Callie D. Jones

Year: 2010
Award: full purchase price of home as part of summary Judgment
Protecting a Home Owner's Rights Against Big Guns

Callie Jones bought a new home a few years back that had been built by one of Baton Rouge’s largest builders. After hurricane Gustav left Callie without electricity for a week in 2008, Ms. Jones decided that she needed to install a natural gas standby generator. However, her permit for the generator was denied. The reason: Her house had actually been built directly on top of a right­of­way that belonged to the City of Baton Rouge—a critical fact that the builder had not disclosed to her at the time of purchase.

Ms. Jones asked the builder to buy her house back for what she paid for it, plus the price of several improvements that she had invested in. The builder summarily rejected Ms. Jones’ request—essentially telling her to go fly a kite. Her personal lawyer then referred her to the experts at Babcock Partners to pursue litigation.

The firm initially renewed the original purchase offer that Ms. Jones had made to the builder. Once again, he rebuffed the overture outright. But, as our winning track record has confirmed over and over again, Babcock Partners does not give up without a fight once we take on a case. Far from it. We immediately filed a Petition for Breach of Warranty, Redhibition, Damages, and Declaratory Judgment action for Insurance Coverage under her title insurance policy.

We then filed a Motion for Summary Judgment asking the judge to rule in our favor before the expense of a full-blown trial. The builder’s lawyers hired several expert witnesses to oppose our motion. We always assure clients that we will pursue their cases in the most proactive, yet cost­effective fashion possible. And, in this instance, we did not feel that it was either necessary or economically feasible to spend Ms. Jones’ money on experts, so therefore we did not.

Our strategy prevailed. The judge granted our Motion for Summary Judgment and ordered the builder to return the sum $219,896.48 paid by our client for the property, along with full reimbursement for all of the expenses she had incurred, including the improvements she had made to the residence.

Don’t let anyone bully or scare you into not taking legal action. Turn to the Babcock Partners, we’re a new breed of law firm that gets the job done. (Sometime even before a case goes to trial.)