What they are trying to state is you can run up years of attorney fees trying to sue her, even if you win and prove your case, this neighbor is not going to be worth much and than you are looking at $35,000.00 of attorney's fees and they are the only ones who win in a case like this. A demand letter - writing and threatening to sue, might get you somewhere but only if you are willing to sue and she may choose to fight in which case you have to decide if you are willing to follow through with your demand if she doesn't comply.

I've merged the two threads sine it would help to see the whole story.

I would defintiely get the lawyer to send a letter. I would make it stop or I'll sue, I would make it stop or we'll take appropriate steps.

But I don't think a suit would get you very far. Assuming you do win, that's only half the battle, collecting is another issue.

But Scott, that puts me in no win situation and it once again gives her the upper hand. If I threaten her with a letter and she refuses it will cost us 1000's we don't have and if the courts do side with us she can still come out not having to pay a dime. The lawyer told us that he has known of these cases to go to court... the plaintiff spends thousands and all they got back in monetary damages was 1.00. These is where I am pulling my hair out because we have to be financially prepared to follow up on our threat to her to back off or we will sue. This is a nightmare for us right now... it has become so bad I don't even think I can wait to sell this house this summer I am going to have to pack up my children and go east without my husband.

That's my point. If you threaten suit and you don't follow through, you look like a wimp. But if you threaten "appropriate legal action", well that can be anything.

I think I understand Scott. My brain is in such a fog right now. Are you saying don't take her to court, either using a lawyer to go after her for the harassment and slander... or just file the antiharassment papers ourselves and hope the court will take it (basically throw it against the wall and hope it sticks). But there is also the chance in both cases that she could come back and turn the tables on us. Try to counter sue. This is the problem with people like her. They are so mad that they will do anything and everything they can to keep the upperhand and be in control. I mean it is terrifying!! What do you tink we should say in a letter that would be good enough to stop her in her tracks from both continuing what she is doing to us and also keeping her from taking us to court? I really value your opinion and advice!

I would leave that up to the attorney other than to not specifically threaten a suit.

It shouldn't cost too much to have an attorney draw up the demand letter and you can threaten action without indicating but not requiring you to take action in court. A letter written by an attorney will have a lot more weight and authority.

Yes but be careful, threatening to sue when you don't intend to actually do just that could be construed as harassment of her though. And you sound like a really really nice person, I really feel bad for you and the family. You are right about AskMe Help Desk, there are a lot of really really great folks here, and it does help to get others' opinions and advice when you feel bad, you don't feel so alone that way!

Wow... the lawyer never mentiond that sending a warning letter and not following through with a lawsuit was harassment. As you said I guess she could construe it that way... but are the odds good that she would? She has taken action against us in every manner. She called the police without finding out what was going on. She called CPS and lied to them to get them to come out here. She is telling everyone she can (not just the neighbors she sees out side now mind you but she has literally invited herself into their homes) that we leave our children alone and lock them outside, and last week on the 5th she started attacking me in my carport for getting out of my car and not having my children because I moved my car from the front of my house to the back of my house to avoid having to run into her so I could take them to the post office. I try to avoid her and it doesn't even work. All of this is based solely on the incident with her daughter as our babysitter and nothing happened to her daughter other then she got spooked or scared and had a melt down. And the neighbor never came over here to help her daughter out and that was the agreement we had. So she was an irresponsible parent and now she is doing everything she can to make us look just that. If she had stopped with just calling the police on my husband and making wild accustations then we could have handled that... but she has pushed it over the line when she filed false charges with CPS (and her sole intent was to get our children taken away from us and anyone who thinks that a false charge means nothing and cannot do just that needs to go onto fightcps.com and read about all the families who have lost their children to false charges... that is right, you do not want CPS coming to your house ever for anything)... and as far as that goes this is not the first time we have had a vindictive person who had an axe to grinde with us report us to CPS for false charges so you can see why we are so angry! Yes we are forced now to move and will be putting our house up for sale this spring... but does that render the situation completely? She has us under her thumb... she is controlling us and it is making our lives a living hell.

It is not harassment, like we said a good attorney will draw up a demand letter, indicating legal action, not specifying to the point you are obligated to sue. The letter if phrased well should be enough to quiet her down.