Those of you that have been following my blog are aware that Milwaukee County Small Claims Court has indicated that it will not allow non-attorneys to represent LLC’s in court in the near future.
My earlier posts on this topic can be read here and here.
A fellow board member from the AASEW informed me today that one of the owner’s of a property he manages was handed the notice that I reproduced in my earlier post (you can read it here here), as he was leaving small claims court. The notice indicated that he would no longer be allowed to represent his LLC’s in small claims court as of September 1, 2009.
He indicated to the commisioner that handed him the notice that he was a full-time employee of the LLC and therefore can appear on behalf of the LLC in small claims court as allowed under Sec. 799.06(2) of the Wisconsin Statutes. The court commissioner’s reply was something to the effect that, ” I see you down here [small claims court] a lot, and you have many LLC’s. There is no way that you can be a full-time employee of all of them or you would have to work hundreds of hours per week.”
This issue seems to coming to a head very soon. Unless you are a full-time employee of an LLC, and you have written records to prove this, it looks as if September 1, 2009, will be the deadline by which you will need to have made arrangements to have an attorney represent your LLC’s in Milwaukee County Small Claims Court or risk having your case either adjourned or dismissed.
#1 by John (Dr Rent) Fischer on August 1st, 2009
| Quote
Thank you for your comment on my blog on this topic. It was interesting that I had a call from a “friend” of a landlord who wanted to go to court on his behalf and your post on who can an cannot represent a landlord came up at the same time.
When I saw in your blog what Milwaukee was trying to pull, I made a good friend of mine here in Wausau aware of your blog, Attorney Andrew Schmidt does a lot of family law and also specializes is landlord-tenant in northern and central Wisconsin. He actually represents tenants more often than landlords, so the fact that we are friends is sometimes interesting.
He confirmed that is what the state statute says, but most courts ignore the “full time” requirement, especially since that statute was created before the popularity of having each property be a separate LLC.
Rather than trying to fight the Small Claims court system, this might be an area that our apartment associations should look at for just changing the law to more accurately reflect the current business/liability situation.
#2 by Tristan on August 3rd, 2009
| Quote
Thanks for adding your thoughts John.
I would agree with your friend, Atty. Andrew Schmidt, that in that no other county in which I hanve handled work for landlords have I ever witnessed the court ask the representative appearing for the landlord if they are a full-time employee. That would include counties such as, Racine, Kenosha, Waukesha, Washington, Dane, and Ozaukee. Only Milwaukee seems to be interested in this issue.
I also agree that the only way that we may be able to handle this is to try to have it legislatively changed.
I appreciate your comments and insight