Hot Bench

A landlord and tenant face off over unpaid rent and broken trust; he says he bent over backward to help; she says the home was unsafe.

A lawyer says his girlfriend called him in hysterics because the young man they hired to paint their kitchen cabinets was botching the job; they paid him $250 to stop and go away -- but now they're suing for their money back.

A woman says she cosigned a car loan for a friend, but he wrecked the wheels and ghosted the payments; he argues that she had the car towed, so he's not paying a dime.

A litigant says she was scammed by a so-called videographer, who delivered some photos but no footage; the videographer insists she was hired to promote a cruise, not film it.

The plaintiff lent money to his daughter and her husband but received only partial repayment before being blocked; they acknowledge the loan but say he harassed them and insist they owe nothing.

Sisters clash over a car loan gone wrong: one says she made every payment and was unfairly cut off from her own vehicle, while the other says she was the true owner.

A man says his girlfriend left him and then presented a bill for everything for which she paid in the relationship.

A woman says her brother's holiday meltdown shattered a stained-glass window, but he insists that multiple guests were to blame.

The plaintiff says the defendant damaged her tiny house during delivery and withheld $1,000 for repairs; the defendant says he sold the house for less, had to cut down a tree branch and move a fence, and offered a $1,000 discount for repairs.

A woman says she got a signed contract and a car as collateral for an RV loan, but now her former friend won't hand over the keys; her ex-friend blames illness and says the woman went from lending a hand to revving up for a repo rampage.

A woman accuses her niece of stealing her property instead of moving it into storage while she was in the hospital; the niece countersues, saying her aunt caused her to fall and knock out her teeth.

A widow says she bought a tiny house, but now she's accused of trespassing and making unauthorized upgrades to a shed.

The plaintiff says the defendant's pit bull savagely attacked her terrier, leading to fatal injuries; the defendant says his dog is being falsely accused without proof.

A driver says a company's SUV rear-ended her in traffic and the owner promised to pay -- until he ghosted her over the repair quote; the business owner says the damage was minor and refused her mechanic's help.

A tenant says she left her rental exactly how she found it, while the landlady says the damages were abundant and outrageous.

After his release from jail, a young man goes to his ex-girlfriend's house where, he says, two guys beat him up at her direction.

A woman says she was unlawfully locked out of her new apartment, and the defendant offered to pay her to leave and threatened eviction if she refused; the defendant says the plaintiff fraudulently moved in after saying the apartment was for a client!

A used car buyer says he got a clunker with fake stickers and a failed smog test; the seller swears the ride was auction-approved and road-ready.

A woman says her ex-friend stole her dog, Pebbles, while she was in the hospital, and now she wants her dog back.

A door-to-door vacuum salesman reportedly promised his boss an investment return on his tobacco-free vape company, but the boss says that when the money didn't come fast enough, he asked him to hand over the remaining product, and he didn't.

Judge Corriero questions the intentions of a plaintiff who brought a woman in off the street and bought her a car.

A plumber is hired to replace five toilets on a yacht, but nearly sinks it in the process; godsisters feud over an unpaid car loan.

A couple is sued over a time share; a renter wants punitive damages from his landlord for withholding part of his security deposit.

A life coach and her roommate are so incompatible that they can only communicate through email; at first, she tried to help him through a rough patch, but now she has to sue for his half of the rent.

A man says a young woman rear-ended him in an automated car wash; she and her mom come armed to the teeth with video evidence and sound logic.

After a drunken man shakes his brother awake and breaks his nose, he tells the judges ``I'm sorry`` and ``my brother got what he deserved`` in the same breath.

An uninsured, unlicensed motorist gets angry after he rear-ends an Uber driver.

A young woman files a restraining order against her boyfriend, then comes after him for his portion of the rent.

C.J., a pit bull, is too much dog for a 10-year-old to walk, and ends up attacking little Alan, a corgi/boxer mix, whose owner wants to recover money for medical bills.

A fence-jumping pit bull roams the neighborhood; a man walking his puppy had no idea what tragedy lurked around the corner.

A landlord's tenant moves out and takes the air conditioner with him.

When a young woman's tenancy with a family friend devolves into her reportedly wielding a screwdriver against him, her own grandmother is a witness against her.

A 20-year-old driver slams into a car driven by a mother and her three children.

The woman upstairs is too loud, while the woman downstairs keeps unsightly, dead plants; they have asked the police, the HOA, and now ``Hot Bench,`` to get to the root of their problems.

An unlicensed child crashes his stepfather's motorbike.

A small-business owner tries to blame his broken dreams on his landlords, but the lease states that they are not responsible for things falling apart.

A security guard dreams of achieving B-list stardom; his idol, actor Richard Baker, presents an opportunity to invest in his next movie.

A grown man throws a fit when the judges tell him he can't lease someone else's land to a cattle rancher.

A woman listed a room for rent in her apartment, and says a man showed up with a towel, ready to take a shower.

