By Daily Press staff
A couple with a nasty habit of damaging each others’ cars won’t get any help from small claims court.
A Santa Monica judge has decided to let sleeping cars lie in a case in which a nurse sought $1,000 from her unemployed actor-boyfriend after the boyfriend scraped her car last August.
Alex Martin testified in December that he felt responsible after he scraped a pole while driving Carrie Gold on a date in her car last August.
But he conceded he forgot to ask Gold if she knew how to drive a stick shift before he lent his car to her as a way to make up for the damage. His car completely died — its clutch apparently burned out — as she drove it to work She said she had to ditch it at a repair shop. The bill, Martin said, came to $738.
Martin also said he let Gold charge a $275 study course to his credit card, and asked the judge to rule that he’d done enough to offset Gold’s $1,000 suit against him for the deductible she had to pay to fix her car.
Commissioner Donna Groman agreed with him Wednesday. She ruled that both could collect from each other — with the same effect as if nothing had happened.
Martin, of Santa Monica, is a self-described unemployed voice-over artist who quit work as a census interviewer last year. Gold, of West Los Angeles, is a self-employed nurse.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 9, 2003. Read the original PDF.