Hey everyone. I'm a Paralegal student and our teacher enjoys giving us scenarios as "brain teasers". He includes "hooks" in the scenarios for us to find, which he says will be essential to winning the case. Normally I'm pretty good at finding them but on this one I'm absolutely stumped. I understand if posting fictional scenarios is against the rules so I'll delete the post immediately if that ends up being the case. Thanks for any help you guys can give :)
James and Michael Smith are brothers. Each is married with two children. They have a sister Mary who is also married with two children Their father passed away years ago. Their mother Joan Smith owned two summer cottages on adjacent lots on Pigeon Lake in the Province of Ontario known municipally as 126 and 128 Harmony Lane, Pigeon Lake, Ontario. As part of a fairly common estate plan, Joan's lawyer convinced her to put the two boys and Mary on the titles of the cottages as joint owners with her so as to reduce the fees associated with probating her estate when she passed away. Each cottage is two-story, a main floor and a second floor with windows on each and every wall on both floors. They are waterfront, located on the south side of the lake and face north. Number 128 is the easternmost cottage of the two. Number 126, with a floor area of fifteen hundred square feet, was smaller than number 128 by around a thousand square feet. The cottages are approximately twenty feet high. Unfortunately, after a disagreement at a family wedding, serious issues arose between Joan and James' wife and after James sided with his wife, he and his mother ceased to speak to one another. Michael and Mary and their families sided with his mother against James and thereafter she refused to speak to James or his wife and children. This made sharing the cottages difficult and James' siblings suggested and he agreed that since one of the cottages was much larger than the other, although both were quite substantial, they would use the larger cottage and James and his family would use the smaller one exclusively but this arrangement was never put in writing. To further insulate against strife, an eight-foot high solid wooden privacy fence was erected at joint expense on the lot-line between the two properties which stretched from the road down the water's edge. Over time, numerous keys to each cottage had been handed out. You may accept as a fact which need not be proved that after that things got worse when as a result of this dispute Joan started giving money to his brother and sister, but not to James. As is often the case in family arguments, events deteriorated into a sort of guerilla warfare between the two groups, James and his wife and children on one side and his mother, brother and the sister and their children on the other . Despite their previous verbal agreement, James arrived with his family one long weekend Friday evening only to find that someone had been partying in the smaller cottage. Whoever it was had emptied the refrigerator and freezer, eaten all the food and drank the liquor and beer. The furniture was in disarray and damaged, the sink full of dirty dishes and the beds were unmade and some of James’ and his wife's clothing had been worn and left lying around wet and was ruined. James estimates that the damage to property and other losses amounted to $3,300.00 but also a small Picasso painting worth $5,000.00 belonging to James had been knocked off the wall and someone had stepped on it and it was now completely worthless. When James emptied the garbage from under the sink, he found a dry-cleaning receipt and a charge slip for gasoline in Michael's name dated the previous weekend in the bag. He called the local police and an officer attended and inspected the damage but advised James that this was a civil matter and no charges would be laid. Michael denies any knowledge of any of this. James was the sole proprietor of a computer systems consulting company and occasionally he would invite colleagues and business prospects of both sexes, including some fairly important government employees, up to the cottage for the weekend where they would talk business but also relax, party a bit, play poker and enjoy a few alcoholic beverages. The rule was "What happens at Pigeon Lake stays at Pigeon Lake." Being a committed family man and loyal husband, James personally always behaved himself. Some of his guests, maybe not so much. Around three p.m. the following Friday afternoon as James arrived at the smaller cottage to prepare for a "business weekend", he happened to look over at the other cottage and he noticed something different. At eight foot intervals along under the eaves of the larger cottage his mother and/or his siblings had attached five very expensive surveillance cameras to the side of the big cottage which looked down upon the entire smaller cottage property from the road to the end of the dock including the front, side and rear yard and deck areas. The cameras were not detachable and their mounts were secured to the wall by several bolts configured securely so as to completely prevent tampering. The wiring for the cameras inserted through the vinyl-siding on the wall into the interior of the cottage. To remove the cameras they would have to be literally torn out of the wall. Some important guests, including two MLA’s of the provincial government, were due for a barbecue at around six p.m. James felt that the purpose of this was to annoy him, but he also realized that it could be potentially disastrous should some of his guests be “filmed” in embarrassing circumstances and somehow the footage found its way into the news. He went looking for a twenty-foot ladder he had purchased and kept for use in upkeep at the smaller cottage intending to investigate the cameras but it was nowhere to be found. Lo and behold, when he went to the end of the driveway of the larger cottage, there it was leaning against that side of the fence half-way to the lake but none of the others of his family were in the larger cottage. As he went to retrieve the ladder, he chanced upon an aerosol can of black spray paint which appeared to be nearly full and James conceived of a really cool and evil plan. The footage from the cameras from that Friday afternoon, particularly the one at the very end of the house and closest to the lake (all of which were hooked up to a computer at Michael‘s home in Toronto and which were triggered by motion sensors) was reviewed by Michael and his mother at their lawyer’s office two weeks later. It clearly showed James walking up the driveway, picking up the ladder and the aerosol can of paint and placing the ladder up against the wall of the cottage, climbing up the ladder and spray-painting each and every one of the camera lenses. The expression on his face seemed to indicate that he was enjoying every minute of what he was doing. In the last portion of the footage, just before the last screen finally went completely black, James is seen to raise his hand clenched in a fist, but with his middle-finger upraised, and gesture at the camera while fiendishly laughing his head off. Their explanation for installing the cameras is that there had been several break-ins in the area lately. Also, someone appeared to have taken advantage of the proximity between a partially open bedroom window (which just happened to be Michael’s and his wife’s bedroom) on the ground floor of the big cottage, next to a hose attached to a tap and the room had been entered, the drawers and closet opened and Michael’s clothing, the bed and carpets were soaked with water. A large framed photograph of Michael and his wife on their wedding day which had great sentimental value had been thrown on the floor, stepped on and ruined. As it happened, the rest of the family did not go to the cottage that weekend and when they arrived a week later, the clothes and other items were covered in mould and completely ruined. All the beer and liquor in the cottage, as well as some snacks and frozen steaks and chicken wings had also been removed. Michael also called the local police with the same result as his brother: civil case, no charges laid. Both Michael and James called their respective insurance companies about their damaged property. Adjusters attended but they were told that damage caused deliberately or negligently by the insured themselves was not covered by the policy. Michael and James have both decided not to third-party or sue the insurance company. When Michael took the cameras in to be repaired, he was told (and this can be accepted as a fact that need not be proven) that the cost of repair would exceed the cost of new cameras. The cost of replacement of the system will be $5,500.00 including the cost of labour for installation and set-up. Michael’s ruined belongings, including the photograph and the room furnishings were said to have a value of 3,000.00. The family has decided to sue James for the damage.
Submitted November 03, 2014 at 09:22AM by INeedSomeLaw1 http://ift.tt/1tRIrC0 legaladvice
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