You told your ex-wife you were gonna end up homeless?
This is incorrect.
He had nowhere to go.
I just wouldn’t give him money for no reason.
She gives it to you. You figured, "Hey,
I might as well give it another shot."
-Twice more. -No.
As I say to my kids, you get what you get
and you don’t get upset.
[announcer] Today on Tribunal Justice.
This case was filed in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
[Byrd] Judge’s case number 1145 on the calendar
in the matter of White v. White.
Parties have been sworn in. You may be seated.
-[Patricia] Thank you, Byrd. -[Byrd] Mm-hmm.
So you know each other 25 years,
11 of which you are divorced,
14 of which you were married.
And you say that you were told
that he is a malignant narcissist,
and that’s why you left him.
In 2018, you made three separate loans to him
over the course of a few months.
He had a BMW that he said
he would put up as collateral for that,
and that he would pay you back within six months.
You subsequently learned that he sold the BMW
to your daughter for $2,000.
He maintained the title, however, to the car.
So basically, she was using it, he had title,
and it was a $2,000 sale.
After a year, he wanted the car back.
She refused to give it back.
And then shortly after that,
one night in the middle of the night,
when you all weren’t at home,
poof, the car was gone from your driveway.
You texted him, he never responded to that.
And then two years later,
I think you were on Facebook or something.
You saw him driving around in the car.
And so you knew he had the car still.
You’re seeking here for $12,500
for repayment of those loans.
You say that this was a gift from her and not a loan.
Which, I must say, ma’am, took me aback
that even you would give this malignant narcissist
$12,500.
So I do have here three documents
which indicate that one cashier check for $6,000,
and then what were the other two?
[Debra] They were personal checks.
And they said on the bottom, "loan."
-This one couldn’t say it. -Correct.
So you do, you give him, let’s start with the $6,000.
He says to you what? What does he say to you?
Well, he came to me,
and we had started talking a little bit recently
because he was being civil and nice.
And he said, "Debra, can I talk to you for a minute?"
And he said he was...
I don’t know if it was two or three months behind on rent.
He was gonna get kicked out. He had nowhere to go.
Nobody else to ask.
And yeah, and I did a cashier’s check
so that he would have it right away.
Let me pause you.
Is it true that you did ask for some assistance and help
with your living expenses from the plaintiff?
-Yes. -Now, when you spoke with her,
you said, "I need some help."
You didn’t say, "Could you give me a gift?"
It was your intent at the time to repay her, was it not?
-Yes. -And you made point of saying
that "I’m going to repay you, but just so you know,
"that you’re gonna be okay with repayment,
I have a car that I’m going to put up as collateral for that."
And that car has a value--
We have a Kelley Blue Book value on this car.
It’s a 2005 BMW,
and it’s $4,700 for a car in fair shape.
Do you make any payments to her on that $6,000?
-No. -So do you make a request
for any payments after March 2018?
Yes, I made a request for a payment
just sporadically up to this day.
And I’m either ignored or put off,
saying, "Yes, I’ll call you." Or just not answered.
[Patricia] But you never got a payment.
Never got a payment.
But then he comes back to you two months later and he says,
"I think I have a buyer,
"but there’s a dashboard light that goes on and off.
Can I get another $3,500?"
-Yes. -[Patricia] But the car
is only worth $4,700.
Did you know that at the time?
I think at the time it was worth more than that.
It was worth more closer to $6,000.
Closer to 6, but not closer to 9,500.
-No. -Did he have a job you knew of
-at the time? -[Debra] No.
[Patricia] And, ma’am, do you work for a living?
-Yes. -[Patricia] What do you do?
I’m a sales associate at Sam’s Club.
Were you also working back then at the time as well?
On and off at different jobs back then.
Okay, so now you’re given this $3,500,
and you know he’s not working,
and you know he doesn’t have collateral
sufficient to back it up.
But you give it to him anyway.
The next time he comes to you is a couple of weeks after that.
Mm-hmm.
And in that couple of weeks, he says,
"I need $3,000."
-[Debra] Yes. -And what do you do then?
[Debra] We met at Starbucks.
And he said that he had some serious buyers,
and the car would sell shortly.
And he had another newer BMW that he was driving.
He lived in a nice place.
He can make money. He has the education to.
But now you’re into this with this third loan.
$12,500.
Clearly, he’s demonstrated something to you which is...
he’s not paying, or he can’t pay.
Even if he wants to pay, he can’t pay.
Well, he said he was going to.
But you have to have a reasonable expectation
of repayment,
and you can’t keep throwing, you know,
good money after bad money.
So now you’re into this,
and now you find out that he has sold the car,
and he’s getting $2,000 for the car.
But you didn’t get any of that, right?
No, I didn’t get any of that.
