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Disclaimer - Legal Information Is Not Legal Advice »
Referenced Legal Documents »
Cause of Action »
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Evidence »
Choosing Your Court »
Choosing Your Defendant »
Protecting Yourself »
Serving Your Complaint »
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What Happens Next »
Judgments »
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This section provides information about the law as a guide, but legal information is not the same as legal advice - the application of law to an individual's specific circumstances. We strongly recommend you consult a lawyer if you want professional assurance that our information, and your interpretation of it, is appropriate to your particular situation.
The author is not a lawyer but a paralegal; these are general instructions not geared to a particular state, and the burden is on you to become familiar with your own particular circumstances.
Sample Affidavit
Sample Complaint
Sample Notice of Hearing
Sample Deposition
You have to identify what your state allows as a cause of action (reason to sue). Most states and municipalities have rules about nuisances, and certainly if you have one boomer who makes regular or frequent appearances within your earshot, he is a nuisance. Filing a nuisance claim is the easiest route.
Many states and cities have their statutes and ordinances on their web sites and you can often search these sites by key words. Search for 'noise,' 'nuisance' and 'motor vehicles.' Florida's statute governing the sounds coming from a car stereo falls under its chapter on motor vehicles, even though at the state level this is considered a non-moving violation.
If your state or municipality has a noise ordinance, so much the better. If your police can be encouraged to ticket the offender, and then he continues to flaunt the law, so much the better. This is a good basis for a suit because it shows the court that your perpetrator is defiant and lawless.
If the police cannot be encouraged to do so, this is acceptable, because it gives you grounds to go into a court and say, I can't get any relief from the law so I am looking for a civil remedy.
The other basis for a suit is an injunction. Even without a noise ordinance, you can probably go into court and ask a judge for an injunction against the offending behavior. An injunction is an order barring the defendant from doing what he was doing - driving by or near your house and making noise. If he violates the injunction, he is in contempt of court and can be fined or even imprisoned.
The noise ordinance strengthens your request for an injunction, but it is not a necessity. Normally when you ask for an injunction you have to be sure to say that the behavior is repetitive in nature, will not stop without a court order, and is robbing you of something - in this case, the right to the peaceful enjoyment of your property - something universally recognized as a right and something that is actually stated in the preamble to the Constitution.
You may also want to include a claim for damages. The court may not actually award you any, and it may even throw out this claim because your state law may not allow it, but there's no harm in trying. You want to claim damages for pain and suffering and not state an amount - if the court allows your claim for money, the judge can decide whether your problem is worth one dollar or ten thousand. Money is, after all, not what this is about, but putting in a claim for damages is going to cause concern when your offender gets the papers served on him.
Courts are normally much less strict with people who appear without attorneys (this is known as going 'pro se'), so while it's a good idea to try to dot all the i's and cross all the t's, don't get worked up about any procedural errors you might commit. If the court insists that you have to fix something, it will normally dismiss your case without prejudice and give you a chance to amend your complaint. (If you end up being dismissed with prejudice, you may not amend and in fact you cannot even file again against this defendant - you've essentially been told to go away. See Choosing The Defendant, below.)
If you have a problem identifying the grounds on which you are allowed to sue, start by finding out if there is an attorney who works for your police department. That attorney will know what ordinances or statutes are out there for you to use with regard to items that fall within the police department's jurisdiction. If that fails, find a free law clinic in your area - look in the yellow pages under Legal Services, or call your state or county bar association for a referral. Say that you are thinking of filing your own lawsuit against a neighbor, you can't afford an attorney, and can someone there please answer a quick question for you. Usually this will be enough to get a lawyer on the phone.
Exhibits can serve to underscore the nature of your complaint and to educate your judge. If you are going for an injunction, you will need to attach an affidavit about the problem.
If your local newspaper has published any articles about the boom car problem, attach them to show the judge there is indeed a problem. If the paper has received letters on the subject, attach those. We have a collection of the outrageous boom car ads used by the manufacturers.
If you have high blood pressure, or some other condition that is aggravated by loud noise, get a letter from a doctor that attests to your medical condition. You can also state in your complaint that you are on medication and the offender is making your illness worse.
