He'd gotten a restraining order against me.
- Against you? - I sent him a letter saying that
I wanted payment.
This letter threatens to go to his boss
to get him fired.
That's what that says. That's what you were threatening.
[Announcer] This is Judy Justice.
[theme music playing]
[Announcer] Herman and Tina Smude...
are suing their former son-in-law, Dalton MacDonald
for unpaid loans.
[Bailiff] Court come to order.
All rise.
Have a seat, please.
Hello, Judge.
Case 2082, Smude versus MacDonald.
- [Judge Judy] Thank you. - [Kevin] You're welcome.
[Judge Judy] Mr. and Mrs. Smude,
the defendant used to be married to your daughter.
Yes, Your Honor.
And according to what I've read, they were married for about five years?
Yes.
The thrust of your claim is that he owes
for a couple of things, for rent and the balance of a truck.
That's your lawsuit against him.
I'd like to know, do you know the date of their marriage?
Three-sixteen, two-thousand and eleven.
[Judge Judy] And your ex-wife's first name?
Jacqueline.
And when did you and your former wife separate?
In two-thousand and twenty.
[Judge Judy] And you had two children.
How old are they now?
They are five and eight.
And who has custody of the children?
Dalton has physical, and they have joint custody.
Just a second, so he has custody of the two younger children?
- Yes. - [Judge Judy] That's a yes.
How long have you had custody of the two children?
Since, uh, July of last year.
At some point during the marriage, there was a truck purchased.
- Yes. - [Judge Judy] Who purchased the truck?
Dalton purchased the truck. I co-signed for it.
[Judge Judy] And when was it purchased?
Month and year?
June of... 2017.
- Was that the only car... - Yes.
- [Judge Judy] ...that they had? - Yes.
[Judge Judy] So that was a family car.
Yes.
And in 2017, was your daughter working?
Yes.
So both parents worked?
And both parents, I assume, pooled their money?
And I assume, made car payments?
Yes, Your Honor.
- Yes. - [Judge Judy] Is that correct? Both.
And then they separated in 2020,
and at that time, the children came to live with you?
- Correct. - And you took the truck?
- Yes. - [Judge Judy] By agreement
- with your now ex-wife? - Yes.
[Judge Judy] In 2020, who made the car payments?
My husband did.
- [Judge Judy] Is that correct? - Yes.
I made all of the car payments on that vehicle.
All of them, from the time it was purchased
until we paid it off.
Okay, so what you're telling me is, from 2017
you made all the car payments.
That's correct.
Did your daughter and son-in-law make any of those payments?
Not directly, but they paid toward the balance of the money
- that they... - [Judge Judy] You paid for the truck...
- [Herman] That's correct. - ...since 2017,
- since they were married? - That's correct.
- Yes. - [Judge Judy] With no reimbursement?
I took payments out of my daughter's check...
[Judge Judy] Just be very, very careful with me, sir.
- Yeah. - I want you to be very careful
with me. I read that, what we call in Yiddish,
bubba misas in here, that you took money
out of your daughter's check.
Bubbas misas, it means grandma's tale,
it means it's not true.
It means it doesn't sound right to me.
I read it in here. Don't try to repeat it here
because that won't be good for you.
Okay, I'm going to believe you if you show me
copies of her checks that you made to her
with withdrawals for money she owed you.
That's all I want to see.
- Do you have that? - I do not.
[Judge Judy] Not! Of course not.
Now, he has the truck.
And this was clearly either a gift or a marital debt.
Either one of those two things.
It's either a gift or a marital debt.
It was a family car that was used by your daughter,
her husband, the grandchildren,
with, according to you, no reimbursement.
According to you, except this ridiculous reimbursement
from your daughter's check, which I don't believe,
so I'm not even going into it,
with no reimbursement, 2017, 2018,
2019, 2020.
And when your daughter and the defendant separated in 2020,
according to him, and according to you,
he took the truck and the children.
And that was with her consent or not?
- Yes, it was. - With her consent.
Is that so far right? That's what you're telling me.
- It's accurate. - [Judge Judy] Right.
Did you intervene in the divorce proceeding
and say that there is money owed, marital debt owed,
and part of the marital debt is this loan on the truck?
- No. But we... - [Judge Judy] No. No.
- No. - [Judge Judy] The answer is no.
You did not.
It would also be fair to say that you don't know how much,
according to you, she paid for the truck.
I do, Your Honor. I have that ledger that I have.
