Stolen Money

[LerBur2]

I went to court. The defendants attorney said he will agree to me having my $350 returned. However Im suing for $5000 'cause of other damages (the money stolen from my account was for things like paying for storage of the things in my apartment 'til I bonded out. I wound up losing all my things. The landlord threw them out. This and other things couldve been avoided had I had the missing money. My lost possessions account for the bulk of the money Im asking for). The attorney for the defendants basically said that suing for more wont be in my favor 'cause, as he stated, Itll be like suing a bank for more money than what was stolen from the account 'cause my intentions were to use the money to buy a car and thats just not how it goes. I would like to let a jury decide. I am tempted to taken the money and run, and get this over. Also Im sure theyre going to try and raise a point on my involvement to the money being stolen do to my own carelessness with my personal info. What do you suggest I do? What will happen If I decide not to take the $350 but press for more.

 

[Proserpina]

Can you actually prove the damages?

What is meant by "my own carelessness"? You really haven't given us much to work with, unfortunately.

 

[mightymoose]

It sounds like your beef over the loss of property is with the landlord, depending whether the landlord disposed of the property properly.
The person who stole money from you is not going to be responsible fir the landlord's actions.
The circumstances aren't very clear here, but it seems you might want to recover what you can from the thief and Sue the landlord for disposing of your property IF the landlord did so wrongly.

 

[Proserpina]

I disagree - if the initial wrongdoing led directly (and even indirectly in some instances) to the other losses, it's not the landlord who is responsible but the initial guilty party.

(Assuming this is in the US and tons of other details that the OP didn't give us )

 

[LerBur2]

Illinois: Heres what happened. I filed a lawsuit in the Will co circuit court of illinois against Will co jail officials because when I was there an inmate managed to forge my name to a document and steal $350.00 from my inmate trust acc. The document the inmate forged was signed and processed by the jail staff. When I went to court on may 11, 2012 the attorney for the defendents gave me a copy of a motion explaining that hes asking the court to dismiss my claim because the law on breach of fiduciary duties, in which I claimed was the violation in my claim, says the defendents must have used the money for personal gains, according to his interpretation. The next court date is June 8, 2012. What should I do? Should I file a motion to amend and if so what do I amend how or what? I did claim damages and asked for a $5,000.00 settlement in the claim.

 

[Proserpina]

Take the $350. You're not going to get $5k for this.

Not without one heck of an attorney, anyway.

 

[army judge]

You'll be lucky to get the $350. If I were you, I'd take it.
You don't have $5,000 in damages you can prove up. Take the money and run!