I live near the Chiquita Canyon landfill. Like a lot of my neighbors, I’ve spent the past few years dealing with the smell that won’t go away, the headaches and health worries that come and go with the wind, and a growing sense that no one with real power was listening to us. We’ve filed complaints. We’ve gone to meetings. We’ve watched our community absorb a burden that never should have been ours to carry.
So, when they came to my door and told me they were collecting signatures to hold the landfill owner accountable, I wanted to help. They told me there would be financial compensation. They told me that each family would receive up to $12,000 a year. It felt like something small I could finally do for my community, after years of feeling like nothing I did mattered. I signed where they told me to sign. I provided my identification and signed without them telling me exactly what the document was for. After all their promises, all I ever received was $20.
It was only later, when they stopped coming back, that I began to think something was wrong. They had told me that within six months I would receive a phone call, submit additional paperwork, and begin receiving monthly payments. That call never came, and they never returned. That was when I understood what I had actually agreed to. I hadn’t signed a petition. I had signed a legal representation agreement, binding me to a law firm and terms I never fully understood.
I’m not a lawyer. I don’t read contracts for a living, and most of my neighbors don’t, either. I speak Spanish, and the person who approached me didn’t sit down and walk me through what I was agreeing to in a way I could really follow. There was no pause to ask questions, no explanation of fees, no mention of what would happen to any settlement or what percentage would go to the firm. I trusted that someone going door to door in my own neighborhood, talking about a problem I lived with every day, had my interests at heart. Looking back, I’m not sure that trust was earned.
I want to be clear about something: I’m not here to say every attorney working on these cases is acting in bad faith, and I’m not qualified to judge the merits of any particular lawsuit. What I do know is what happened to me. I know how confused I felt when I finally understood what I’d signed. And I know, from talking to my neighbors, that I’m far from the only one.
That’s the part that stays with me most, how many of us this happened to, and how quietly it happened. People who don’t have time to read fine print because they’re working two jobs. People who don’t speak English as a first language and had to take someone’s word for what a document said. People who are older and trusting were told this was a way to finally get some accountability for what our community has been through.
Communities like mine, which are working-class, immigrant, and senior, deserve better than confusion dressed up as an opportunity to fight back. We deserve to know exactly what we’re signing, what it will cost us, and what we’re giving up, before we ever put our names on anything. We deserve materials and explanations in our own language, not just a rushed conversation on a doorstep. We deserve practices from lawyers who respect our time and our knowledge, instead of relying on pressure, incentives, or confusion to get a signature.
That’s why I’m speaking out now. Not against any single law firm, and not to tell anyone else what to do with their own case. I’m speaking out for a simple standard that should apply to everyone, no matter who is doing the recruiting: informed consent. Clear terms, explained clearly, in a language people understand. No pressure. No confusion about what a signature means.
Our community has already given up so much to this landfill. We shouldn’t have to give up our understanding of our own legal rights too. Our pain should not be their payday.
Leonardo Razo Naranjo
Val Verde