I would go to her each week and say,
"Jacqueline, how much can I take toward the loan?"
And that's how much I would take off each week.
All you have to do, sir, is show me.
Otherwise, this is a whole bunch of nonsense.
- Yeah. - [Judge Judy] It's a marital debt.
You did not intervene in the divorce proceedings
and say, "Listen, this is a debt that's still outstanding,
whatever it is, two-thousand, three-thousand, four-thousand dollars.
You didn't do that.
Now, the only thing that you can say to me with regard to this truck business
is if you had...you, careful...
had an agreement with the defendant
in 2017 to pay the truck.
And be very careful, because what you've told me is
he didn't make any payments to you
from 2017, ever.
- He made some payments. - [Judge Judy] Just a second.
Interesting. Show me where he made payments.
Did you give him a receipt for payments?
No. This... we're...
This is a small town, and we... I mean...
It's not a small town, it's a family, sir.
- It's not a small... - I...I do have the ledger.
I'm not interested in the ledger you created.
Self-serving and, therefore, inadmissible.
And created for the purpose solely of this litigation.
And not created at the same time that the event took place.
I might even cut you a little slack
if you had a ledger, a book,
with entries in it at different times from 2017
in different ink with the day, how much was paid back,
how much was paid back on the loan.
I guarantee you do not have that.
You have a very nice piece of white paper that you created for me. Is that correct?
- Yes. - [Judge Judy] That is correct.
Okay, so I'm not interested in your ledger. That's not a ledger.
That's a document prepared for the purposes of litigation.
So, I want you to tell me what conversation you had,
and when, with Mr. MacDonald, about paying for the truck.
- They bought this boat from you. - Accurate.
And how much did you sell it to them for?
$2,500.
Did they pay you for it?
No, part of that was put on the ledger...
[laughs]
and part of it was cash.
[Judge Judy] You know I'm not buying your whole story.
[theme music playing]
[Announcer] Herman and Tina Smude
claim their former son-in-law, Dalton MacDonald,
owes for unpaid loans.
Now, I want you tell me what conversation you had,
and when, with Mr. MacDonald, about paying for the truck?
That was from the very beginning,
- because I was paying other bills. - No, no... just a sec...
I don't care whether you were paying their bills,
I understand you were paying all their bills
because they came to live with you for a brief period of time,
because they were evicted, for whatever reason.
And that was sometime in two-thousand...
- Sixteen. - [Judge Judy] Sixteen.
Okay. So I understand that you were paying their bills.
Sometimes that's what parents do. They pay their bills.
We were paying their bills 'cause they had no checking account.
That doesn't matter to me.
I want to know your conversations with...
where did it take place,
because you're not suing your daughter.
You're suing him.
The conversation was when we rented the farm for them,
which I know is not with the truck,
but the landlord would not let them rent from him
because they had terrible credit.
We'll get to the rent later. Stick with the truck.
- Okay. - [Judge Judy] Don't talk to him
when I'm asking him questions.
Well, the truck was the same thing.
We put that on the ledger, then,
or on the running total, and they agreed.
They both agreed that they were going to pay us off.
- [Judge Judy] Okay. - He came over on Labor Day weekend,
and I showed him the ledger, which he saw all the time.
No, no, no, no, no, no, don't tell me what he saw.
Don't tell me what he saw.
If what you're saying is you showed him the ledger
when he came over with the boys...
- Yes. - [Judge Judy] ...and he was going back
- to Minnesota? - Right.
And he brought the boys to see you to say goodbye?
Correct.
Okay. So, so far, it's very nice,
you have a reasonable relationship with him,
and certainly, your daughter was clearly overwhelmed
because courts do not usually split up children,
so they must have felt that the children's best interests
would be served if they remained with their father.
Clearly, what happened, the father came over to you,
to let you say goodbye to the children,
and when he came over to let you say goodbye
to the children, let me understand what you're saying to me.
What you said to him was,
not thank you for taking over this responsibility,
your daughter had more children than she could take care of.
Physically or financially, right?
- Clearly. - Yes.
Clearly. So, what you want me to believe, that two nice people,
who took in their daughter, with her two kids,
and a husband, and bought a truck,
and made arrangements for them to have some place
to live, that these two nice people,
when he came over, because your daughter couldn't take care of her children,
and he brought them to say goodbye, you said, "It's very nice,
I want you to take a look at this ledger
and see how much money you owe me."
That's what you're asking me to believe. Right?
I'm going to let you live with that fantasy that I believe that.
