I think this is all an insurance scam.
[Narrator] Today on Tribunal Justice .
It seems funny to me. Something doesn't feel right.
He basically says to you, "We have still not been paid."
We didn't hire him to reroof the motor home.
How much did the insurance company give you?
- I honestly do not know because- - How dumb do you think we are?
You kept it.
[theme music plays]
[Narrator] This case was filed in Pine City, Minnesota.
Your Honor, this case number 1096 on the calendar in the matter
of Baker versus Hansen.
Parties have been sworn in. You may be seated.
- Thank you, Byrd. - [Byrd] You're welcome, Judge.
- Mr. Baker? - Yes sir.
You own and operate, uh, Baker RV Repair in Pine City, uh, Minnesota.
- I do. - And in May of 2022,
according to your complaint, you were hired by the defendant
to repair a leaking roof of her 2008 Winnebago Motor Home.
You went to the defendant's home to inspect the RV and you saw a hole
in the roof that caused water to leak through a seam.
- Is that right? - Yes, Your Honor.
How long have you been in the RV repair business?
Uh, I've repaired 'em for 20 years.
That wouldn't be unusual, would it?
To have leaking issues on a 2008 motor home?
- It's quite typical. - Right. Common, right?
Common.
That's what you told the defendant's husband who is not here today.
- Is that correct? - Correct.
- Why not? - Uh, he couldn't get away to come in.
- He couldn't get away to come in? - Yes.
Okay, because I'm gonna tell you right now,
I think this is all an insurance scam.
We didn't scam the insurance company.
- Let's find out. - Okay.
The defendant's husband who's not here, brought the RV to the shop.
You fixed all the minor repairs, including the seams,
and got to work on the roof.
And you claim to have noticed some hail damage.
Yes, the roof was so dirty
'cause it hadn't been cleaned probably forever.
And it was so dirty you couldn't, uh, visually see the hail damage.
Yes, ma'am. You have something to say. Who are you?
- Um- - Come on up.
I'm Gloria Baker.
- I am witness to Ralph Baker. - [Levy] Yep.
And the job that he did.
Um, he did not power wash the roof.
He actually hand washed it
because he was afraid to drive water into the seams.
Yeah, 'cause that that was gonna-
That would cause more leaking and damage inside.
So he got up there,
and scrubbed it on his hands and knees for many, many hours.
Okay. Thank you for that.
- Is this your wife over here? - [Baker] Yes, it is.
Uh, it's good to keep her. It's good to keep her around.
Yeah, she keeps me on the straight and narrow.
But I did see where Mr. Hansen had been up there.
And there was no rhyme or reason.
He didn't sit there and try and clean everything.
He just went some here and some over there, some back there.
Understood.
So you noticed this hail damage and you contacted the defendant's husband?
- Correct. - And what, if anything, did he say?
Uh, we talked about a possible insurance claim.
He said he had insurance. He said, go ahead and file the claim.
And here's the information of my agent.
And so then I put together an estimate.
And so you've supplied us with an email dated May 20th, 2022.
- Correct. - You say, "Mr. Baker,
that the insurance company approved the $8,414 estimate to redo the roof."
I did get approval to...
You got approval. And you knew that, ma'am. Right?
He never...
He was not even involved with that as far as approval or not approval.
Ms. Hansen, he just testified that your husband,
again, for some reason's not here to support any of what you have to say.
- Correct. - Authorized him
to contact the insurance company.
So the email that Mr. Baker sent to your insurance carrier
on May 20th, 2022, you have never seen that?
I did see that. That was for replacement of a fiberglass roof.
That wasn't for resealing the roof.
So when did you see that email?
I seen that email on May 22nd.
So on May 22nd, you see that he on your behalf has put in a claim
for a new roof and you never said to him, I don't want that?
We never told him to re...
We didn't ask, we didn't hire him to replace the roof.
We hired him on May 1st.
- Did you object to this? - Uh, May 4th.
Did you object to this and say, "Listen, I don't want a claim for $8,400.
I just wanted him to reseal the roof, not replace it with a new one."
I can't answer that because it could have been my husband talking to him.
Well, forget about what your husband may or may not have said because your husband,
I have no document to suggest he ever said that.
I'm asking you, did you ever say that to your insurance carrier?
And as a matter of fact, September 29th, according to Mr. Baker,
he received a check from you for $2,500.
- Correct. - And this is a copy of the check, right?
- [Hansen] Correct. - What was this $2,500 check for?
Was it for a new roof or was it for resealing?
Resealing?
The $2,500 is what you claim the work that Mr. Baker here did
was valued at, $2,500.
Well, we gave him the $2,500 check because we were waiting for an estimate
from Mr. Baker for the damage that he did to our RV.
The only amount of money that you gave him was $2,500.
Correct. That was partial payment
until we got the estimate on the damage to our RV.
