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'Nursing homes house some of the most helpless residents of our society. Because of their helplessness, they need not only appropriate professional nursing care, but also vigilant protection of their legal rights.

Following a head on collision involving two vehicles on a south Alabama county road, the local deputy sheriff, who has no accident investigation training, arrives on the scene with the medics. Sometime later a state trooper responds to the emergency cail. The local "rule" is that the first law enforcement officer to arrive at the scene of the collision will conduct the investigation, unless the officer chooses to delegate the task. The state trooper is a rookie, who gladly relinquishes the primary responsibility for the investigation to the deputy sheriff.

Trying a successful consumer fraud case begins with meaningful discovery. Meaningful discovery in the consumer fraud case begins with the initial discovery filed with the complaint, along with deposition notices of those persons that the plaintiff attorney wishes to depose once he has received all of his responses to request for production and interrogatories. Every consumer fraud case should have a discovery plan, and that plan must begin with the initial filing of discovery with the complaint. The initial discovery will set the tone of discovery being conducted in tRe case.

This paper deals with what has commonly been called Mortgage Fraud. It does not deal with all potential types of fraud involving a mortgage company but only a very limited type. Specifically, it will discuss a situation where a home improvement contractor does work to a home and takes a mortgage on the home as payment for the work. As soon as the homeowner signs the mortgage, the contractor assigns the mortgage to a mortgage company. The mortgage company pays the contractor for the work done on the home by purchasing the mortgage. The mortgage company then collects the payments from the homeowner on the mortgage.