And so I did give him the balance of what he owed me on the rent...
- No, no, no. No... - [Herman] ...and on the truck.
Nice. So far...
He looked me in the eye, he shook my hand,
and said, "Jerry, I promise I'm not gonna screw you on this.
I am gonna make those payments."
Make payments for what?
On the rent and on the truck.
Okay. Did you have that conversation with him?
No, I did not, Your Honor.
The conversation was, when I came up there the last time,
Jerry was trying to sell his fishing boat,
so I posted it on Facebook, and I sold it for him.
In what month and year?
That would have been September of 2020.
After selling the boat, he gave me $1,200 for helping him...
How much did he sell the boat for?
It was 4,700.
[Judge Judy] So that was after you'd already moved?
- [Dalton] Correct. - [Judge Judy] With the children?
- Yeah. - [Judge Judy] Okay.
He helped you sell the boat for 4,700?
- Just answer my question. - No.
- Did you give him 1,200? - [Herman] No.
He bought that boat from me a year prior to that.
He had it.
- So they bought this boat from you? - [Herman] Accurate.
- [Judge Judy] When? - That would've been in the spring
of... 2019.
And how much did you sell it to them for?
$2,500.
Did they pay you for it?
No, part of that was put on the ledger...
- [laughs] - And part of it was cash.
You know I'm not buying your whole story.
I'm not buying your whole story because...
I'm sorry, Your Honor, I'm telling you - the honest-to- - God truth.
No, I don't think so. I don't think that I would have
sold people who had no credit, who couldn't buy themselves a truck,
so you had to co-sign for the only means of transportation
that they had, who couldn't pay for their rent,
couldn't pay their bills because of their bad credit,
I don't believe this whole scenario
about selling them a leisure boat.
A leisure boat for $2,500.
It is mind-boggling that you would think that an intelligent person like me
would accept that. Okay, forget the truck.
You have the truck now?
- Yes. - [Judge Judy] Okay.
You haven't finished your story with me. So, you sold the boat,
- and he gave you $1,200. - Correct.
I gave him the $1,200 back, which made us even on the truck payments,
and he gave me the title, Tina signed it,
and then I brought it back to Minnesota
- and put it in my name. - [Judge Judy] Okay.
Who signed it?
Tina signed it.
My name was on it as well.
- [Judge Judy] Your name? - Yes.
- [Judge Judy] As joint owners with him? - Yep.
- Co- sign. - [Judge Judy] Oh. Interesting.
- In what month did... Mrs. Smude... - Yes.
[Judge Judy] sign over the car to you?
The same, uh, day that I gave Jerry the $1,200,
so it would've been in September.
Now do you remember the $1,200?
No. It was 1,000 that he paid toward the loan
when he sold... when I sold the boat for him.
- [Judge Judy] Okay. - And it was his boat
that I sold for him.
Okay. You did not create this as a marital debt,
it absolutely was a marital debt,
so I'm dismissing that portion of your claim that deals with the truck.
Now, let's deal with the rent.
The rent that you're talking about was rent in what property?
The farmhouse that they rented.
- [Judge Judy] From when to when? - In 2016.
November 2020.
And over the years that they lived there,
they lived there as a couple.
- Yes. - [Judge Judy] The rent was paid
- to a landlord? - Correct.
- By you? - Yes.
- [Judge Judy] Is that right? - Correct.
And they, your daughter, and her husband,
would give you cash, checks, or whatever...
- Cash, usually. - [Judge Judy] ...to cover the rent.
- [Dalton] Yep. - Yes.
And how much did they give you to cover the rent?
When we started out, rent was $800
and later on he raised it to 900.
We never made it a set amount each week,
they gave us what they could.
And we've done this before in the past,
and they've always paid us back.
Well, then you should've sued them and listed all of this as a marital debt
in the process of their divorce, so it could all have been...
We're handling Jacqueline in another way.
[Judge Judy] You what?
We're handling Jacqueline alone.
Uh... [stammers]
I don't understand what that means.
Well, you're saying it was marital.
Just a second. Does that mean
that you've already served your daughter with a summons?
- [Tina] Not yet, no. - Of course not.
Of course not. And you did know when they were divorcing?
- Yeah. Yeah. - You did know when they were divorcing?
I'm not buying anything of this lawsuit.
Most of which, at least the rent part, is totally stale.
I'm just curious, Mr. and Mrs. Smude.
Somebody wants to answer this question for me.
Mr. MacDonald has custody of your two young grandsons.
