I certainly was not going to back off. My client continued to refuse the repo, and finally, the repo man left. My clients could look forward to a peaceful night of sleep finally.

     I have to tell you that I was pretty sleepy, and thinking about going to bed early that night before I got the call from my client. Going through this process and uplifting my clients’ rights was a truly exhilarating experience. I literally felt fantastic afterwards knowing that I stood up for the rights of my clients. I had refused to back down. I was ready for anything.