From the Case Files of the Petty Lawyer
He volunteers to fight the minor irritants of modern life. As such, he is a major force for justice. He is not, however, a real lawyer.
Petty grievances. We all have them. It may be a sneaky surcharge on a cellphone bill. Or getting gouged for a $3.75 “convenience fee” at an ATM. How about shrinking legroom on planes? Shrinking Halloween candy or shrinking everything these days? Whether it’s a minor wrong in need of righting or a tiny hatchet left unburied, these are the modern irritants to which we all relate but rarely have the time or patience to pursue.
That’s why I offer petty counsel to fight these grievances on your behalf. Cue barky infomercial with me in a cheeseball suit in front of a green screen raining cash:
Petty law is my specialty. It’s a niche below actual law but above what is generally—and annoyingly—hashtagged #FirstWorldProblems. These are the lowest and least sympathetic of civic frustrations, such as your Uber driver taking forever, receiving a lukewarm macchiato or a restaurant not offering Wi-Fi. You can complain, but from a petty-law perspective you’re on your own.
Of course, there’s a limit to pettiness. As constituents, consumers and cohabitants, we’re more often than not expected to let it go, forgive and forget, agree to disagree, quit our griping, be the bigger person, and so on. This is the price we pay for living in civil society.
But there is a zone between genuine injury and liveand-let-live indifference. This is the zone of pettiness, a place where the small print on a warranty or a chilly customer service representative gives rise to a gnawing sense of having been wronged. It’s a placer reflected in my slogan: “The Petty Lawyer—when it’s a small thing, but a big thing.”
I fight sub-legal battles on behalf of friends young and old. (Young people mainly complain about errors in increasingly automated systems; old people mainly complain about anything.) I take cases out of a sense of justice, but mainly for my own amusement and mostly pro bono. To date, I have a respectable 50 per cent success rate.
The Case of the Lifeless Socks
There’s a fine line between gimmick and guarantee. I bought wool socks at Mark’s Work Wearhouse off a display rack that advertised a lifetime guarantee. Simple enough. The company enticed consumers to buy these socks with the expectation they’d last a very, very long time, while fully anticipating no one in their right mind keeps their receipts or would think to bring back raggedy socks five or 10 or 20 years later. They clearly don’t know Peter J. Worden.
In the end, I didn’t have to wait that long. After a summer working in the oilfield, I returned to the same store with the socks, which now had holes in the heels. In the interim, “Mark’s” had rebranded itself to appeal not just to working men and women but also to their co-shopping spouses. As a consequence, the store sold pink flannel pyjamas and bathing suits but not my particular super socks. The store manager explained the change in distributors, and I was asked to kindly remove my nasty socks from the counter and told no refund would be issued.
I decided to write Mark a firmly worded e-mail about his lack of foresight in promising a lifetime guarantee on socks, and received an envelope in the mail: “As a gesture of goodwill,” read the note, “please find the gift card in the amount of $25.” Case closed.
The Case of the Bracket Racket
No one should take the phrase “bumper-to-bumper” literally. I know that. Despite the catchy name, even the most thorough warranty won’t cover general wear and tear: filters, brake pads, paint, yadda-yadda. So, when a friend and savvy car buyer splurged on an extensive and expensive five-year “bumper-to-bumper” warranty to protect his new
Nissan truck, he understood its limits. But when the truck’s nickel-plated bumpers began to rust, chip and peel after one Calgary winter, he brought it back to the dealership where he was told the bumpers—the part of the vehicle that is mentioned not once but twice in the warranty—were not themselves covered. He was told bumpers were like parentheses or brackets and bumper-to-bumper meant everything within them was under warranty, but not the bumpers themselves. I also learned Nissan dealers suffer no end of headaches from the warranty. I suggest the manufacturer change either the name or nature of the warranty. This case goes in the loss column.
