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Thanks for the heads up. It's the TREVOR LAW GROUP. They are scum who are ripping off businesses. They use an old law to file on behalf of the public when there is no victim to be a plaintiff.

Auto shops call lawsuits a scare tactic
COURTS: Businesses say they’re the victims of “legal shakedowns” but attorneys say they’re pursuing lawbreakers.

By Traci Jai Isaacs
DAILY BREEZE

Automobile repair shops in Los Angeles and Orange counties say they’re the target of an ongoing extortion campaign launched by a Beverly Hills law firm.

In recent weeks, according to court papers, lawyers at Trevor Law Group LLC have filed lawsuits in Los Angeles naming about 1,400 shops for violations ranging from not having valid business licenses to failing to give customers proper paperwork.

Proprietors later receive offers from the firm to agree to fast $500 to $2,000 out-of-court settlements, they said. Hundreds of other repair shops have also been sued in Orange County.

The firm allegedly uses a state-run database that tracks consumer complaints to find shops that have had complaints lodged against them, according to an industry trade group.

Joseph Ngo, who bought Advanced Auto Repair and Smog on South Prairie Avenue in Hawthorne in 1998, was hit a few weeks ago with a roughly 300-page lawsuit, reportedly for operating without a license.

Ngo, 40, said he has a valid license and immediately called the law firm.

“They said if you don’t want any trouble, pay $2,000 and you’re off the hook,” said Ngo, a recent El Camino College graduate now attending UCLA on a scholarship.

He refused to pay.

“We’re licensed, we’re honest and we do legal work,” he said. “These people are saying something that’s groundless. They’re extorting money.”

Other shop owners and industry professionals contend the firm is practicing “legal shakedowns” of small business owners too uninformed or frightened to fight.

“These profiteers are twisting and abusing good consumer protection laws to extort money,” said Marty Keller, director at the Automotive Repair Coalition, a trade group. A California law on the books since the Great Depression — long before the state had well-funded investigator and consumer protection advocates — allows private plaintiffs to sue on behalf of the public.

Trevor Law Group is suing on behalf of a plaintiff company called Consumer Enforcement Watch Corp. Shane Han, an attorney at Trevor, denied the extortion allegations.

“They can feel however they wish,” said Han, who was admitted to the bar just four months ago. “It doesn’t change the fact that they broke the law and are now involved in a lawsuit.”

David Wood, whose 16 Minute Smog shop on Inglewood Avenue in Hawthorne is among several stores he owns, was named in the lawsuit for having an expired business license at a West Los Angeles shop sold more than a year and a half ago.

Wood, a Redondo Beach resident, thought the lawsuit was a mix-up until he called Han.

“He said if I paid now it’d be in the low thousands but if I rode this out and fought he’d win and get legal fees and it would be more,” he said.

Companies team up

Wood and 20 other companies banded together, hired an attorney and are fighting the suits.

The consumer complaints reportedly used by the firm are listed on the Web site at the Bureau of Automotive Repair, part of the state Department of Consumer Affairs. The bureau registers and regulates approximately 34,000 California automotive repair facilities, and licenses smog check, lamp and brake inspection stations.

The database exists so customers can make informed decisions, not as a tool for lawyers looking to sue, say industry professionals. They have complained to the Bureau of Automotive Repair, the state Bar Association and the Attorney General’s Office, where, a few months ago, they had a face-to-face meeting with Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

Trade professionals have no idea whether Lockyer or anyone else will intervene. And neither do state officials.

“We’ll take appropriate action if we get letters,” said Holly Jordan, a spokesman with the state’s top law enforcement office. “We’re monitoring these cases,” said Glenn Mason, a spokesman with the state Office of Consumer Affairs. “This is now a consumer case between the automobile repair shops and the attorneys.”

Han said the automotive repair industry has only itself to blame because of its tolerance for bad business practices.

“The auto repair industry has significant instances of fraud, misrepresentation, customers being ripped off and feeling unsatisfied,” he said. “This happens so often it’s common conversation among people.”

Share of settlements

Han said the firm intends to give former repair shop customers a share of the settlements.

But that might prove difficult since the complaints listed on the state’s Web site are anonymous.

“They couldn’t know who (the consumers) are unless there was action that ended up in court,” said Keller of the Automotive Repair Coalition.

So far, an estimated 20 companies have settled their cases and signed a contract promising they’d remain violation-free for at least four years, said Will Woods of the Automotive Trade Organization, a trade group for gasoline retailers and automotive repair shop owners.

In Orange County, a shop owner fighting the lawsuit is also monitoring other cases. She said some are heartbreaking. The woman, who didn’t want her name used, said one man is in the advanced stages of Parkinson’s disease and didn’t want to die and leave his minister wife embroiled in a lawsuit. Another man is a cash-strapped widower raising a 12-year-old daughter alone, and a third person has an adult daughter struggling with leukemia, she said.

Woods fears those settlements might do more harm than good. Consumer complaints are largely out of a business owners’ control, and should someone file one, anyone who has settled could be sued again by the firm, he said.

Furthermore, Woods said he’s offended by the firm’s stereotypical comments about his industry.

“They keep saying all repair shop owners are criminals, so I guess we can make the same assumption about lawyers.”

Send them a fish wrapped in paper.....Lawyers are hateful scumbags.

They use an old law to file on behalf of the public when there is no victim to be a plaintiff.

The private attorney general law is a good law, becuase it allows private citizens who are harmed by violations of law from private companies to seek redress when the government will not. But it should require a plaintiff.

One recent example of this law was the recent computer monitor settlement. Monitors used to say 19" when really it was only 17" viewable. A private action forced these companies to put the viewable area of monitors on the boxes so that consumers can make the proper decision.

I knew a lawyer who defended against one of these actions. Some lawyer, who used his mother as the plaintiff, sued a private company because the box that his product came in was much bigger than the product the box contained. He claimed it was misleading to use a tall box to sell a short product.