CHRISTIANSBURG — A judge on Wednesday voiced some skepticism toward allegations the owner of the Massie’s Mobile Home Park showed willful negligence with the bills when a utilities provider shut off water to the property in November.
Montgomery County Circuit Judge Robert Turk heard arguments Wednesday in an appeal of the case dismissed earlier this year by a lower court.
Turk told the attorneys that he’ll return with a ruling in about two weeks. The judge, however, pushed back against some of arguments from Southwest Virginia Legal Aid, saying several times that the issues raised by an attorney with the Christiansburg-based...
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This is the most annoying article of the week. A free legal aid attorney is suing, on behalf of the residents, the owner of a mobile home park because the water was shut off for a few hours due to a billing mistake with the water department, claiming it caused them serious harm and mental anguish. Even the judge in this case is annoyed with the tenants:
“Turk told the attorneys that he’ll return with a ruling in about two weeks. The judge, however, pushed back against some of arguments from Southwest Virginia Legal Aid, saying several times that the issues raised by an attorney with the Christiansburg-based organization didn’t seem to constitute willful acts. “There’s got to be an end to the game,” Turk said near the end of the hearing.”
The water department apparently shut the water off because of a bill that the former owner didn’t pay – not the new owner who had just closed on the property. When the new owner was told the water was off, they ran down and paid the bill they were not even responsible to pay to get it restored. The new owner bent over backwards to help the tenants and this is the thanks they received.
It’s stories like these that explain why many old moms and pops simply shut their parks down (like the second article above) rather than let them remain open and have to deal with unreasonable residents like those that filed the suit.