You hired the defendant for a full custom interior.
He told me it was gonna take a month at the most.
It's now 11 months.
Nobody's saying you don't do nice work.
You didn't do any work.
[announcer] Today on Tribunal Justice.
[theme music playing]
[announcer] This case was filed in Corona, California.
Your Honor, this is case number 1074 on the calendar
In the matter of Hutchinson versus Pool-Varguez.
Parties have been sworn in. You may be seated.
[Adam] Thank you, Byrd.
Mr. Hutchinson, you hired, according to your complaint, the defendant
for a full custom interior
of your wife's 1969 Mustang,
including glass and windshield, chrome and polish.
Correct?
That's correct, sir.
The defendant said that it would take about three weeks, a month tops,
according to your complaint again, to complete the work
and cost $15,000.
That's correct, Your Honor.
[Adam] He requested and you paid $5,000 in cash
-Right? -Up front.
And then you made four additional payments to him,
$1,000 each, via Zelle.
Yes.
[Adam] Mr. Hutchinson, instead of Mr. Varguez finishing the car
in what you believe to be a reasonable amount of time,
most certainly not the three weeks or the month he promised,
nine months later, with little or no work having been done on the car,
you requested and told him you were taking the car back,
and you're looking for a full refund and you're suing for $9,000.
That's correct, Your Honor.
[Adam] Now, the defendant, however, in his answer, says not so fast.
He says that he never told you how long it would take.
Correct?
Correct.
[Adam] That you never said time was of the essence
or gave him a strict deadline.
That's what you said.
Yes, that's what I said.
Okay. And that you were pretty laid back,
I think, is the word that you used, "laid back," about the timeline.
Yes.
Furthermore, Mr. Varguez, you said that you had
already spent money on materials for the car
and you do not owe the plaintiff the outrageous, that was your word,
outrageous amount of money that he's asking for,
that you started working on the car in November of 2021
and that you did not hear from the plaintiff
for the first couple of months and then all of a sudden,
he started calling the shop on a daily basis,
wanting to know where his car was.
Yes, he was.
Okay. You explained to the plaintiff that you had come on hard times.
Family issues had come up and then, however, in June of 2022,
the plaintiff said that he had an issue with his wife
and they looked like they were gonna separate.
But the car that he was going to give to his wife,
he still told you take as much time as you need.
That's what you claim, correct?
Yes.
[Adam] And then in August is when you received a text from him
saying that he would be picking up the car as is and just wanted it back.
Yes, that's what he said.
Okay. Now, I understand, Mr. Hutchinson, that you don't agree
with a lot of what he just acknowledged,
and that's what this trial is gonna be about.
-You understand? -Yes, Your Honor.
Okay. One of the things, Mr. Varguez, I want to clear up right now
is that just yesterday you provided the court
with a copy of an invoice indicating how much money
you had already laid out for the materials.
So, Mr. Varguez, this is an invoice from a fabrics wholesaler, I take it, business
that you claim to have purchased for the job that you did for Mr. Hutchinson.
-Correct? -Yes.
And these were provided to us because they demonstrated the total number
and amount of fabrics and materials that you purchased for this job.
Yes, Your Honor.
[Adam] And there were no other fabrics that you had left over from other jobs
that you used for his custom job that you were charging him $15,000 for.
-Correct? -Yes, correct.
So everything on this sheet are materials used specifically for his job?
Yes.
Let's take a look at this car so we all know what we're talking about.
I think we have some photographs of it. Is that the '69 Mustang, Mr. Hutchinson?
-[Derrick] Yes, it is, Your Honor. -[Adam] All right.
That photograph was taken, I believe, the day I came to take it away,
to show the condition of the vehicle in the shop.
And as you can tell, there's a great deal of dust and so forth on it,
that it wasn't taken care of very well when it was sitting in his shop.
Okay, but you would agree you're not suing him
for not taking good care of the exterior of the car.
You're suing him because he didn't do what he said he was gonna do for you,
which was giving you a complete interior.
That's correct, Your Honor.
[Adam] Let's take a look at the interior photographs.
Tell us how you negotiated the price with the defendant for this vehicle.