The Case of the 200-Year Flip-Flops
Before I begin, let me say that I recognize that paying $100 for a pair of flip-flops (essentially, foot thongs) is insane. But this was Los Angeles and these weren’t ordinary flippy-floppies. These were Panama Jacks Arturo sandals with nappa-leather-lined anatomical insoles bound in cork … and I’m pretty certain Rhianna walked by and checked me out.
Palais Des Modes on Melrose Avenue seemed, at first glance, to be respectable if a tad la-di-dah. As its owner, an elderly Armenian man who told me to call him Ned, rang up my purchase, I asked about a warranty. He smiled and paused for emphasis: “100 years,” he said,
like these sandals would serve King Tut well in the afterlife. I accepted this gentleman’s agreement that the flip-flops would positively not steer me wrong. Then he amended his statement: “200 years.”
But as soon as the soles hit the lava-hot California asphalt, the flipflops peeled apart like Apollo 13 re-entering the atmosphere. I had a flight to catch, so could not pursue my grievance in person. But over the next year and a bit, I initiated a series of hapless attempts to get satisfaction. I called Ned, mailed him the flip-flops, e-mailed him the tracking information and called him again and again. Each time, he’d answer and I’d say: “It’s Peter with the 200-year flip-flops.” I’d persist; he’d obfuscate.
I figured the only way to settle this was in person. So, the next time I was in L.A., I went back to Ned’s Crapatorium. A monster novelty flip-flop leaned against the entranceway. I had it planned out: I’d confront Ned, and if he refused to replace or refund my garbage flip-flops, I’d come back and heist his stupid novelty flip-flop. (Finding creative settlements is another major difference between real law and petty law, so long as the petty punishment fits the petty crime.)
To my surprise, Ned remembered me. Without making a scene, I asked him one last time to honour his self-avowed guarantee on the 200-year flip-flops, according to him, now lost in the labyrinths of the United States Postal Service.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “How about you take my word for it like I took your word over this 200-year-warranty,” I answered. Again to my surprise (and Ned’s credit) he ambled over to a table stacked high with sandals. “What size?” he asked, and plucked a pair of 11s off the table and handed them to me. We shook hands. I thanked him for being a man of integrity. Truth be told, I was grateful to be spared the task of lugging an oversized flip-flop back through customs. Case closed.
Petty law is such that its upper reaches verge on the realm of actual law. This is a problem for me as a petty lawyer as opposed to an actual lawyer. Some petty matters quickly escalate into actual legal matters and I’ve found myself stymied. Case-in-point: condo boards. A friend once approached me shortly after he’d been evicted from his condo after neighbours complained that he stinks. I turned the case down; I may think I’m a lawyer but condo boards think they’re above the law.
The Case of the Travelling Sound
This one pains me. A Calgary condo board issued two noise complaints to a friend. The first was a warning, the second was a $250 fine that was automatically deducted from his damage deposit. But there was one major problem: on the dates in question he was out of the country. His neighbour, however, a DJ with all his equipment set up in the apartment, was not.
I took on the matter and began by scheduling a meeting at the property management company’s office to state my client’s case. I introduced myself as a petty lawyer and counsel to my friend. They introduced their actual lawyer. Five minutes in, they stopped me—
“—wait, wait, wait,” interrupted the con-
do-board director, “so you’re not a lawyer?”
“Well, no. I’m a petty lawyer,” I answered. This was followed by an awkward pause and blank stares.
“Give us a moment,” the director said, and they all left the room to conspire in the hallway. When they returned, she said: “We won’t be settling anything,” and asked me to leave.
This case rests… for now. But one of the great things about petty law is that there’s no statute of limitations. So long as my friend is aggrieved, I will continue to seek a settlement. Sure, the damage deposit will never be refunded, but that doesn’t mean justice can’t still be served. Petty justice is best settled in a court of public opinion, so maybe the best option is to set up a turntable, speakers and megaphone on the street outside the condo building head office and hold that noisy dance party that he already paid for. Or maybe we can write a long, long song about it, hold up a boom box like John Cusack in High Fidelty and play it loudly at the condo board’s window. And repeat. I still have some petty legal
tricks up my sleeve.
