A Prince George man has been ordered to pay nearly $65,000 in damages and money owed after a B.C. Supreme Court Justice found he forged transfer documents to become the registered owner of a truck and then sold the vehicle online.
The verdict against Jimmie Dean Wettlaufer was issued last week by Justice Gordon Funt following four days of testimony in February regarding a falling out between Wettlaufer and his landlord, Ranjit Kaur Holat of Vancouver.
According to Funt's reasons for judgment, Holat owned the home Wettlaufer and his then-girlfriend began renting in early 2010. By midway through the year, his girlfriend had left and he was under an eviction notice while also remaining in charge of his teenage son.
Around this time, Holat stopped taking her medication for bipolar disorder and took steps that were not in her own financial self-interest, Funt said in his judgment issued Thursday.
She canceled the eviction notice and wrote a cheque to Wettlaufer for $2,500. In August 2011, she declined Wettlaufer's request to co-sign a loan to buy a commercial truck but agreed to buy it herself and then lease it to him for $1,000 per month. She subsequently bought the truck that became the centre of the dispute for $92,500 from a Prince George dealership.
Then, in early fall 2011, she bought a pickup truck for Wettlaufer with the thought that he could sell his own pickup and repay some of the debt owed to her and her business. Wattlaufer never made any payments and some months later the pickup was stolen with the insurance proceeds paid directly to Holat's business.
Holat also secured a corporate fuel card for the commercial truck and Wettlaufer ran up $43,669 against the account over the next four months.
On the last day of 2011, Wettlaufer went into an insurance agent and through a transfer-tax form became the truck's registered owner. In an amended notice of civil claim, Hotlat alleged Wettlaufer forged Holat's signature on the document to fraudulently obtain an owner's certificate of insurance and a vehicle licence naming him the owner.
Wettlaufer initially told police he had seen Holat sign the transfer-tax form but when he learned a handwriting expert concluded the signature was not Holat's, he changed his story, Funt noted, and said he did not see Holat sign the paper.
In the first week of January 2012, Stuart Raymond Robinson saw the truck for sale for $65,000 on a popular internet website and flew from Vancouver to Prince George to make the purchase.
Holat never challenged the purchase price, Funt noted. "In other words, the price was not so low as to place Mr. Robson on notice of Wettlaufer's forgery or other irregularities," Funt said.
However, Funt ordered Robson return the truck to Holat. Under cross examination, Robson said he obtained a lien search from his bank but received no information regarding who was the lawful owner and relied on the owner's certificate Wettlaufer had shown him to answer that question.
"In other words, there was no evidence to support that any search involved the confirmation of a valid chain of title," Funt said and noted that during cross examination, Robson "conceded that internet websites may be used by unscrupulous people, although 'that was not in front of his mind.'"
Funt dismissed Wettlaufer's claim Holat had given him the truck and said God wanted him to have it, in part because she never had it registered in his name when it was first purchased.
Wettlaufer also claimed Holat made sexual advances to him that were distressing but when pressed by her lawyer, Mitch Houg, he could not explain why he did not repel any of the alleged advances or report them to police
During a police interview, Wettlaufer reported only one alleged instance and his tone of voice "reflected no emotional distress or vulnerability," Funt said in dismissing that aspect of Wettlaufer's claim.
Wettlaufer was ordered to pay Holat back the $2,500 loan, $6,000 for six months of lease payments, the $43,669 in fuel charges, plus $10,000 in punitive damages and $2,500 in special costs, adding up to $64,669.
