Loan negotiation is a critical component that, properly carried out, protects the borrower and the lender as well as helps ensure a good relationship. To give developers some tips on how to avoid construction loan legal problems and how to deal with them when they occur,
Barry Cappello, the father of lender liability, takes on the nation's banks and irritates Santa Barbara's legal community. Standing in the back of a Los Angeles courtroom during a recess in his most recent case against a big bank, A. Barry Cappello was sounding downright modest about what he had accomplished in his day-long summation.
On a boulevard lined with palm trees in Santa Barbara is a small firm that strikes fear in the boardrooms of large banks. A trailblazer in the field of lender liability, A. Barry Cappello and his firm represent small businesses that have been wronged by lenders.
Boeing Co. has agreed to pay $30 million to settle a lawsuit brought by neighbors of its Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County, ending an eight-year legal battle over the effect on public health from radioactive and chemical contamination at the lab. Terms of the settlement were reached in September but were not immediately disclosed. They included a confidentiality agreement between Boeing and the remaining 133 plaintiffs in the case.
The father of a 4-year-old boy who drowned three months ago while attending an unlicensed child care program at the Cathedral Oaks Athletic Club is urging the Santa Barbara County district attorney to investigate whether criminal negligence killed his son.
Two months after a 4-year-old boy drowned at Cathedral Oaks Athletic Club, officials from the state's Community Care Licensing Division determined that the private facility broke the law by operating without a child care license and ordered it to shut down its kids' Activity Camp.
Wells Fargo loan customers in minority communities in Los Angeles filed a class action lawsuit against the lender on Friday, August 5, charging Wells Fargo with discriminatory loan practices. The complaint says Wells Fargo consistently and knowingly discriminated against borrowers in minority neighborhoods resulting in borrowers paying more for their loans than borrowers in other parts of Los Angeles County.
After leaving the Santa Barbara City Attorney's Office for private practice, A. Barry Cappello began noticing that few people would bring lawsuits against big banks - particularly when it came to lender liability. Cappello realized it was a potential niche for his firm, Cappello & Noel (https://cappellonoel.com/). "Nobody was suing the banks because they were hiring the biggest lawyers in the world, and I didn't think that was right," Cappello said in an interview.
Lender liability, which first gained prominence in the mid-1980s, has gained acceptance as a substantive body of law. Briefly, lender liability law says lenders must treat their borrowers fairly, and when they don't, they can be subject to borrower litigation under a variety of legal claims. The evolution of lender liability has resulted in most cases now involving breach of contract and/or fraud claims.
In 2005, the firm settled a long-standing dispute against Boeing regarding toxic air contamination in neighborhoods adjacent to Boeing facilities near Simi Valley and in the San Fernando Valley -- both suburbs of Los Angeles. The 8 1/2-year case involved 59 personal injury claims and 117 wrongful death claims by the family members of 37 deceased individuals. The illnesses suffered included numerous forms of cancer, including bladder, brain, kidney, pancreatic, spinal cord, thyroid, Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, leukemia and multiple myeloma.