[Derrick] Everything was gonna be handmade.
-[Adam] Yes. -Nothing is gonna be off the shelf.
-Everything was custom. -[Adam] And that's true?
-Yes, that's true. -[Adam] Keep going.
And that is why the cost is so high.
[Adam] Fifteen thousand.
Fifteen thousand dollars, Your Honor. Yes.
[Adam] Okay. And what day did you pay that to him?
[Derrick] That was paid on November.
Last November.
-[Adam] November. -Last November, yeah.
[Adam] So it would be on or about November 14
-that you paid that $5,000? -Yes, Your Honor.
[Adam] And, sir, you agree with that, correct?
Yes.
And you heard the defendant in his answer
that you took this laissez faire,
this "you can get it done whenever you want" attitude.
Is that accurate?
In November of 2021,
did you tell him that "you can take as long as you want,
it's not important to me," to just get the job done right?
No, Your Honor.
Tell me what you told him and what he told you.
So, after we discussed the cost, I asked him a couple of conditions.
Number one, I wanted to be able to work with him
because I like learning about all aspects of what is done on the vehicle.
[Adam] Okay.
Whether I actually do it myself or not, I like to know how to do it.
I also said to him, "How long do you think it's going to take?"
I was... I was kind of all right with whatever he told me,
but he told me it was gonna take three weeks, a month at the most.
[Adam] Now, you claim that's not true. Is that right?
Or, Mr. Varguez, because you know that there were text messages
exchanged between you and Mr. Hutchinson.
November, December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August,
you were exchanging text messages.
So before you go on and deny something that you have reason to believe
might be admitted to in the text messages,
I'm gonna give you an opportunity to change your answer.
All right?
Now, November 22, 2021,
the plaintiff here says, "Any word when you might start on the rear seat?"
And you responded, "Material finally here for headliner.
Working on headliner tomorrow."
And then on November 25, 2021,
"We got material we need for Friday to get things going."
That sounds about right, correct?
Yes.
Was that true or was that a lie?
No, that's true.
Are you sure about that?
[announcer] Coming up on Tribunal Justice.
This is the invoice dated December 15, 2021.
Yes, Your Honor.
December 15, 2021
is after you told him you had gotten the materials
and you were starting the 25th of November.
I don't care when you did it. I don't care where you did it.
All I care about is you lied.
[theme music playing]
[announcer] Derrick Hutchinson is suing business owner Nemias Pool-Varguez
for incomplete upholstery services on a 1969 Ford Mustang.
Nemias claims Derrick didn't care how long it took
to finish upholstering the car.
Now, I'm gonna have Cassandra show this to you.
This is the material list that you said that you ordered from them
and that you received from them.
What date is that that you received that material from them?
Uh, 12/15.
12/15. So when you told Mr. Hutchinson
that you had the material ready to start
on November 21 and November 25,
that was not true 'cause you hadn't gotten it until December 15.
I got something to say about that.
Yeah, I want you to explain to me how I just didn't catch you in a big fat lie.
These materials that I show you the invoice right now,
it's for the interior of the car.
When we started the car, it was at the mechanical shop,
so we went to do the headliner at the shop
before the car was moved to my shop.
[Adam] I don't care about when you did it, where you did it.
You hadn't ordered the fabrics yet until December 15, 2021.
That's after I had the car in my possession.
[Adam] I don't care whether the car was in your possession or not.
This is the invoice dated December 15, 2021.
[Nemias] Yes, Your Honor.
[Adam] And that is when that order was either placed
or that's when you received it.
It doesn't make any difference.
Because December 15, 2021
is after you told him you had gotten the materials
and you were starting them when you said you were,
which is the 25th of November, right?
Yes.
So, please, everything that you two spoke about are in emails.
In your answer, you said you already $3,000.
That's what you said in your answer.
-Yes. -[Adam] Three thousand dollars.
But this invoice is only for $2,374.
That's why I asked you whether you spent any other money
on the interior or any other expenses.
And you said no.
So where's the other $600?
Okay, we bought a roll of Dynamat to put on the headliner
before it's moved to my shop on the day.
Yep, roll a Dynamat. Here we go, $160. It's in the invoice.