Show me on this check where it says partial payment.
I did not write that in the memo.
Nope, you didn't.
So you paid him $2,500 for all the work that he did.
And how much did the insurance company give you?
I honestly do not know because it didn't come in my name.
It came in my husband's name.
That ma'am is exactly why the insurance fraud case is made out.
Because you and your husband
received a payment from the insurance company for how much, sir?
- That's $8,700. - $8,700.
Does that sound about right? Do you not talk to your husband?
- Your husband knows you're here, right? - Correct. He does.
- Your husband knows- - We have separate checking accounts.
Hold on, hold on.
I don't care whether you have separate checking accounts.
- It wasn't written out in my name? - Do you listen to yourself?
You are here in court to defend yourself against a claim
that you know this man's making against you
in which he's accusing you of insurance fraud,
because the insurance company paid out on the claim that he made.
With your permission, your husband's permission,
he puts in an estimate for the insurance carrier
for a new roof and they authorized $8,700 worth of work.
Then the check doesn't go to him from the insurance company,
the check goes to you and your husband
and instead of turning that check over to this man here who did the work,
you only cut him a check for $2,500.
So you explain to me how it is that since you knew
that that's what was going on here today, you didn't think to yourself,
wait a minute, let me ask my husband how much the insurance company gave us.
You didn't think that was important?
Well, I guess not.
So what'd you do with the extra money?
[Narrator] Coming up on Tribunal Justice.
You know there were some people, Ms. Hansen,
who are just habitual lawsuit filers and defenders.
How many other lawsuits have you been involved in in Minnesota?
I already know the answer so why don't you just tell me.
- How many lawsuits? - [Levy] Yep.
[Narrator] Ralph Baker is suing RV owner, Cheryl Hansen
for unpaid repairs he made to her motor home.
Cheryl claims Ralph never gave her an estimate and overcharged her.
You didn't think to yourself, wait a minute,
let me ask my husband how much the insurance company gave us.
You didn't think that was important?
Well, I guess not.
So what'd you do with the extra money?
We still have it.
Yes ma'am. What do you have to say, Ms. Baker?
Um, I'm tired of her saying that he did this job without her knowing about it.
No one believes that, ma'am. I know.
He wouldn't have done the work for nothing.
- Okay. - Thank you.
You know, there are some people, Ms. Hansen,
who are just habitual lawsuit filers and defenders.
How many other lawsuits have you been involved in in Minnesota?
I already know the answer, so why don't you just tell me.
- How many lawsuits? - Yep.
- Small claims cases. - I believe one.
[Levy] Are you sure about that?
Um, I think so.
Not even close. Judge Acker.
Thank you, Judge.
So with respect to the insurance payment, you were initially a bit equivocal
with Judge Levy about what the insurance company knew, what you knew, they knew.
But if you look at the second paragraph of your answer, it says,
a few days later they, meaning the insurance company,
approved the estimate for a little over $8,000.
- You see that? - Correct.
So you were aware of the fact that the insurance company-
- Approved- - Yes.
An $8,000 payment.
And while you've suggested that the $2,500 that you gave the plaintiff
was just a partial payment, that was not your intention.
It was your intention to cut him off there, wasn't it?
- No, it was not. - Let's go back to your answer.
"We paid him with the average rate for resealing the roof in our area,
which was $2,500.
As far as we're concerned, we paid him what was owed.
We owe him nothing."
Now, do you wanna change the answer that you just gave me 20 seconds ago?
- Yes. - Yeah.
This statement right down here, I shouldn't have ever said it like that.
And you know what, you probably shouldn't have stiffed him either,
but here we are.
But I did not stiff him, Your Honor.
I gave him- - [Acker] So wait, wait, let's stop.
- Let's stop. - Okay.
You know that the insurance company, based on representations he made
to the insurance company about the work that he
was going to do with your approval--
Correct.
--was an $8,000 estimate that involved a roof repair, correct?
- Okay. - So you knew that they approved that,
yet you decided to pay him, uh, less than half of that.
So tell me what part of your story is gonna modify a little bit now.
Well, I'm sure I'm not gonna be able to change your mind, Your honor,
but I knew about the Mr. Baker sending the estimate to the insurance company.
We had asked Ralph if there was any hail damage,
if you would please submit an estimate. Yes.
But we didn't hire him to reroof the motor home.
I think what you're saying is,
because we didn't say reroof the motor home,
the fact that you said reach out to the insurance company,
you know that he's saying, I'm gonna reroof the motor home.
The insurance company says here's $8,000 to reroof the motor home.
You deposit that check for $8,000 that was given to you to reroof
the motor home and then you give him less than half of that,
and say it was never the job to reroof the motor home.
How dumb do you think we are?
- I don't think you're any of it- - You're acting like it.
So do we have pictures of the work that you did?