Do not attach to your complaint anything that is irrelevant. Do not use the complaint as a chance to pontificate. Do not talk about how other people are suffering - you have no direct knowledge of what anyone else is going through and you and only you are the complainant here.
Unless you can get your defendant a ticket for booming, this is going to be tricky. The best evidence is a video of his boom car passing through your neighborhood and including a shot of his tag number. Barring that, you may have to rely on collaborative testimony - another victim in your neighborhood who is willing to stand up and verify what you heard and saw.
Better yet, find a sympathetic a police officer willing to keep an eye on your block, and if he didn't ticket - at least testify that he heard and saw this vehicle. You should also be able to get your local police to check their computers to see if this person has been ticketed anywhere for booming. A ticket demonstrates a propensity to the behavior and a failure on the part of the defendant to learn anything from a criminal penalty.
You can also use an audio recorder. I carry mine in the car and when I come upon a boomer, I record the offender's noise, state the date, time, place, a description and tag number of the vehicle, and a quick word about its driver, and then just pull up and roll down the window. The device will pick up the noise very nicely and can later be used in court, although obviously it can be challenged as to whose noise it really is.
Most boomers are not smart enough to realize that you may have a problem proving they did what you are accusing them of. They know they're guilty and will assume you can prove it. It's another incentive for them to settle out of court.
Most counties have several levels of courts, going from the lowest, which is usually small claims court, and then on up to larger claims. Your suit is not mainly for money - in most places a suit for injunctive relief goes to the top layer of the court. You can call your court's clerk and ask about this.
In Florida, it costs $255 to file an injunction lawsuit. Most states have a form you can fill out to state that you cannot afford to pay the court's fees; this is known as filing 'in forma pauperis'. You fill out an affidavit stating that you are indigent - and you have to be practically on food stamps or SSI or some other government program to qualify as indigent. In Florida, even owning a car is proof that you are not poor. And, in the current financial situation of the country, a lot of courts are becoming very strict about letting people do this.
Be careful to get into the right court - nothing gets a suit thrown out faster than filing it in the wrong court. And be sure about the location - you have to sue where the noise occurred.
Always take great care when identifying or dealing with your offender. Keep a low profile and be very discreet.
If you have a repeat offender in your neighborhood, get his tag number. Try not to let the offender see you do this. Sometimes the best approach is to wait a block or more away and then just casually pull in behind him in traffic. Walking up to his car and writing down his plate number is dangerous.
Take this number to the local authorities along with a description of the car (make, model, color), and ask them to run the plate, identify the owner of the car, and pay a visit at his residence to let him know a verbal complaint has been lodged against him. They will not give this information to you, but for now, that's okay. If they refuse to act for you, just walk away. If they agree and actually pay your offender a visit, your troubles may be over. Often a visit from the police is sufficient to send the offender elsewhere.
If not, it's now up to you to find out where your offender lives. If you know anyone who works for the police or the sheriff, a discreet inquiry might get you the information. That information is confidential and it is against the law for anyone inside the system to release it. If you can discreetly follow your offender by car, one or more times to confirm he's actually going to his own residence, do so. If you can afford to hire a private investigator, that's even better. If you can't do either, but you strongly suspect your offender either lives in your neighborhood or passes through with some regularity, then be prepared to sue him as John Doe - this will initiate a procedure by which the court can order the local authorities to identify him for you.
Avoid suing anyone who looks like he can easily hire an expensive lawyer to fight you. In some communities, it is actually the offspring of affluent residents who are doing the most damage, and that is problematic unless you are prepared to spend a lot of money prosecuting your case. On the other hand, some judges take a special interest in poor folks when the other side shows up with a well-heeled attorney to defend a spoiled son or daughter. Judges recognize the inequity in these situations and you may automatically start getting special treatment.
If you sue a minor, you may also be allowed to sue his parents. It's a good idea because while the kid may not care about damages, his parents are not going to be happy about the prospect of having to pay damages, court costs, and attorneys' fees to defend their little darling. My defendant had just turned 18, and his parents were very smart: they made the lawsuit his problem.