- Yes. - [Judge Judy] Who I assume
that you were close to, because they lived with you in your house.
- They came back to live with us. - [Judge Judy] Mm?
The two boys came back to live with us.
[Judge Judy] From when to when?
December of 2021 until July of 2022,
six months we had them.
Just a second, 2022.
- Was there a court proceeding? - [Mr. and Mrs. Smude] No.
But then in July, they went back with their father?
That's accurate.
And they've been with their father since?
Yes.
[Judge Judy] Okay, so the boys lived with you
- for six, seven months? - Right.
Was that an acrimonious transfer?
That's when you meant when you said
"Any employer that has gone through all that paperwork
and red tape as I have will do anything to avoid it."
The "anything" is firing the employee.
[theme music playing]
[Announcer] Herman and Tina Smude
are accusing their former son-in-law, Dalton MacDonald,
of refusing to pay back loans.
Was that an acrimonious transfer or was it something that you both...
What happened there was, he called my husband, to see if...
No, no, no, don't tell me what he said to your husband.
- Okay, you can tell 'em. - I will tell you, then.
He called me in December,
and asked me if I would please take the two boys.
I told him I will take 'em, Dalton, if you start making regular payments...
Oh, well, that's... I'm not... I'm... We're out of the money business now, sir.
What you're saying is, from 2017,
when the children, who are in his custody,
your daughter may have been there, but they were in joint custody,
and then he maintained custody of the children,
and during the time he maintained custody of the children,
there was no question whatsoever that he was not paying you back money.
He did not make any payments to you.
Occasional, here and there, we don't keep records.
All of a sudden, now you have the boys with you,
and then in July, he comes back and he takes the boys back.
All I asked you was whether that was an acrimonious,
which is an unpleasant,
or a harmonious transfer of the children.
Mr. Smude, was that in July?
In July, it was acrimonious because at that point,
he'd gotten a restraining order against me.
- Against you? - [Herman] Against me,
while we had the children,
because I sent him a letter
saying that I wanted payment,
and he went and got a restraining order against me,
because they took that as a threat.
I'd like to see the letter, please, Kevin.
"And this is what needs to happen moving forward."
[Herman] That's correct.
"You need to mail me $200 on the first of every month
and $200 on the 15th starting March 1st, 2022.
If I do not get these payments on time,
the following will happen..." which is, you know,
you could say I'm going to sue you, right?
- Right. - [Judge Judy] I'm gonna sue you.
But that's not what you say.
You say, "I will go to your boss and talk to them
about garnishing your wages.
Any employer that has gone through all the paperwork
and red tape as I have will do anything to avoid it."
So, that's a threat.
What you're saying is, I'm gonna call your boss
and tell him that I'm going to sue you,
and then your boss is gonna have to go through
all the red tape of what it means to have a garnish on your salary.
You have to go through accounting, and they have to deduct it,
and no boss wants to do that.
Which is in effect saying, so either you pay me,
or your boss is gonna fire you.
That's what you meant when you said,
"Any employer that has gone through all that paperwork and red tape
as I have will do anything to avoid it."
The "anything" is firing the employee.
I don't think you can legally fire somebody for that.
[Judge Judy] Just a second.
Whether you can legally fire them or not,
that's what you were threatening.
That's what that says.
So he got an order of protection against you.
- Correct. - [Judge Judy] And?
Then, I didn't fight it, because I didn't anticipate having any conversations
or contact with him.
When you wrote this letter, you had the boys.
- Yes. - [Judge Judy] Right.
- Not before. - [Herman] No.
Not before, and he had had the boys for some time alone.
Pretty much.
[Judge Judy] He had had the boys for some time alone.
Okay.
Let's go back to my original question, which was,
when the boys went back to their father, was it acrimonious or harmonious?
- It was not good. - [Judge Judy] Well, so tell me
your version of what happened.
The reason it was acrimonious is because
he knew very well that once we got 'em, we'd put 'em on a strict schedule.
Eight o'clock, brush your teeth, 8:15, pajamas,
8:30, bed.
Where was your daughter living at this time?
- With us. - [Judge Judy] Yuh!
Just a second. If you're going to interrupt him,
- 'cause you wanna get it out, - I'm sorry.
[Judge Judy] that's not gonna be good for you.
- She had a room at our house... - [Judge Judy] Just a second,
so your daughter was living with you.
So what you're telling me was your daughter was in the wind someplace.
- Accurate. - [Judge Judy] Okay.