Yes.
What do we have? What are we seeing here, sir?
Okay, to start on the left, that's, uh,
the condition the roof was when it came to me.
You could see on the edge there where Mr. Hansen
did his pressure washing.
And then the other picture is almost completed.
Okay, now there's a picture on the left is what the sides
of the motor home looked like.
It that, that's a thin piece of fiberglass
that goes into a channel where that was all loose.
And if you don't, uh, seal it, and secure it,
it'll be f flopping in the breeze as you go down the road.
Now if I recall, does this picture represent some damage
that you caused to the motor home?
Some inadvertent damage that happened with the lawnmower?
- [ Baker ] Yes. - And you were offering them
a $2,000 credit for that damage?
I was.
You've since retracted that offer of credit.
Is it really fair to retract the offer? 'Cause you caused that damage?
- I did. - Do we know how much it costs?
- Did you get an estimate for the repair? - I don't know.
Um, they took the, uh, RV early June,
like second to June or something like that.
Went north with it to their camping area.
And on the way they stopped at an RV repair shop up there
and they got an estimate from them.
I just talked to the guy.
He said that he had his body man there and he said 500 to $800.
Does anyone have a written estimate with respect to this body work?
- Did you ever obtain one? - I did, Your Honor.
- And uh, did you submit that to us? No.
And why didn't you submit it?
Because I wasn't counter suing him.
You might've been entitled to an offset, but now there's nothing to prove.
Judge DiMango.
Ma'am, what do you do for a living?
I am retired now.
Before you retired, what did you do?
I worked for the state of Minnesota.
Um, I worked at the uh, mental health facility.
I did legal work, I did commitments.
- What about your husband? - Uh, he has been retired.
He used to uh, remove asbestos.
And sir, this is what you've been doing for a living for quite a number of years
as I heard earlier.
And ma'am, were you always his sidekick there?
- I was. - You must have been in charge, I think.
I can tell. I can tell when you wanted to get up.
Alright. So the best I can glean from this situation is,
you had issues with your RV.
So you bring it to him.
He doesn't just get the RV and call the insurance company.
- He gets the RV- - And he cleans it up.
And he cleans it up.
While he is cleaning it up he sees this hail damage.
He tells you that these types of things can lead to other problems
because they're breaking the seal in different places.
And you say, "We'll put in an insurance claim because it hailed."
Now the photo of the hail damage, I think we've seen,
it's all with all circles around it.
- Would that be correct? - [Baker] That would be correct.
So he says you could probably put in an insurance claim
and you say, "Great, put in an insurance claim for me."
The insurance company reimburses you and your husband
at least $8,700 for all of the work that he did.
So your view from this is, "Well, I didn't really want him to do all that other work
that he ultimately did. All I wanted was the 2,500.
So that's all I'm gonna give him."
And the other money I'm going to just kind of what? Hold onto?
No, I, that was not my intention.
- You know how we judge your action? - Mr. Baker did a beautiful job.
You know, but you know in the law we have a charge that says,
"You can't always see the intent in somebody's mind, but you can grasp
what they've intended by the actions that they took."
Let's just say you got 2,500 for his insurance claim.
And then when all was said and done, he said, "I said 25, but it was was 24,
you could keep the hundred, that's not a big deal."
The insurance fraud comes in when you put in a claim
that you know is not what you are looking to do.
And he only gets 2,500. We have proof of that.
We have proof.
[Narrator] coming up on Tribunal Justice.
Your actions have consequences, ma'am.
You don't get to put a penny in your pocket
for the work that that man did.
I told you we were gonna prove insurance fraud.
That's exactly what we did.
The insurance fraud comes in when you put in a claim
that you know is not what you are looking to do.
And he only gets 2,500.
We have proof of that. We have proof.
I know you're entrenched in your position here but-
But to that check, there was a letter that was attached to that check.
Yeah, I see a letter here.
- Yeah, we saw the evidence. - And it refers to the damages
to our, our, our motor vehicle.
Mr. Baker kept saying that he was going to get estimates for it.
- Estimates for it. - But the point is,
you've got an insurance check for more than this.
Now, whether or not he should get that money,
that's a whole other issue, maybe.
But the reality here is, you kept it.
After putting in a claim for which you keep saying,
you did not intend.
Now I, what did you wanna say?
Uh, Larry would come over to our house every day, Mr. Hansen.
And every time he called or came over, he added more things
for my husband to check.
And I said, "How long is this gonna go on?"
We, he had other jobs to work on and Mr. Hansen
kept coming up with more things for him to do.
I said, "It seems funny to me. Something doesn't feel right."
But he kept calling and coming over and wanting more.
What did you think? What was your gut?
Did you think he wasn't gonna pay you in the end?
Exactly, I said, "He's trying to be your best friend right now."