Get a post office box to use as the address on your complaint. You do not want the offender to know where you live. If you do not have a cell phone, get one. Do not put your home phone number on the complaint.
When you identify the area where the offender is being a nuisance, be vague about exactly where you live. If the offender is booming on a street, you can say in the complaint that he is booming on a street close to your residence to rattle your windows and doors. Do not give the offender sufficient information to figure out who and where you are.
Most states and counties allow for complaints to be served by the sheriff. A few allow you to mail your complaint, along with an affidavit about who you are, where you mailed it and when. Be careful how you serve the complaint, because improper service is another major cause of dismissal of lawsuits.
Most states have published 'Rules of Civil Procedure' that set forth exactly how you are allowed to serve. Most do not allow you, as a party to the action, to serve but require an independent, uninvolved third party, such as the sheriff or a process server. If you cannot find exact instructions on this, call the local free law clinic and try to get someone to help you.
Your complaint probably needs a summons attached to it, telling your defendant he's being sued and advising him how much time he has to answer. The clerk will issue the summons for you - that is, sign and stamp the original with the official court seal and give you a copy. Normal procedure is to attach the copy of the sealed summons to the defendant's copy of the complaint; the date and time of service are noted on the face of the original summons and it is returned to the court for filing in your case file, where it becomes part of the official record of your case. Once again, you will have to consult your Rules of Procedure or a law clinic to get the details for your jurisdiction.
There may be other filing requirements. In Florida, you must attach a form called a 'Civil Cover Sheet,' naming the parties and the cause of action. This is nothing more than an administrative form that tells the court folks what kind of suits are being filed - it makes more paperwork for the citizen so that the courts can keep statistics.
It is very important to try to get your local media to pick up on this story.
The best scenario is that your defendant fails to do anything. It means that after the time for responding expires, the court can rule in your favor without any further ado - your defendant has defaulted. You will have to use the Rules to find out how to go about getting a default judgment, but the bottom line is that you have won. See below on Judgments.
If your offender hires an attorney, the first thing that lawyer is going to do is move to dismiss your complaint. This is virtually an automatic response to any lawsuit and is considered standard procedure. Be prepared not to survive this motion; you have filed pro se, you are not an attorney, and chances are somewhere along the line you missed something important to make your suit viable. But do not wait for the judge to rule on this motion to dismiss. Your immediate response, either in writing or, if you can get the judge's office to give you a hearing, is that you disagree with the motion to dismiss, but if the judge is inclined to grant it, you want the court to give you an opportunity to correct whatever deficiency the motion to dismiss raises, and so you'd like his order to reflect that you have a certain number of days to amend your complaint.
Most courts will not rule on a motion to dismiss without a hearing. Unless there's something seriously deficient about your complaint, most judges want to give both sides a chance to be heard. If the court notifies you that you must set a hearing, find out what dates and times are available on the court's calendar, contact the other side's attorney (or the other side, if he's going it alone), find out what date and time are good for him, then notify the court of the date you've chosen. Some courts just tell you when to be there and they notify the other side.
If you have to notify the other side, you will need to prepare a notice of hearing. Now that you've served the complaint on your defendant, everything else can be delivered to him or his attorney by mail. If and when your defendant hires an attorney, it is improper for you to have any direct contact with him, verbally, in writing, any way at all. From now on you deal with his lawyer.
Assuming you survive the hearing on the motion to dismiss and your case is now moving forward, the ball is in your court. To establish the 'wrongness' of your defendant's behavior, you will want to set him down for a deposition, at which he must appear with assorted papers that will show you what he has done to his car, what he paid for it, etc. The requirements for your jurisdiction may be different, but essentially you set a date, time and place with your defendant or, if he's represented, his counsel, and you hire a court reporter to record the deposition on tape. You will have to pay the court reporter for his or her time plus, if you want a transcript, a fee by the page for a transcription. If the other side wants a copy of that transcript, they have to pay the court reporter for it. You do not have to get a transcript - if you don't feel that enough good stuff came out at the deposition, don't order it transcribed.