You know, you had her for a long time. He only had her for five years.
And I can understand the sadness if your daughter is in the wind,
and not being responsible, sir.
But that doesn't mean he has to shoulder all the burden.
Right now he's shouldering all the burden of supporting... of supporting
the two children, which I assume you're doing,
they're living with you? And s...are you working?
- Yes, I am. - [Judge Judy] And he's working.
Your daughter is not?
She's working two jobs.
- Oh. If she's working two jobs, - [Tina] She always has.
- why was she in a room? - She wasn't renting,
she was living there free.
Okay. So now, let's back to
this acrimonious transfer of the children back in July.
- Dalton called me, or called the kids... - [Judge Judy] Okay,
- so he called the children... - [Herman] after bedtime.
- Okay, and? - [Herman] Called my wife's phone
four times, ring, ring, ring, ring, and she wouldn't answer,
'cause the kids were in bed.
And then he called my phone, twice.
The second time, I have an old flip phone,
I flipped it, walked in, 'cause now I hear the boys are awake,
I let him talk to the boys.
And then I took the phone back,
and I said some naughty things to him and hung it up.
Why did you say naughty things to him for?
Because I was very angry at him...
[stammers] Can I use some swear words that I used when I told him?
No, I assume you used some terrible words, but I want...
I just told him, don't call me anymore.
Is there any reason that you discussed with your wife
why she didn't answer the phone?
Because the boys were already in bed. He had done that before.
You already told me that you heard the boys,
- so you took the phone into his room. - No, after the phone calls, they woke up.
Is what you're telling me that that's the first time
that he tried to talk to the boys
that you or your wife didn't answer the phone?
I think it probably happened once or twice prior, and then we told him
- don't do it anymore. - [Judge Judy] Okay. Fine.
[Herman] Though this time we were fed up.
Fine. So, that's when he said,
- "I'm coming to take the boys"? - [Herman] No.
- No. - [Judge Judy] Well, when did he say
he was coming to take the boys?
Not until July.
Jacqueline told us that Dalton was gonna be taking the kids
- once they got out of school - [Judge Judy] Okay.
I'm gonna take the pain out of this case,
and I'm gonna do it relatively quickly.
I think, Mr. and Mrs. Smude, that this lawsuit was very ill-advised.
The defendant doesn't owe you any money.
He doesn't owe you any money because if there was money owed,
it was a marital debt, and it should've been take up
at the time of the divorce,
listed as a marital debt, and then it could've been fixed
by the judge who approved the divorce,
how much and by whom is owed money.
You chose not to do that.
It was only after a very acrimonious set of circumstances,
roughly five and a half years later,
after this truck was purchased,
that you chose to exercise any prerogatives with regard to a debt.
Except this letter, which threatens to go to his boss,
to get him fired, if you don't start making payments,
and that was only after the two children came to live with you,
and were sort of overwhelmed.
You have to understand. Mr. MacDonald,
who I think probably is trying, he's got the two boys.
It got very complicated, but it's not a lawsuit,
and I would make nice with him.
He's got two children that you probably want to have some connection with,
and this lawsuit certainly doesn't help that.
Well, anyway, for all the reasons that I've stated,
- Your Honor... - [Judge Judy] your lawsuit's dismissed.
- We're finished. - [Dalton] Thank you, Your Honor.
[Kevin] This court is adjourned.
He owes us that money, he admitted that he owed us the money...
I think the judge was absolutely correct.
He promised he was gonna pay us the money back.
I don't owe Jerry any money...
Kids are irresponsible,
have no sense of honor, duty,
respect, responsibility, nothin'.
Really should be a family thing, and maybe one day it can go back to it.
This is a great case that explains why a lot of cases in civil court
have a statute of limitations before you can bring
a certain kind of case, because here,
it was hard for us to understand
why they would not have requested that money back earlier.
So, when you ask for it now, years down the line,
where so much has happened,
court's not so likely to feed into that
because you don't know what the real motivation is behind it.
I agree, I think it's really foolish of them.
- Mm-hmm. - [Judge Judy] Especially since
their ex-son-in-law has total custody
of these two little boys,
for them not to maintain
a reasonable relationship with him.
It was a good showing, though, that if you do give money
to your daughter, son, and their significant other,
and they do get divorced, you should follow that divorce proceeding,
- so if you do have a claim... - A legitimate debt.
- A legitimate debt or claim... - List it.
then, that's the place where you should bring it.
- Absolutely. - Mm- hmm.
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