Yeah, so I put it on,
but all that job, we did it at the mechanical shop, not at my shop.
Mr. Varguez, I don't care when you did it. I don't care where you did it.
All I care about is you lied.
That's all I care about.
So you acknowledge that Mr. Hutchinson here
was asking you about the car on a regular basis.
And it wasn't, as you said in your answer,
where he didn't show up for a couple of months.
You also said in your answer that you never told him
it would be done in three weeks to a month.
-Right? -I told him.
-[Adam] You told him that? -I told him, yeah.
Thank you. Judge Acker.
You know, Mr. Varguez, I read your answer many, many times.
[Nemias] Mm-hmm.
And it's so hard for me to get past the first line.
I mean, it's hard for me to really understand
how you could say this in good conscience.
"I do not know owe plaintiff because I did some of the work,
and the plaintiff told me he didn't care how long I took to finish the job."
That is what you wrote to this court.
Without even looking at the evidence in this case, which I have...
[Nemias] Okay.
But before I even looked at it, I read that
and I knew that that was untrue.
So I want you to explain to me how it is
you could swear out a pleading in this court,
where you, someone who is paid to do work on folks' cars,
could really, like, with a straight face, say,
"Yeah, he paid me, but he said I could take as long as I wanted."
I mean, I've really never met a consumer who said, "I'm gonna give you $9,000
to do some work, and just finish whenever you feel like it."
So you explain to me how it is
you could come up and write that in this court,
unless you were just trying to come up with some fairy tales.
It's not a fairy tale. It's a--
[Tanya] He said to you, "I don't care how long it takes"?
I fell off on really hard times when my family--
[Tanya] No, no, no! Stop, Stop, stop, stop!
He's getting a divorce.
He needs this car because his wife wants it.
He had to sell tools to help finish paying his wife off.
So, I have no doubt you had a hard time.
I mean, in your answer, after the fairy tale part
where you said something that I find patently unbelievable,
you mentioned that your wife had COVID.
Your wife almost died.
If those things are true, and if they are, I'm sorry.
I mean, it's horrible. -Yeah.
-[Tanya] It's horrible. -We were working--
[Tanya] And you know what else is horrible?
-Divorce. -Yes.
I bet your divorce is probably causing you some stress.
-Is it not, sir? -It is, Your Honor.
[Tanya] I would think so.
So what's amazing to me is that you've got his money,
you come to court with a story that is just incredible,
and then you're like, "But my life sucks."
I mean, is that really fair?
I don't wanna keep all the money.
So why didn't you give him any of the money back?
I never talked to him after, you know, when he picked up the car.
[Tanya] After what?
You ever have to take your car to the shop?
[Nemias] Yes.
[Tanya] Tell me about a situation where you took your car to the shop,
you paid in full for your car to be repaired,
and the mechanic said, "I'm gonna take as long as I want,"
and seven months later, you still didn't have your car back.
That ever happen to you?
-[Nemias] Yes. -No, it didn't.
[laughing] You're just lying. You are really...
You're one of those people. You're just lying.
I have a car at the paint shop.
[Tanya] Yeah, he had it for two years, right?
So now let's just go to July.
So, now you've had the car for about eight months.
He sends you a message on July 4.
"I hope you've made progress on my wife's Mustang.
The deadline is the end of July.
Whether or not you're done, I'll need to give the car to her and move."
Because, remember, you aren't the only one having a bad life.
He's having a bad time. He's getting a divorce.
The car is for his wife, and I'm guessing that she wasn't like,
"Oh, you know what, we're getting a divorce,
but take as long as you like to give me the car."
Did she say that?
Nothing like that, Your Honor.
[Tanya] I did not think so.
So now we're seven months later, he's begging.
"Will you be able to finish by the end of July?
It's really critical now."
And what did you say?
Did you say, "You told me you didn't care how long it took"?
"I did some of the work." Is that what you said?
-No. No. -[Tanya] No.
You said, "We're working on it this weekend, to finish before that time.
Thank you and happy 4th of July."
Put your hand down.
I gave you a chance to tell me the truth,
and you just started telling more lies and lies.
Eleven days later, "Where are you with the Mustang?
