Bud Benites has trouble getting to school. The 16-year-old student at Soquel High School suffers from scoliosis and is confined to a wheelchair, so the only way for him to get to classes is a specially modified van.
Bud Benites has trouble getting to school. The 16-year-old student at Soquel High School suffers from scoliosis and is confined to a wheelchair, so the only way for him to get to classes is a specially modified van. But earlier this year disaster struck his family. His father was laid off for several months, and his stay-at-home mom needed lung surgery. In August, Bay Federal Credit Union repossessed the van and sold it. His mother, Robin Benites, filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in July, but when that claim was rejected, she lost protection for her vehicle. A stay on repossession was apparently filed too late, and when Benites appeared in court to appeal, her lawyer failed to show up.
Judge Roger Efremsky of the San Jose Division of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court has since admonished her lawyer, Sam Maverick, and ruled that Bay Federal’s sale of the van to a third party was void. But Benites has yet to get the van back, and her son Bud is all but stranded at home. The school district can bring him home, but it does not have enough drivers to get him there in the morning. On most days her husband can pack the wheelchair into the trunk of his own car, but he works the night shift as a school custodian, and when something goes wrong at work, Bud is stuck at home—at least until she gets her van back. Read More at the Santa Cruz Sentinel