A man sues the disc jockey he hired for his golden wedding anniversary party.

A single mother of three tries to recover her security deposit, saying her son contracted mites from a dead bird.

A Camry with faulty steering careens into a Jaguar parked on the street; a man buys a truck from his tattoo artist.

A driving instructor's employer fails to protect her from the sexual harassment of being propositioned by a 19-year-old student.

To adjudicate a carpenter's and a welder's barter dispute, the judges must determine the relative worth of carport frames and hydraulic bins.

Amid a turbulent child-custody battle, a man sues his ex-girlfriend over a measly broken window, but they've had so many similar altercations that neither can remember the details of the incident.

A teenage Vrbo renter and his friends left bullet holes in the floor and scared the neighbors so badly that they moved away; the owners hired a PI to track the kid down; now they hope the judges will hold him accountable for destroying their home.

A man who helped his brother out of a serious bind now wants his money back: a crash course in statute of limitations.

A woman says her granddaughter's mother borrowed her credit card and went on a spending spree; the ``man`` at the center of the dispute isn't even in the courtroom.

Two motorists dispute what color the light was, and who was at fault; two businessmen decide to share a credit card for advertising expenses.

A man masquerades as another man's mother, is evasive about his business dealings with a Japanese YouTube star, and explains it all with ``I'm stupid, your honor.``

An alcohol-fueled brawl between grandmothers, nieces, sisters and aunts.

A woman lends her husband's friend $2,400 in a casino parking lot; a man backs out of a parking space, colliding with a car coming up behind him.

A homeowner is adamant that his remodeling job was going over budget, even though it evidently wasn't.

An auto broker lies to his customer and in court papers.

Discovering that a car comes with $700 worth of parking tickets, the buyer sends disparaging remarks about the seller's body.

A mortician says her roommate didn't appreciate the free services she performed when his mother passed away, so she's withholding his portion of their security deposit; a woman needed a car by her wedding date, but an old friend never came through.

A salon stylist says she wanted to brighten her client's day after hearing her life story, but when the young woman ghosted her, she was left with 30 inches of dyed human hair and no head on which to put it.

One drag queen buys hearing aids for another queen, but he feels she violated his privacy when she took pictures of his date calendar.

A 16-year-old who was in a traffic collision insists she's not at fault, and her testimony gives the judges a lot to disagree over.

Contractors' informal arrangement to help an elderly couple with a fixed income and a broken water heater is muddy in the area of compensation.

When a man tries to bow out of a deal to purchase two pleasure-boat engines, the judges give him a stern talking-to.

A couple who moved from a homeless shelter into an apartment say the neighbors conspire to get them evicted and the landlord accuses them of vandalism and keeping a feral cat against the terms of the lease.

A nice-guy mechanic who fixed a friend's truck at an 80% discount on his day off finds himself in a courtroom, getting sued for more than the truck is worth.

A man says his roommate foiled his plan to take advantage of government rental assistance by using her savings to pay off their debt; a man leaving a party engaged his car's hydraulic suspension and ran into a parked luxury vehicle.

A landlord threatens to use his DOJ access to investigate his tenant; this should have been a simple case, but text-message evidence leaves the judges adding up more than rental property damages.

A woman was shown a kindness after her release from jail but sees no reason why she should repay it; a buyer discovers he can't register a truck because there are two liens on it, so he wants his money back.

Two young women with extreme anxiety lived together for three months, and recounting it all brings a deluge of tears.

A grocery store employee decides to give all of her and her roommate's rent money to her boyfriend.

The plaintiff's late mother's beloved dog, Peanut, is attacked by an emotional-support Rottweiler mix at a dog park.

An out-of-work dog trainer is evicted during the pandemic after failing to pay her rent; a man says he bought a car from a strapped-for-cash seller, but with $6,000 still left to pay off, the car was repossessed.

A man who says he wanted to ``help out`` his cousin appears bent on incriminating him.

A woman gives her boyfriend a rare pair of Air Jordans for Valentine's Day, then hears he is hitting on other women, so she does everything she can to get the shoes back.

A man denies stealing thousands of dollars from his ex-partner and her children by forging her name on a stimulus check; after several years of feeling gaslit by him, and reported threats from his family, she's on a war path to get her money back.

A married couple fight with their landlady over the return of their security deposit and who is at fault for the dead lawn.

An eyebrow and lash technician says she was overworked by a salon owner who doesn't believe she deserves compensation.

A huge hunk of wind-damaged roof lands on a tenant's car after the landlord ignores her requests to get the roof fixed.

When a single mother rents a room from a stranger, the living arrangement devolves into a back-and-forth of child abuse accusations; she seeks compensation for her Thanksgiving Day eviction.

An unlicensed contractor defends his work, which he says he wasn't allowed to finish; 11 people live in a house, but only three of them are on the lease.

After subleasing his place for 30 days, a mechanical engineering student in the U.S. on visa comes home to a trashed apartment full of weed and hypodermic needles.