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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Posts
    2

    Default Recording a Conversation in a Public Place

    My question involves criminal law for the state of: California

    My current property manager has been giving us a lot of problems lately so I decided to just start recording our conversations which were always outside in front of our house. I did this having my phone simply record and have it in my pocket.

    The conversation recorded included me, my mother and the manager. It was outside and more or less a shouting match and could be overheard by my brother and sister (we're all over 18) who were about 20 yards away as well as the neighbors that the Manager asked to be nearby and they were about 20-30 yards away as well. Also during this the neighbors had people stopping by who were also easily within ear shot.

    It was all a lot of nonsense arguing and posturing, the owner currently filed an unlawful detainer on us and we were literally packing (or trying to except being stopped by the manager) to leave. The part of interest is we kept pleading and yelling for him to just leave us alone so we can move out while trying to walk away from him. This prompted him to say, and I quote: "I will ****ing hunt you down and be your worst nightmare."

    What I have read basically is if this particular recording is found to be unlawful and made public or otherwise cause damages I can get in trouble. Really I'm not even seeking to use it in court, I want to make the current owner of the property aware of how his property manager is going about doing his business. I imagine just doing this could cause 'damages' as well.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Posts
    18,340

    Default Re: Recording a Likely Public Conversation

    Quote Quoting steve82
    View Post

    It was all a lot of nonsense arguing and posturing, the owner currently filed an unlawful detainer on us and we were literally packing (or trying to except being stopped by the manager) to leave. The part of interest is we kept pleading and yelling for him to just leave us alone so we can move out while trying to walk away from him. This prompted him to say, and I quote: "I will ****ing hunt you down and be your worst nightmare."

    What I have read basically is if this particular recording is found to be unlawful and made public or otherwise cause damages I can get in trouble.
    It was probably legal to record the conversation under the circumstances you describe.

    See CA Penal Code 632 (c) which "excludes a communication made in a public
    gathering or in any legislative, judicial, executive or
    administrative proceeding open to the public, or in any other
    circumstance in which the parties to the communication may reasonably
    expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded."

    http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/632.html

    Quote Quoting steve82
    View Post

    I want to make the current owner of the property aware of how his property manager is going about doing his business.
    Forget it. The owner isn't going to care a bit about what a tenant says his manager is doing. Trust me on that. He pays the manager to do what it takes to keep a tenant in line so he doesn't have to be bothered with it. Since you are under an "unlawful detainer" your credibility will be less than zero anyway.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Posts
    2

    Default Re: Recording a Likely Public Conversation

    It was definitely overheard, that's for sure.

    Quote Quoting adjusterjack
    View Post
    Forget it. The owner isn't going to care a bit about what a tenant says his manager is doing. Trust me on that. He pays the manager to do what it takes to keep a tenant in line so he doesn't have to be bothered with it. Since you are under an "unlawful detainer" your credibility will be less than zero anyway.
    I suppose you are right.

    The thing is he ISN'T keeping the tenants in line or keeping them at all. He manages 3 properties next to each other, me and the third property tenants had CONSTANT problems with the first property tenants which was pretty much 100% of all our complaints, the other tenants just outright moved out because of all the problems. The property manager would do ZERO to exercise authority or power over the problematic tenants and would just always call the cops for everything. The cops would come over or he would just talk to them and the cops would basically just shrug and say there is nothing they can do. As a matter of fact friday through sunday he came over throwing a fit and called the cops over EACH DAY. The cops would pretty much do nothing understandably since there was nothing for them to do. I think the manager is under the impression if the cops can't or won't do anything he is completely in the clear as well as thinking we are 'afraid' of the cops when we aren't since we have done nothing wrong. We are actively fighting the unlawful detainer as well, even if they drop it after we leave we are not stopping.

    The reason why i would think telling the owner might do something is because there are a lot of libel stuff that went and is still going on that I am sure he has NO IDEA about. I might still do it, but definitely isn't the only thing I am going to do. I am going to be contacting the lawyer we already got for the unlawful detainer about this as well, probably tomorrow.

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