The Case of the Missing Meat
Most of the time our automated world makes for customer-service hell. Think of any 1-800 helpline that asks you to “Press 1” then “Press 4” then “Press 3” before disconnecting you with a cheery “thank you, goodbye.” But sometimes technology works in our favour; all it takes is a tweet. I photographed the paltry amount of actual meat I received in a pack of Maple Leaf bacon. When cooked, it shrivelled down to little more than a handful of bacon bits. I wrote: “Buyer beware of @MapleLeafFoods Campfire brand “500 g” bacon with 400 g of fat. Whatta rip.” Within 15 minutes I received a tweet that offered an apology, the 1-800 number for customer service and a reference number to cite to expedite the process. In the end, Maple Leaf Foods sent me two gift certificates—one to replace the crappy pack of bacon and one to buy more Maple Leaf Foods food. It’s an example of the winwin of good customer service: I was satisfied and Maple Leaf avoided losing a customer. Case closed.
The Case of the Long Haul
I hounded Greyhound for years over a trip I took through northern Alberta. A decade ago, the bus company was trying to establish itself as a freight service. The drivers were paid an additional dollar an hour (or so I was told) to tow a cargo trailer and load and unload packages at their stops. On Christmas Eve 2006, I was travelling from Edmonton to Hay River, Northwest Territories. The coach was late leaving because it was awaiting a trailer. We finally got underway about two hours late, but the coach soon broke down outside Peace River. We marched into town to find the bus depot closed, leaving us to mill around and lean on the hospitality of a few kind Peace Riverites who opened the café for us. Six hours later, after taking a thorough walking tour of Peace River, a replacement bus and driver arrived and we carried on north. At around 2 a.m., we arrived in High Level. By now, all the other passengers had gotten off. I awoke on an empty bus to a strange thumping and went outside to see the driver tossing boxes from the Greyhound station into the coach’s undercarriage and muttering to himself.
He held up a box: “Fragilé,” he said. “I don’t speak French.” Then he threw the package onto the heap. It was only he and I that cold night, diesel exhaust hanging in the frozen air. Being in the Christmas spirit, I helped transfer a bunch of crated saw blades as he unloaded a busload of anger about Greyhound’s new corporate policy.
After my holiday and journey into the fascinating inner workings of Greyhound operations, I wrote the company a letter to tell them about my unusual experience. I received no response. I wrote another and another; they all went unanswered. A year passed. I sent an anniversary card reminding them of my dissatisfaction, first with bus service and now with customer service. Two years passed. I sent condolences to whoever died in the customer service and basic human decency department. Three years passed and my persistence finally paid off. Greyhound issued me a refund for half the ticket, explaining they did get me to my destination … eventually. Fair enough.
I sent a final letter, a thank-you card, saying that in this age of increased bottom-line optimization, I’m convinced it will be the companies who realize their customers are human beings and not boxed freight that will prosper. Case closed.
Injury lawyers have long been accused of bringing society to new lows. Whether it’s fighting for huge payouts for clients who have spilled hot McDonalds coffee on themselves, or suing Red Bull because it doesn’t actually “give you wings,” their use of tort law has been the subject of ridicule.
As a petty lawyer, I get a lot of the same eye rolling. People often ask how low I will go. That remains to be seen, I say. My petty lawyer slogan is “When it’s a small thing … but a big thing.” Our petty grievances are personal, and fighting them is a matter of principle, time and energy.
At its worst, petty law is mere niggling. But in the right instances, it prevents companies from running roughshod over paying customers. To never complain results in a slow erosion of societal expectations. Pettiness, in the best sense, draws a line in the sand; it encourages better customer service and overall positive social change. I rest my case.