There's only about a week left.
I need to wrap up the Mustang for my wife."
It's now 11 months since you've had his car.
What's your response?
"This is my week for planning my son's funeral."
My wife just finished having COVID, and then my son passed.
[Tanya] How did your son pass away?
As a motorcycle accident.
I'm sorry about that.
I mean, that's a horrible, horrible tragedy.
And I wasn't there when he went by.
That's why he didn't give me his materials, so...
Okay, but, sir, you were talking about
a horrible, unfathomable tragedy that happened to you
almost a year after you had this man's car and his money.
[announcer] Coming up on Tribunal Justice.
The court would imply that a reasonable time might be a month,
two months, maybe three months.
A reasonable time would not be nine months later.
That's a reasonable time for a baby to come.
[audience laughs]
[theme music playing]
My heart goes out to you.
I don't know anything about what it would be like to lose a child.
But in fairness, your tragedy is not a defense
to your complete failure to do what you said you were going to do.
And you have $9,000.
To me, an upstanding person who's in the middle of a tragedy,
who knows he's not gonna be able to complete a job,
who knows that somebody else is going through a really traumatic time,
he's not gonna force that person to go to court.
He's going to say, "You know what, let me give you back your $9,000."
Judge DiMango.
How did you come up with the fact that it would take up to a month?
That was a plan in the beginning, in the beginning of the job.
But nothing happened in the course of you doing this job
that exacerbated the situation and made it such
that you would have needed more time.
I'm talking about the car itself.
-Right? -Yes.
[Patricia] Nothing changed about the car.
It wasn't that, you know, a bomb fell on it,
and so you were like, "I thought it was gonna take a month,
but now that the bomb fell on it, I'm going to need two months."
Nothing like that happened, right?
He came to my shop too,
with another car to help him to do the back seats of his car.
-So I-- -Oh, he came with his son's car, right?
-[Nemias] Yeah. -I read that somewhere, right?
But what does that have to do with this?
[Nemias stammers]
[Patricia] He's not your only customer, is he?
No.
Nothing happened to this car to change that estimated time.
-Correct or not? -Yes. Yes.
Okay, now, he's texting you repeatedly,
and, you know, finally, what happens at the end of June,
I think it is, he says to you,
"You need to finish the Mustang upholstery very quickly,
my wife just served me with divorce papers
and I need the car to give to her to fulfill a promise I made to her."
What do you say?
"Okay, about two weeks." That was June 15.
It still wasn't two weeks.
I wasn't being able to be at the shop at those times
because I was taking care of my wife.
You know what? Your wife was sick,
you had a tragedy with your son, and nobody's arguing against that.
But you know what that says? That you recognize you had problems.
He had problems. You know what you say in a situation like that?
What do you think you say as a good businessman?
I would tell him to come and get his car. I can't finish it.
[Patricia] Finish it? You didn't even start it.
Did you like what he bought, by the way, the upholstery items and all?
Did you like that fabric and all that he bought?
I personally never saw any of this fabric that he supposedly bought mid-December.
[Patricia] You've never seen any of that?
-Is that correct? -That is correct, Your Honor.
Okay, where is the vehicle now?
My friend drove it up to the other upholsterer, or trimmer.
[Patricia] And that's where it is now?
Yes, it is, Your Honor.
[Patricia] So your wife still doesn't have it?
That's correct, Your Honor.
[Patricia] So now I wanna go back to you
because we're not talking about the cleanliness of the car.
But what that photograph with the dust all over the car shows me
is that you never touched the car.
There wasn't even a handprint on the dust.
It was just sitting there.
So all of these times that I read these messages where you said,
"Got the stuff, gonna do it tomorrow,
oh, we're working on it, the guy's coming back,
we're gonna fix it in two weeks,"
they were blatant lies.
I mean, I think you've got hard times,
and I think that you couldn't do the job you promised,
and I think that you breached the contract.
And if you breached this contract that you had with him, then you owe him the money.
He didn't breach it.
Now let me say another thing.
The law implies certain things.
Like, if you don't have a time frame, the law would imply a reasonable time.
Now, a reasonable time could vary, depending upon what the task is.