- And I- - Because you thought he was kinda trying
to scam him basically.
Yes. And he, that's why he said he'd give him 2000 to fix the scratch.
See, the other problem is that in the papers
you say that you checked around in the area,
you got other resealing quotes and you weren't gonna give him more money.
That you were only gonna give him what the going rate was in the area.
You can't do that.
It's like going into a supermarket and saying, you know what,
I was in uh, Kifu the other day and this milk was only a dollar 50.
So I'm not gonna give you any more than that.
You're charging me two and a quarter. I'm not doing that.
You can't do that.
You are not an unintelligent woman. So you know a lot of this.
So for us to accept what you're saying at face value,
it defies common sense and logic.
Um, and I don't have any other questions.
I do.
Ms. Hansen, on September 29th, you sent him that $2,500 check.
And October 21st you responds in part, and he says,
"After some investigation, I have found out you guys were untruthful
several times to me.
One was that you would pay me when you got paid by your insurance company.
The check was made to you on June 1st, 2022.
We have still not been paid."
This is the man of his word. He says he's a handshake guy.
He says to you and your husband, go ahead, take the RV and you just pay me
as you say you would when the insurance company gives the check.
And you've indicated they haven't given you the check yet.
That was a lie.
I don't know when. I don't know.
Honestly, I don't know when Larry got the check.
- [Levy] Got it. - We picked up the RV on June 1st.
- [Levy] Why? - So I have no idea.
So the same day that you pick up the RV
just happens to be coincidentally the same day that the insurance company
gives you the check and you don't make any mention of that to him. Right?
- Like I said- - [Levy] I got it. You don't know.
- Okay. - So Mr. Baker then asks you
in this letter of October 21st, "Why should you make more money
for the work I did on the RV when I did all the work?"
I wanna see your response to this email when you said,
"That's not all I'm giving you. It's just a partial payment."
- Let me see that. - I don't have anything.
Yeah, exactly. I have nothing further.
We're gonna retire to deliberate.
Court stands in recess. Parties are excused.
Mr. Baker said it all in his letter.
"Why should you make more money for the work I did on the RV
when I did all the work?"
Period. She's incorrigible.
I can only imagine what the state of Minnesota had to do with her
and what she did for them in legal compliance for them.
It's insane.
She received a check for the insurance company for $8,718,
and that's the money that she has to pay him back.
The $2,500 check that was issued on September 29th,
I don't trust that she's going to honor that.
So I say that judgment in the favor of the plaintiff for $8,718 and one cent.
There was no reason he needed to file this lawsuit.
She knew that she was shorting him when she gave him only that $2,500.
She has no real defense. I would award for her bad faith.
Okay, so like you're saying,
she repeatedly told lies.
I mean, she cashed the check on the day she got it and then said,
well, I'll let you know when we get paid and then we can pay you.
And just sailed off into the sunset, you know, on their vacation.
He's entitled to the money that he earned, that he worked hard for.
Let's do that.
- I'm on board. - Yep. $8,718 and one cent.
- Great. - Thank you.
Court is back in session.
Parties are reminded, you're still under oath.
- Thank you, Byrd. - [Byrd] Mm-hmm.
Mr. Baker, do you have that check. The $2,500 check?
I do.
Can you take it out, please?
Rip it up.
We don't trust that she's gonna honor that check anyway.
I, I told him that in a text message.
- [Levy] Right. - That I want cash. I don't trust him.
So how many RV repair shops
are there within say, a hundred miles of where you live in Minnesota?
Probably 50 or more.
You may wanna take the information that we're gonna provide you with now
and share it with the other RV dealers.
- Okay. - About who the defendant is,
and what she's capable of.
Because we find her story completely incredible.
That there is no doubt in my mind that she committed insurance fraud.
She attempted to, but for your good efforts.
And, but for our ability to get to the truth,
let them know that before they do any work for her, that they wouldn't get paid.
- [Baker] Yes. - Your actions have consequences, ma'am.
You don't get to put a penny in your pocket for the work that that man did.
I told you we were gonna prove insurance fraud.
And that's exactly what we did.
The judgment's in your favor. $8,718 and one cent.
And the last thing I'm gonna say,
is that you had an opportunity when you came in here today
to make a request that they pay you by waiver counterclaim for damages done.
You were here, they were here. The same facts were here.
The same timetables were here.
You could have done it. You chose not to.
If you have an intent to file a claim against them for that damage,
you just make sure that whoever the judge is,
that they know that that issue was already involved in this litigation
and she failed to bring it up.
-- Thank you, Your Honor. - You're welcome.
- That's the judgment of the court. - Thank you.
This case is now concluded. Parties are excused. You may step out.
I don't have any comment.
You know it. That was a hard one. Yeah.
No comment.
You're done .
No comment.
Uh, always listen to your wife.
Now look at me and say it.
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