Attorney P. Melanie Vliet's Legal Cases

Administrative law

Nearly Made Homeless by Giving

Dec 17, 2013

OUTCOME: The termination of my client's housing benefits was overturned.

Years previously my Christian client had incorporated his modest ministry of feeding the homeless. Now, suffering from various disabilities, he received housing assistance. The Housing Authority no ... tified him that it was terminating his benefits because he had failed to report income from an unreported business. The business was his non-profit ministry to the homeless, for which he received insufficient donations to provide even one meal per week to the needy; from his own poverty he was supplying most of the funding to purchase the food he distributed.

Discrimination

Reasonable Accommodation

N/A

OUTCOME: Through mediation my client agreed to modify the RV and obtained the right to park it in her driveway.

An elderly client had broken her back over twenty years ago and required easy access to her RV as the only vehicle she could safely drive. Her city's ordinance prohibited parking an RV in a residential ... driveway.

Debt settlement

Minuscule Dispute

N/A

OUTCOME: The creditor zeroed out my client's balance.

My elderly client had cancelled a water delivery service and disagreed with the balance owing on her account. While agreeing that she owed over $100 to the company, she asserted that she owed $36.57 le ... ss than her balance indicated.

Debt settlement

Blood from a Turnip

N/A

OUTCOME: I settled my client's debt for one-tenth of the amount owing.

My client, formerly wealthy, had experienced significant economic reversals. He had negotiated a payment plan on his remaining credit card debt and was without fail making the agreed upon $99 monthly p ... ayments, although they were very difficult for him to manage. Suddenly the creditor was calling in the entire balance of over $11,000.

Administrative law

Awakened to Accusations

N/A

OUTCOME: The termination of my clients' housing benefits was overturned.

My clients were an elderly couple from the Middle East with disabilities. First one and then the other of their two daughters had been the authorized live-in aide of her father. The Housing Authority b ... ecame convinced that the aide was not living on-site and that the couple was receiving unreported income. Investigators awakened the family early one morning, interrogated those present in English (not their native language), and searched the apartment. Finding both daughters sleeping there, the Housing Authority altered its theory to allege that there was an unauthorized resident and unreported income. We showed that the second daughter was visiting within the number of nights permitted under Housing Authority rules and that the portion of the live-in aide's pay that she was giving her mother to deposit in the couple's checking account covered only her own meals with them and other living expenses and was not used to support her parents.

Debt settlement

Client's Son Stepped Up

N/A

OUTCOME: I negotiated a reduced settlement amount (about half the balance owing) with the creditor and persuaded the client's son to obtain a loan and pay off the credit card debt he had incurred on his mother's account.

An elderly client found herself defending a lawsuit when her dental account went into arrears. The unpaid services had been performed on the client's adult son, whom she had permitted to charge them on ... her account.

Landlord or tenant

Rare Decision for the Defense

N/A

OUTCOME: The court permitted the tenant to retain possession of the premises upon paying the rent due--reduced by the cost of the sink repairs.

I represented a tenant in an unlawful detainer case. The tenant had reduced the amount he had paid on his rent in a month when he had resorted to having his kitchen sink repaired when the landlord had ... failed to do so. The landlord had subsequently refused to accept tender of the following month's rent.

Education

A First for Legal Aid

N/A

OUTCOME: The Regional Center offered to pay for a new psychological assessment of the teen, and services were granted.

A client had two teenage sons with autism. While the elder son was receiving Regional Center services pursuant to his disability, the younger had repeatedly been denied such services. I assisted his mo ... ther in appealing this decision, which would, if upheld, have prevented her from obtaining a limited conservatorship over her son when he reached the age of majority.

Employment and labor

Worthy of Her Hire

N/A

OUTCOME: My demand letter resulted in the client's receiving all the wages she had earned.

A client had left her job to pursue her education and devote more of her time to her three teenage children, two of whom suffered from disabilities. Her former employer refused to pay her for her final ... weeks of service.

Consumer protection

Work-Around

N/A

OUTCOME: In communicating with the cemetery's agent, I discovered that there would be no charge to add the client's daughter's name to the title of the plot.

An elderly client wished to convey her burial plot to her daughter but could not afford the cemetery's transfer fee of several hundred dollars.

P. Melanie Vliet's Legal Cases (12)

Nearly Made Homeless by Giving

Reasonable Accommodation

Minuscule Dispute

Blood from a Turnip

Awakened to Accusations

Client's Son Stepped Up

Rare Decision for the Defense

A First for Legal Aid

Worthy of Her Hire

Work-Around