And then the car was taken at that point,
-is that correct? -[Debra] Yes, it was taken.
Sir, did you take the car?
Repoed.
[Patricia] You repossessed the car?
-Correct. -Based on what?
The car was sold to my daughter
for a thousand dollars,
and she was going to make payments when she could,
kind of like this situation, when she could.
She never made another payment.
My car was stolen. I needed a car.
I needed to get hers back for about three or four months.
I’ve had it ever since.
[Patricia] But you’re taking the car back
based on the fact that she breached the contract to you,
according to you, after one year.
[Jimmy] It was longer than that.
If you thought one year was a sufficient time
to be paid in full,
imagine five years.
But right now, I got to go back.
You took the car back from your own child.
Um, my daughter was living in and out
of both of our homes.
[Patricia] If she was living at your home,
you could have taken it when it at was your house.
Instead, you took it from her house.
[Jimmy] I took it from Debra’s house.
-[Patricia] Right. -At that particular time,
-Alexa was at my house. -[Debra] She was not.
-That’s not true. -And...
[Patricia] You know what, ma’am?
You don’t want to look like you’re the narcissist.
It’s hard to sit through lies.
-[Patricia] Well, he’s... -I apologize.
[Patricia] The point is, you took it from her driveway.
[Jimmy] My daughter received her money back.
[Patricia] Okay. Judge Levy?
Thank you.
[announcer] Coming up on Tribunal Justice.
You thought that she was just sitting home eating bonbons,
watching the kids and taking your child support.
-Isn’t that right? -In 2018...
-[Adam] Yeah. -...child support was done.
-Are you sure about that? -I am 100% positive about that.
[Adam] And you’re just as sure about that fact
as you are about the rest of your testimony?
[announcer] Debra White is suing her ex-husband
Jimmy White, Jr. for unpaid loans.
Jimmy claims after their divorce,
they agreed to help each other financially.
[Adam] So early on,
when you were asked by Judge DiMango
what your defense was,
you said part of it was that it was a gift.
The money that your ex-wife gave you.
That’s what you put in your answer.
And now you’re testifying to something different.
You’re testifying to something different
because your ex-wife brought evidence today
that you might not have been aware of,
which included the checks.
And on the bottom of the checks it says, "loan."
Without any doubt. Not "gift."
So now you come in and, again,
despite what your written sworn answer was,
now you’re conceding that the truth is
it was not a gift, it was a loan, right?
-Incorrect. -[Adam] Okay.
In that statement it says, "loan gift."
When we talked about this, she asked me one time,
"Would you ever help me?" Yeah, I would help you.
So it was talked about as a loan gift.
-[Adam] A loan gift? -[Jimmy] Yes.
[Adam] I didn’t see a loan gift in your answer.
And so I’ll take judicial notice of what your answer is
and what’s not contained in your answer.
So in May of 2018,
you loaned the last $3,000 payment.
-Correct. -And there was an understanding
that there would be repayment within six months or so.
-[Debra] Mm-hmm. -Is that right?
-Yes. -So that brings us
to November of 2018.
Right away after the car.
Whatever from the BMW that he sold,
and then the rest he would pay me.
And when was it that you filed the original small claims action
-against him? -November of ’22.
So the date of breach of the oral agreement
would have been in or around November of 2022.
-I disagree. -[Adam] So follow my logic.
If you loan the money in May of 2022,
and he was supposed to pay you back within six months,
six months added to May is November.
November would have been the day that he had to refund the money.
And if he didn’t refund the money then,
that’s when he would have been in breach of the agreement.
-Did I get that wrong? -I understand.
[Adam] And so you filed within the four-year statute.
-[Debra] Yes -[Adam] Okay.
[Debra] I was still under the impression it was five years.
And combing the months, so this is new for me.
-So I understand. -[Adam] I got it.
So did you ever have a BMW besides the one
that’s the subject of this collateral?
-Yes. -And what kind of BMW was that?
-[Jimmy] 530. -Okay.
And the 530, what year was that?
-2011. -[Adam] And what was the value?
-[Jimmy] I have no idea. -[Adam] Well, what’d you spend?
Eighteen thousand and some change, maybe.
So you had, in 2018,
another BMW valued at approximately $18,000.
-Roughly. -[Adam] You had a choice in 2018
after you asked to borrow money,
because you were gonna end up homeless.
-Is that what you told her? -This is incorrect.
I bought that vehicle when I was still working.
No, I’m asking about when you loaned the money.
You told your ex-wife that you had fallen on tough times,
and that there’s a possibility
that you can be evicted from your home and end up homeless,
according to the plaintiff.
And it’s because of that representation
and the way that you made it that she felt compelled,
despite all the nonsense that you had been through
during your divorce,
to reach into her pocket
and to give you $6,000, that’s what she said.
