| s-1
| Okay, the next case will be uh, Mitchell Roberts, versus, uh, Matthew Collins, ABC Builders Interiors? |
| s-2
| This — both sides are here? |
| s-3
| Is this contested? |
| s-4
| Who's Mitchell Roberts? |
| s-5
| Right here. |
| s-6
| Okay. |
| s-7
| Sit on this side here. |
| s-8
| Sure. |
| s-9
| Thank you. |
| s-10
| Who's the party being s- served? |
| s-11
| You are? |
| s-12
| Nice pen. |
| s-13
| Alright. |
| s-14
| Okay, let's see, who's here now. |
| s-15
| Mr. Roberts? |
| s-16
| Right here. |
| s-17
| And you brought an action, against uh Matthew Collins, for um, roughly seven-hundred dollars, for labor installing a carpet. |
| s-18
| T- uh, during last uh August to September. |
| s-19
| Okay, and uh, just tell me about how you arrived at uh this claim. |
| s-20
| Uh I was called by Matthew here, to do the job for him. |
| s-21
| So I went out and looked at the job — |
| s-22
| Okay, you run a — you run a a carpet business I presume? |
| s-23
| Yes. |
| s-24
| I'm a licensed contractor. |
| s-25
| Okay. |
| s-26
| Um, the job was out at UCSB, I went and estimated the job for myself, to see if I could take the job, for what he wanted to pay for it, and I let him know that I could not. |
| s-27
| Do the job. |
| s-28
| I wouldn't make any money. |
| s-29
| So uh, upon me telling him that, he offered to pay my employees, fill out — he had em fill out W2 forms all of em, and he paid em, to lessen the burden of payment on me, so that I in turn would make more money off the job. |
| s-30
| I agreed to that, after about — |
| s-31
| Ca- is that a normal procedure? |
| s-32
| Not at all. |
| s-33
| He wanted me to do the job, so he offered to take some of the monetary burden off my back, so that I could do it for the agreed amounts that we were gonna do it on. |
| s-34
| So in other words, your — your helpers would really be his employees for the purpose of this job. |
| s-35
| That's correct. |
| s-36
| He had em all fill out the plo- proper forms. |
| s-37
| So then your costs would be reduced there as far as — |
| s-38
| That's correct. |
| s-39
| Alright. |
| s-40
| Uh, I went to receive my check, of which, we had agreed that he would deduct the amount of the hourly wage, that he was — |
| s-41
| Was this agreement in writing, or verbal? |
| s-42
| Completely verbal. |
| s-43
| I've been working with him for like six years. |
| s-44
| Uh, upon a reve- uh — uh receiving my check, uh, for about two and a half weeks of work, approximately between fifty and seventy hours, I was paid three-hundred and sixteen dollars and fifty-one cents. |
| s-45
| So I approached him with it, and he handed me this yellow piece of paper here, and noted that, what the employees made, and uh, at twenty-six percent less deduction on these two employees. |
| s-46
| Which was the employer contribution. |
| s-47
| So I noted to him that he was supposed to pay that, he said, uh n-, no, you're gonna pay it. |
| s-48
| So I said that's not as per our agreement, he said yes it is, he handed me my check, rolled up his window, and drove off. |
| s-49
| And he's there to state, he's — he saw that, and was witness to that. |
| s-50
| I have a letter — |
| s-51
| I don- I don't think it's relevant that he rolled up his window and drove off. |
| s-52
| Well, I know. |
| s-53
| But, that – that was the end of our thing, I tried to contact him everything, finally I uh contacted my attorney. |
| s-54
| I'd like to present this letter to you here. |
| s-55
| Okay. |
| s-56
| If I may look at that? |
| s-57
| And, have you shown that to uh Mr. Collins? |
| s-58
| Yes, please. |
| s-59
| Yes. |
| s-60
| He has — he has received a copy of that letter. |
| s-61
| Now Stu Roberts is an attorney. |
| s-62
| Is that correct? |
| s-63
| Yes sir. |
| s-64
| You're uh — |
| s-65
| I'm his nephew. |
| s-66
| You're his nephew. |
| s-67
| And you're Nick Ro- Roberts' nephew too then. |
| s-68
| That's correct. |
| s-69
| Okay. |
| s-70
| So uh your uncle then wrote uh Builders uh a letter, that's what I'm reading now. |
| s-71
| Yes sir. |
| s-72
| Uh I do emphasize that I'm reading it, this is not evidence, this is only y- your story, that you've told Mr. Roberts. |
| s-73
| That's correct, that's correct. |
| s-74
| Okay. |
| s-75
| So really the dispute then boils down to this twenty-six percent. |
| s-76
| That's it sir. |
| s-77
| Okay. |
| s-78
| That's the reason why I had him fill out that portion of, or he wanted to write those checks, was so I would save that money, so I would do that job. |
| s-79
| Okay. |
| s-80
| At the end of the job. |
| s-81
| Mr. Collins I know you're biting at the bit there, you wanna say something, so why don't you go ahead. |
| s-82
| Okay thank you your honor. |
| s-83
| Um, uh pretty much, um, what Mitchell has stated is untrue. |
| s-84
| Mitchell, uh did do some work for me out at the college, we did the Anacapa Residential Hall. |
| s-85
| And this is a, eight-thousand-yard job, that we did this summer. |
| s-86
| It required us to, employ, oh five or six crews, uh Mitchell Roberts was one of them that we used, on the job. |
| s-87
| Uh Mitchell expressed a desire to do the work out there, he expressed, he did not know how to handle the payroll. |
| s-88
| Most of the, uh, contractors here in town, that are independents like Mitchell, don't know how to do prevailing wage statements. |
| s-89
| The college is a state-funded uh uh remodel, and on state-funded remodels, we're required to pay prevailing wages. |
| s-90
| Uh prevailing wages, that, um, that indicate different levels of agility, of the different men working. |
| s-91
| And so, uh a lot of the crews, uh, like Mitchell, who have people that work under him, around town, in regular situations, come to the people like me, and ask us to do payroll for them. |
| s-92
| When we do the payroll for them, we state to them up front, that uh, we will pay the payroll, we will make the deductions, and then the employer contribution, which is approximately twenty-six percent, over and above the hourly wage, is also deducted, from the um subcontractor's check. |
| s-93
| Now this uh th- twenty-six percent, that'd be be social security. |
| s-94
| And what else would it include? |
| s-95
| Um — |
| s-96
| Sorta like, um — |
| s-97
| That's anything above that. |
| s-98
| Well you have — you have — you have that — I have a breakdown here, of what we paid Mitchell's men, if you'd like to see that. |
| s-99
| Okay. |
| s-100
| I mean, do — yeah, y- you got a total of uh, seven point six five percent employer contributions on the — |