The day after I left First American Title on March 9th, 2015, I started to work for the new title company, Northwest Title. Immediately, First American filed a federal lawsuit against Northwest Title and tried to get the company shut down. What was a complete shock to me and everyone else is that they named four defendants in the lawsuit; Northwest Title, Mike Smith (owner/attorney), Jeff Williams (owner) and Kristi Carrell (not an owner, not an attorney). They brought over 100 employees with them to the court hearing and we had to watch silently as our former co-workers laughed and pointed at us when what was being said was full of lies and innuendo. Anyway, after they deposed about 20 of the 28 employees of Northwest Title, cost us over 2.8 million dollars in attorney fees, we found ourselves heading to Federal Court for a jury trial the day after Thanksgiving. Every day for 3 weeks I went to the courthouse and heard First American talk about what a horrible person I and others around me are and were. It was a brutal, torturous, uncomfortable, terrifying, all-out horrible experience. The judge was completely and totally on the side of First American and tried at every chance to screw us over. After the judge determined that voided and invalid contracts that we signed 12 years prior with Equity Title were still valid at First American, the jury was asked to award damages to First American for those breach of contracts. They awarded First American $50,000 against me, $50,000 against Jeff and 1.6 million against Mike Smith and 1.5 million against the company Northwest Title. When Northwest tried to pay First American in full, they declined the money and said they wanted more. Finally, on January 30, 2017, the owners of Northwest Title decided to shut down operations and close their doors. So began the most financially, emotionally and disheartening experience of my professional career. Long story short, I now work for US Title which is owned by an accountant and a business man, 25% of my income is being taken from every paycheck and given to First American (approximately $1500/month) and I really am unsure what the future holds now. I even tried to borrow the money and pay First American the full 50K plus one quarter of the court awarded "costs" and First American denied my offer to pay them in full saying I needed to pay for my portion AND the portion of costs for the other three defendants since the document had language that stated; "joint and severally" and the other three were filing for bankruptcy. They've attached a lien to our home and drained our bank accounts more than once just for the heck of it. They've filed complaints with the State Bar to try to get Mike's license revoked, (thankfully the Bar said the complaints were not proven to be true and even if they were, they don't constitute a breach of ethical duty) they've told the owners of US Title that I'm a dishonest and horrible person and that they should fire me immediately. (Which they almost did, but Mike talked them into keeping me) I guess everyone in life has their challenges, this one is a big one for me. The good news is, birthday #42 has a very low bar to hit to be better than birthday #41.