She also said that when she gave you that $6,000,
she was working part-time job here,
part-time job there.
And that’s something that you knew.
You knew how hard she worked for her money, right?
-You didn’t know that? -No.
[Adam] I’m gonna tell you why I believe you.
The reason I believe you is because
you thought that she was just sitting home eating bonbons,
watching the kids and taking your child support.
-Isn’t that right? -[Jimmy] In 2018,
child support was done.
-Is that right? -[Jimmy] I believe so, yeah.
January 8th, 2018,
you paid her $11,651
in child support, is that correct, ma’am?
Alexa would have been done with child support
in August of ’18, when she was 18
and graduated from school.
She never graduated from school.
The county decided that child support should stop.
-Are you sure about that? -I am 100% positive about that.
And you’re just as sure about that fact
as you are about the rest of your testimony?
I don’t know what the testimony’s gonna be.
Your testimony. So far, you said a lot of things to us.
And I’m asking you whether or not you’re just as sure
about what you just testified to about child support
being over in January of 2018, and you said it was over.
She was 18, there was no more child support.
-Period. -Child support was done.
I think I still owed her money from child support.
So you owed her back child support.
-[Jimmy] Probably, yeah. -Oh. Got it.
Maybe this is a good time to ask you, or rather tell you,
where you got $6,000 to give to him.
You got $6,000 to give to him in March of 2018
because in January of 2018,
he paid you back child support in the amount of $11,651.
-Is that right? -The state did.
-It was intercepted. -[Adam] Right.
Does that sound about right? Refresh your recollection?
The government took from you over $11,000
because you had not paid child support
in God knows how long.
-That must have stung. -Not really. She was owed it.
-And it was more than that. -[Adam] It was more than that,
because then, in September of 2018,
the government took $1,288, $1,680.
So you basically gave with this hand
and clawed it back with this one.
-That’s what you did, right? -No.
Yeah, that’s what the paperwork seems to suggest you did.
And that’s why he had no problem doing it.
January 8th, 2018,
the government took from you in back child support
and provided to the plaintiff 11,651.
January of ’18.
Then March 2nd of 2018,
she gave you a $6,000 cashier’s check.
May 7th, 2018, $3,500 personal check, loan.
May 25th, 2018, personal check, $3,000, loan.
September 19th, 2018,
back child support paid by you to her.
$1,288.
And then September 20th, 2018,
another back child support payment of $1,680.
Give it to him.
As I say to my kids,
you get what you get and you don’t get upset.
So this is a carbon copy, this is a carbon copy.
This is actually the check.
I’m agreeing to all of these, though.
I know you are. You have no way to discount that.
You’ve already testified to it.
So, what are you arguing about?
The government took from you almost $12,000.
And after they took from you $12,000
that was earmarked for back child support,
you go begging your ex-wife for a $6,000 loan
to keep you from becoming homeless,
because you know she has it.
And she doesn’t say,
"Listen, that’s the only money I have.
"It’s for the kids. I want to spend it on them.
"It’s not right. I shouldn’t do that.
You know I have money." She gives it to you.
And then when she gave that to you,
you figured, "Hey, I might as well give it another shot."
And so you did, twice more.
And then you just sit there and just ignore
the multiple instances when she’s texting you
asking for her money back.
You just ignore her!
Ignore her.
Huh!
[announcer] Coming up
on Tribunal Justice.
There’s this line in your answer, sir,
where you say, "We agreed after our divorce
"that whoever did better financially
would have to take care of the other person."
And I was like, there is no way in hell
that was not your divorce.
"We’re divorced, but I got you." There’s no way.
[Adam] You have anything to say about that?
-I do, actually. -[Adam] Please.
Oh, and I’m gonna remind you,
as I remind everyone who’s done in the past what you do,
when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
-But go ahead, you explain. -She’s owed this money.
I’m not digging.
Only reason I asked her for this money,
A, yes, I was. I had a very good job before.
And I lost it. The company went down.
-[Adam] I get it. -Great.
So the money that she received from them
was my back taxes.
The reason why I asked her, Your Honor,
is because she receive a very, very large, large inheritance,
which I knew she still had the money.
Her mom bought her house for her,
bought her car for her.
A very sized inheritance.
I didn’t care about it.
Yes, I needed help. She helped me.
You should have been nicer to her when you were married,
then you would have had access to that inheritance.
-I didn’t want her inheritance. -[Adam] How about that?
It’s separate property.
Inheritances are separate property.
You weren’t entitled to it anyway.
Even in Minnesota.
So is this when we start spitting on each other?
-Judge Acker. -[Tanya] Thank you, Judge.
June 2018 is when you loan him the money.
