Media Articles on Law Firm

Deputies Find Missing Checks

The Sacramento Bee Final
Saturday, February 3, 1990
By Marcos Breton

The president of the Sacramento County Deputy Sheriffs' Association has produced what could become important evidence in a lawsuit over a lease dispute between the association and a retired Clarksburg couple.

Wendell Phillips this week showed The Bee canceled checks made out to River City Services totaling $11,954 money he said the association paid a contractor in 1982 to remodel and improve the deputy sheriffs' association's former offices at 1515 30th St.

Extensive efforts to contact River City Services, or anyone related to the firm, were unsuccessful.

The work Phillips said was done on the building has been an issue in a dispute between the association and George and Gale Hamatani, retired farmers currently living in Clarksburg. Phillips also gave copies of the checks this wee to the Hamatani's attorney.

Earlier, Phillips had said he could not remember the name of the contractor or produce the checks he said paid for the work.

Last year, the Hamatanis sued the association after it refused to pay rent on the offices and eventually moved out of the building.

Phillips contends the association left the building because its computer equipment was damaged by "faulty and inappropriate wiring" in the building. Who is responsible for the faulty wiring is the focus of the Hamatanis' lawsuit.

Clement Kong, attorney for the Hamatanis, believes work commissioned by the deputy sheriffs' association in the early 1980s before his clients purchased the building was responsible for the electrical problems.

But Phillips said that it was wiring outside the building that caused the association's computers to malfunction. As landlords, the Hamatanis were responsible for the wiring, Phillips contends.

Phillips has charged that complaints by the association to the Hamatanis went unanswered, prompting the association to move to a new location on H Street.

During an arbitration hearing last year, which ended with a ruling in favor of the Hamatanis, Phillips insisted the work the association commissioned was not responsible for any problems.

However, he could not remember the name of the contractor that did the work or produce evidence that he had hired someone.

But this week he said members of his association found the canceled checks.

"Somebody boxed the checks up and put them in storage and we didn't find them until now," said Phillips on Friday.

"Theses checks only prove my point that there was a contractor who did the work, and that he was licensed," he said.

Kong had alleged during the arbitration hearing that the association had not hired a licensed contractor when Phillips couldn't provide proof.

Further, Kong said there were no city permits for the work that Phillips claimed was done in 1982.

A check of City Building Department records by The Bee showed that no permits were issued for any interior wiring or construction at the association offices during the early 1980s.

The checks produced this week by Phillips "only raise more questions," Kong said.

"To me it just calls into question his good-faith effort to find these documents during the arbitration," Kong said.

"It raises the question of did the contractor do the wiring in the building? The checks that (Phillips) produced don't answer what work was done," Kong said.

When Phillips produced the checks, he named the principal contractor of River City Services as David Owen Bateman of Shingle Springs.

The State Contractor's Licensing Board had no record of a license being issued to River City Services, but it did show that David Owen Bateman of Shingle Springs has had an active contractor's license since 1978.

Extensive searches of public records failed to produce any way to contact Bateman except through a Shingle Springs post office box.

Kong said his private detectives also has been unable to reach Bateman. "We would like to talk to him," Kong said.

Phillips said he did not know how to contact Bateman, either. "Our people are trying to find him... He can only further prove my point," Phillips said.

A trial date for the lease dispute is expected to be set later this month.

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