If you're going to be delivering a loaf of bread that was ordered from a store,
a reasonable time might be within a few hours of the purchase, not a week.
If you're having upholstery done on a car,
the court would imply that a reasonable time might be a month,
two months, maybe three months.
A reasonable time would not be nine months later.
That's a reasonable time for a baby to come,
-but not to have your car. -Yeah, that's a baby.
Okay? I know we're giving you a rough time here, but is this your work, sir?
[Nemias] Yes.
[Patricia] Because this is very, very nice work,
and nobody is saying you don't do nice work.
You know what we're saying here?
You didn't do any work.
You get it? I'm glad you understand. That makes me happy.
So therefore, since you understand, and I know you get it,
I have no more questions for either one of you.
So I'm ready to retire to deliberate,
as long as my colleagues are.
Ready to go, everybody?
-Thank you. -Yep.
We're gonna retire to deliberate.
-Thank you. -Thank you.
This court now stands in recess. Parties are excused.
[theme music playing]
You know, I think that we can all feel sympathy for the defendant
for the loss that he suffered.
There's no reason not to believe what he said.
And, quite frankly, I didn't get into it in the opening monologue there,
but his wife also left him during this.
His wife was in the hospital with COVID,
and then when she got out, she also left him, and it was terrible.
The plaintiff has not given any testimony whatsoever
that was contraindicated by any of the evidence.
And if he said, as he did, that there was no work done on the car,
that there was no fabrics,
he hasn't seen any of the fabrics on this list,
I believe him, and I believe he's entitled to his full $9,000 refund.
It's so easy for me.
I mean, I gave him a hard time
about what I thought were some credibility issues,
but I don't know that for certain.
What I do know is that he owes this man his money.
I really wanna say, "Tanya, you just missed the point,
-he needs two more weeks." -[Tanya laughs]
-If he only had two more weeks... -Two more weeks.
...he would've rebuilt the whole entire interior of that vehicle.
He really was just in over his head with all of the situations that went on,
and that was my point to him when I said it,
"Nobody's faulting you for that.
What we're saying is, you breached the contract."
-Right. -"And we accept that you had a reason,
but you gotta give the money back."
Nine thousand dollars, plaintiff's favor.
-Indeed. -Yes.
Thank you.
[theme music playing]
Court is back in session.
Parties are reminded you're still under oath.
-[Adam] Mr. Varguez. -Yes.
Honesty is the best policy. It's simple.
I know that you're in your own business.
You have people that you feel responsible for, your workers.
And things sometimes can become a little overwhelming.
You throw on top of that personal tragedies as you suffered
and issues with your own marriage, and they spiral out of control.
And we're all sorry for that, and we don't take that lightly.
But the one thing I said to my colleagues in the back
is that that doesn't justify and it doesn't excuse or explain
what you did
well before you had any of those problems,
those personal problems.
You took $5,000 cash,
and then according to your record, it was an extra $4,000.
So you had $9,000 of his money,
and then even the receipt that you provided us,
which, by the way, the plaintiff credibly has said
he's never seen any of this stuff,
it was only for $2,300.
And so the tragedies that you suffered later on
doesn't justify what you did early on.
You agree with that, don't you?
Yes.
You only have one chance to make a good impression.
You don't wanna run the risk of ruining the reputation of your business
that could affect the rest of your life
by engaging in the misconduct and the deceit
as you started off with Mr. Hutchinson here.
And the verdict of the court is unanimous.
And I think you know where we're going with that,
that, sir, you had $9,000, you took it of his money,
you didn't do hardly any work on the vehicle,
and that's what you owe him.
The verdict of the court is in your favor, sir, Mr. Hutchinson,
for $9,000.
[gavel bangs]
This case is now concluded. Parties are excused. You may step out.
I felt really hard times in my life, and now I'm back on track with my stuff.
I was gonna object a couple of times with things that he was saying
'cause I was getting really angry.
Trying to hire people and nobody wants to work.
He literally was ducking out.
Anytime I let him know that I was coming, he wasn't there.
I gotta work hard and finish what I got promised.
When completed, it's really gonna be a beautiful, beautiful vehicle.
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[theme music playing]