By Timothy Wan

A very sophisticated property owner, whom I shall whom I shall refer to as “Talia Al Ghul”.  The underlying fact pattern is unique, but of course, herein Gotham City, anything can, and does, happen.

Talia, via her wholly owned entity, “Lazarus Pit LLC”, owned an apartment building here in Gotham, and of course, in conjunction with ownership, incurred various bills, including one with the Acme Utility Company.  Acme sued, she never appeared nor defended the case, and ultimately, Acme received a judgment for $23,000 in unpaid electric bills and perfected a lien on the real property. There was essentially no defense to the case.

Apparently, however, Talia was looking to sell the building, and when she did so, somehow deceived the Gotham City Title Company (GCTC), and omitted the Acme judgment from the title. The deed transferred to the innocent unsuspecting buyer, and Acme was furious. Acme filed sued against GCTC and Lazarus Pit LLC, and Talia once again, did nothing. As such, GCTC was forced to pay out to Acme for the full $23,000 judgment.

Then GCTC retained us, after most other Gotham City attorneys declined the case. We recommended suing Talia, but this time, individually. We alleged fraud, unjust enrichment, and all sorts of hefty claims, most of which didn’t matter in the slightest.  I knew full well that we were going to see Talia do the same thing she did before, which is a whole lot of nothing.

We sued, and obtained a default judgment for the full $23,000. Of course, were able to discover that just in the next county over in Coast City, Talia owned another apartment building, this one valued over $5 million.

We docketed it as a lien against the building, and then served subpoenas on each and every tenant in the building. Some ignored us, some told us that they pay her in cash. Some reported that she banked at Gotham City Savings, but we had already found that the bank had no leviable funds. And despite all the subpoenas, she did nothing.

After ten years, we renewed the judgment, and ensured the lien continued on the real property, and then, she tried to sell the building.  We were contacted by Arkham Title, stating that they were looking to satisfy the judgment from our client, and offered, what they said was fifty percent of the balance due, offering $1,150, which was based on a judgment of $2,300. I quickly advised Arkham Title that they were off one decimal point, that the judgment was $23,000, from ten years ago, and was now in excess of $40,000. Their response was that they didn’t believe me, but that they were trusting Talia, who was their client.

I responded with “She did it before, she’ll do it again”.

“What do you mean by that, Mr. Wan?”

“Well, the underlying lawsuit for which this judgment is based, is from when Talia lied to a title company. Do you think that was an isolated instance?”

After what was legitimately twenty seconds of silence, Arkham Title said, “Let us get back to you.”

The next day, they wired over the full $40,000.