So do you recall,
when was the most recent time he made a representation to you
that he was going to pay you back?
Just recently, he said I would get my money.
Recently when? Be more specific, please.
January 9th, when he learned that I filed a claim.
What about prior to January of 2023?
And in ’19 and ’20, I would say,
if he responded at all,
would be, "We’ll talk."
"I’ll call you back."
[Tanya] Mr. White, in your answer,
you mention that you were trying to communicate with her,
but a nasty boyfriend caused rifts between you.
It wasn’t a nasty boyfriend. You’re divorced.
Your ex says that’s the rift.
But according to your answer,
it was your intention when you took these monies
at various different times from the plaintiff,
it was your intention to pay her back, wasn’t it?
At some point in time.
And from the very first one,
I told her I have no idea when, how long, anything.
And she was okay with that.
And then at some point, she was not okay with it,
because there are communications from her to you
where she’s like, "I just want my money back."
And you never say no. You never say it was a gift.
You were like, "I’ll talk to you later."
"I’m at a vet’s benefit."
But during those communications,
it was still your intention to pay her back.
I think it was in November,
is when she started asking more and more and more.
Yeah, there was some chain where she asking you every day.
[Jimmy] Very demonstrative voicemails.
And I chose not to return any type of hasty phone call.
It’s better to just hold off, breathe, and then call.
-And I did. -[Tanya] There’s this line
in your answer, sir, where you say,
"We agreed after our divorce
"that whoever did better financially
would have to take care of the other person."
And I was like, there is no way in hell
that was not your divorce.
"We’re divorced, but I got you." There’s no way.
-I knew that wasn’t the case. -I didn’t say that.
[Tanya] But to be fair,
it does seem the communications,
he was blowing you off, but he was like,
"I’ll call you back."
They were polite. There was some cordiality.
-I’m right about that? -Some, yes.
I don’t think I need to belabor this anymore, Judge.
-Thank you. -[Patricia] Then we are going
to retire to deliberate, thank you both.
[Byrd] Court stands in recess.
Parties are excused.
I mean, I don’t like the idea that he had all this money
that he could have done to pay her back and repay her,
but instead of doing something on his own
to bring him flush with his debts,
he kept going back to her to the tune of 12,500.
However, I’m having some difficulty here
with some of the statute of limitations.
I know he promised six months on the first one.
It’s not clear whether or not he said I’ll pay you six months
on the other two.
But in any event, even if he did,
I think only one would fall
within the statute of limitations.
And that would be the $3,500 check
that was drawn on May 7th.
I look at it a little differently.
Had he only borrowed $6,000 on March 2nd,
I would agree with you.
But by him continuing borrowing money
and saying that he would pay it back,
again, within that same six-month period.
So the way I look at that
is that he extended,
by borrowing that additional money,
the statute of limitations
for the totality of all the monies borrowed.
And I would be in favor of issuing an order in her favor
for the 12,500,
or the maximum, which is 10,000.
I would do that too.
I think he continued to reaffirm the debt,
and I don’t think he actually even repudiated the debt
until at or near the time she filed.
My perspective is, I don’t even think
she’s close to the line.
[Patricia] Okay, but within this line,
she does within this...
If we’re finding that the six months extends it, that’s fine.
-I’m good with that. -Thank you.
[Byrd] Court is back in session.
Parties are reminded you’re still under oath.
-[Patricia] Thank you, Byrd. -[Byrd] Mm-hmm.
Sir, your promise on the first loan,
which was made March 2nd of 2018,
you promised that you would repay within six months.
We found that testimony credible.
That being said,
we found that when he requested again the next loan,
May 7th of 2018,
followed by the third loan, May 25th of 2018,
that he had not repudiated his obligation
to repay the earlier debts,
but in fact continued to tack those debts on.
Therefore, that would have extended
your statute of limitations
from May 25th, 2018,
to November 25th of 2022.
Luckily for you,
-you filed... -[Debra] The 22nd.
...on the 16th of November.
-Okay. -You filed November 16th.
And so you squarely fell within the four-year
statute of limitations,
based on the evidence that we have seen before.
Looking at it in that context,
you would be owed from your husband
the $12,500.
The maximum here is 10,000,
and so we are granting your requests unanimously
for repayment of the $10,000.
Thank you, judges.
That is the verdict of the court.
[Byrd] This case is concluded.
Parties are excused. You may step out.
There was an agreement between us
that I would pay her at some point in time.
I’m very happy with the judges’ decision.
It was a hard thing to do,
and...but fair.
It’s the truth. We had an agreement.
We didn’t have a set point in time.
I’m happy that she had the award.
Constantly being ignored,
and I just said, it’s breached.
I want to stand up for the truth and try to fight
for my money back.
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