They’ll Be Naming Hospitals After Me

Lady Agag and I took a much-needed three-day, two-night mini-getaway to the Jersey Shore’s Irish Riviera this past week to re-charge our batteries and to celebrate my birthday and our wedding anniversary. Both milestones actually occurred September 19 but due to a speaking engagement on September 20 at the ASHI New England Fall Conference and relentless rain the following weekend and the Casey O’Malley Inspection Conference the weekend after that, we had to postpone our celebration to the Columbus Day weekend.

Fortunately, the weather gods smiled on us and we enjoyed sunny, mid-80 degree days, empty beaches, clear cool evenings and near-empty restaurants throughout our stay. Of course, the world continued to spin despite the fact that we had stepped off and home inspectors continued to receive unreasonable demands from ungrateful clients.

And so it came to pass that I returned to a full plate of nitwits who require an industrial-strength dosage of tough love: four lawsuits, one arbitration demand, three demand letters and two folks who thought that making slanderous comments on Angie’s List was an entirely appropriate way of compensating for their not having read the inspection report.

Naturally, none of the lawsuits has any merit. One involves a mold claim discovered only after destructive probing, never mind that mold detection was excluded from the inspection. Another is a basement water seepage claim several months post-inspection in a finished basement with both carpeting and linoleum, neither of which showed any water issues at the time of the inspection. Another involving soil subsidence two-plus years after the inspection. And one is a subrogation claim by a homeowners insurance company for a deck collapse two-plus years after the inspection.

You can not make this stuff up.

Another inspector got an arbitration demand from a client over an inspection that he conducted 25 months ago. He has no idea what the beef is.

The three demand letters are for issues that are outside the Standard of Practice. And the two Angie’s List slanderers have no idea how seriously they have imperiled their financial security.

I have already spoken to two of the attorneys who filed lawsuits. One was very sensible and has agreed to dismiss the home inspector. One was not, was surpassingly snarky in our conversation and is going to be in for a most unpleasant surprise when the inspector’s Motion To Dismiss is granted and he finds himself on the receiving end of a lawsuit for fraud and misuse of process and as a respondent before the Disciplinary Committee of the Supreme Court of his state with respect to the prosecution of unmeritorious claims.

I left messages for the attorneys in the other two cases and am confident that they will respond appropriately once they understand why their clients’ claims have no chance of prevailing.

I will respond to the three demand letters once I have reviewed all the documentation and, if past is prologue, those claims will disappear pari passu.

And the only organism that is faster than a neutrino is a slanderer who has received one of my cease-and-desist letters rushing to delete his post.

As one grateful inspector enthused “Joe, someone should name a hospital after you.”