One of the objectives of setting a deposition is to make your defendant uncomfortable by asking questions about his past, any criminal record, education (or lack of it), whether he has had his hearing checked, whether he has ever been told that the device in his car may damage his health - all of this designed to show the court that your defendant is not very bright, nor law-abiding, and cares little for his own health while damaging yours. It helps to show he has paid for equipment in his car that is not commensurate with his wages.
If your defendant fails to appear at his deposition, the court reporter will prepare an affidavit of nonappearance and give it to you. File this with the court; it is more evidence that your defendant is not a good person. You can ask the court for an order compelling the defendant to appear, and if he ignores that he can end up in contempt of court; but in the long run you are better off just telling the judge that the defendant is not cooperating - it makes you look good by comparison.
It does not much matter what you are able to draw out of the defendant at the deposition. Just having him appear with his papers is an inconvenience, and your job is to make it as inconvenient as possible. Ask a lot of unrelated questions (date and place of birth; schooling; what do his parents do for a living, how long has he lived at this address, Social Security number, any health problems; does he wear glasses or a hearing aid; has he had his hearing tested.) Make the deposition last for hours. Wear him down.
Once you have held that deposition, or filed an affidavit of nonappearance, there is not much left to do. You can now notify the court that the case is at issue, meaning it can be set for trial, and the judge's assistant will pick a date and time for the trial. You have not asked for a jury - and in most jurisdictions you won't want one - so it will be you, the defendant, his attorney, if any, and the judge.
The other side's lawyer may want to depose you, and he has the right to do so. He will try to get you to admit that you don't know for a fact who was booming by your house; to admit that your damages are really very slight and unimportant; that you're just a nut case looking to make trouble. Never lose your cool during a deposition. Keep calm, say only what is necessary to respond to the question, volunteer nothing, and if you don't know or don't remember, say so. Remember: it's this guy's job to make you look bad; don't do his work for him.
If you win, the judge will enter an injunction against your defendant and award you some type of damages. How you collect on the damages depends on what state you're in, and it is a matter of checking the Rules of Procedure. In Florida, the judgment is recorded in the public records. If your defendant doesn't want to pay, you can set him down for a deposition in aid of execution, at which you make him produce proof of everything he owns - property, cars, bank accounts, jewelry, bonds, stocks, etc. Once you know what his assets are, you can have the sheriff execute on your judgment by going to his property and seizing the equivalent value of your judgment in goods. You can also attach his bank account, and if he has no assets or savings, you can garnish his wages.
If you lose, and the court grants the other side's motion to dismiss or rules against you after the bench trial, you may be required to pay the other side's legal fees. This is another good reason to pick your defendant carefully. You want someone who lacks the resources to fight you. You can inform others in the noise pollution movement about your plans to sue and see if you have enough clout to get a support pot going - pledges from other members to send money to help you pay those fees in the event you are forced to pay the defendant's expenses.
If you're very resourceful, you might be able to find an attorney who will take your case for free (pro bono). A little research at the courthouse or in your local newspaper might pull up the name of someone who is a social crusader, or someone in the law profession who has his own gripe with noisemakers. If you can find cases in your local court where someone was sued for noise - barking dogs, loud home entertainment, too much traffic in and out of the house at all hours - give the attorney who brought the case a call. You never know when you're going to find someone as angry as you are.
If you have a neighbor who not only also hears your offender but feels as you do, then bring the suit jointly - the more people who come in as plaintiffs, the worse your defendant is going to look. If your neighbor is reluctant to get his name and address and phone number into the complaint, ask him or her for an affidavit, which requires nothing more than the name and a statement that he or she lives in the area and has heard and suffered from the booming of your defendant.
Consider your own health and living habits when you bring your suit. Do you have high blood pressure? Booming makes it worse. Do you work nights and sleep days? Boomers are your worst enemy. Do you have an elderly parent living with you, or a small child? Both of these groups are very disturbed by boomers. Do parts of your house rattle that didn't used to rattle? Boomers are vibrating your home and devaluing it.
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