Complaint Review: Kimball Tirey and St. John. Law Firm - San Diego California

 A couple of years ago I was forced to move from a home due to unsanitary conditions and safety issues for me and my 2 dogs. I had given the owner 60 days notice to either repair or I would be moving and breaking the lease. He didn't make any of the repairs, nor speak with the community management to help me with my neighbor who would just walk into my house and would let my dogs out of the yard to wander when I wasn't home. The owner instead filed a small claims suit using Kimball, Tirey and St. John to represent him. I was never served and therefore didn't appear at the hearing. They received a judgement of over $3,000. Last year

they garnished my wages and when I filed economic hardship papers with the court we were scheduled a hearing. The Judge wouldn't set aside the judgement stating I had ample time to contest the ruling. However she did lower the garnishment rate to $25 per pay period which at the time I thought was the only thing I could do was to accept her ruling. My employer was started the garnishment in Oct. of 2016. The following month the law firm sent notice to end the garnishment. Since I had noticed the first 2 payments come out of my check, I didn't think anything about it. Two days ago I went to buy some groceries and my debit card was

declined. After talking to the bank, I discovered that another garnishment had been served at my bank to with hold $479. I then called the law firm and was told by some young kid in collections that my employer had stopped sending money so they went after my bank account. After speaking with my payroll dept, . that's when I found out that the original garnishment had been cancelled by this law firm. When I called them back this same young kid said that the firm felt that the garnishment amount was too low and they weren't able to pay the creditor in a timely manner, so they cancelled the order and waited 9 months for me to call them to

make new payment arrangements. When I explained that there was a judgement in place to be honored he told me there wasn't an order and that they didn't have to honor the original order because they had cancelled it. They then obtained a new order telling the court that I had not paid on the original order. Suffice it to say, I wasn't aware of this hearing before the court either, so I wasn't there to defend myself. The kid had the nerve to laugh at me and tell me there was nothing I could do and that they didn't care that my rent was due and I had no money for food. He said they could do whatever they wanted, because they had a new court order. I

am filing a complaint with the CA Bar Association because to me this is just dishonest and unethical behavior. That judgement they had was good for 10 years. They would have more than paid off the judgement by then. I don't understand how a law firm that has been found to be so dishonest and unethical (see court case of CA Atty General vs Kimball, Tirey and St. John) that they were forced to pay a $252,000 judgement for illegally evicting members of our Armed Services, is still allowed to practice law in the state of CA. There should be a class action law suit brought against them and they should be forced to pay all parties according to their

personal damages they suffered as a result of the unethical and dishonest behavior. I can only hope that this time when I go to court the judge will either throw out the judgement all together or uphold the original judgement and force them to give me my money back.