The New Journey...........The Counter Claim..........

Part One

The following week I received a letter from their attorney stating she was legal representation for BG and WF in this case, 706500. As far as I knew the next thing to happen would be the actual hearing which was scheduled for 1:30 PM June 24 in courtroom 101 at the Pierce County District Court.

Then just a couple days before the hearing I received paperwork of the Counterclaim filed by the defendants. In that paperwork was a sworn declaration made by BG claiming his version of how he had fulfilled the terms of our contract. Now, not only had BG lied to me and Dave, he had perjured himself in documents filed with the court.

I also thought it was interesting he claimed to have provided me with what he called a "detailed itemization of the services provided.' I couldn't help but wonder if the court would see that accounting sheet as inadequate in regard to detail as I did. I saw this claim as just another exaggeration showing how inflated BG's statements about what he does can be. Talk about a perfect example to show the court. All I needed to do was show the court why the detail was inadequate. Considering the number of horses worked and the number of days involved, I didn't think that would be too hard. I was pleased.

The attorney responded on behalf of the defendants to my charges with an affirmative defense and some challenges to my paperwork. According to her version of things my claims were barred under the doctrines of estoppel and/or waiver and also stated that allowing me to regain possession of my horse would be unjust enrichment. In addition they were seeking damages for the harm I had caused their business as well as legal fees.

The first thing I did was look up those legal terms to to see exactly what they meant in terms of my case. That was my first experience with seeing how the law can be manipulated to support a lie.

Imagine my surprise to see that estoppel means "a bar preventing one from making an allegation or a denial that contradicts what one has previously stated as the truth." By using this term, the attorney was basically saying that I had no claims because they had the signed registration papers which they had obtained from me and that meant the contract had been properly fulfilled. Obviously the lawyer could see no other reason for them to have the registration papers. Wasn't she going to be surprised to find out not only was there a reason, but that reason was a standard practice in the industry?

Then for unjust enrichment, I found it means "when a person unfairly gets a benefit by chance, mistake or another's misfortune for which the one enriched has not paid or worked and morally and ethically should not keep. A person who has been unjustly enriched at the expense of another must legally return the unfairly kept money or benefits. Unjust enrichment is an equitable doctrine applied in the absence of a contract and used to prevent one person from being unjustly enriched at another's expense." According to their attorney that pretty much meant if the court gave me the horse, I was getting something that shouldn't belong to me. Interesting concept for a horse that hadn't been paid for, don't you think?

Then there was that claim that there was not a signed, sworn statement in my paperwork. That statement should have been the declaration paperwork that had not been provided in the bundle of documents . However, one of the other papers I'd provided did have a signed, sworn statement included within its contents. I was prepared to point that out to the court should the need arise because the way I had done it was still adequate to provide what was required by the court even if it wasn't the way their attorney expected to find it.

The fact the lawyer had not noticed my statement made me think she really was not very thorough. Between that and inconsistencies in her own paperwork, from one document to the next with statements sworn to by BG and WF, only reinforced that belief.

I noted those inconsistencies as well as discrepancies between their statements of what happened and what I knew to be true so I could use them later in court. By knowing how they were mixing things up ahead of time, I could use those things to trip them up for court. I saw them as just more pieces to the puzzle. Each time they told the story, the version changed because they couldn't keep track of all the lies, not even when talking to their own attorney.

Also included in that paperwork provided to me and the court, as an exhibit, was a copy of that accounting sheet WF had given to Dave and interestingly enough there were even inconsistencies between that sheet and what was sworn to in court documents. I couldn't have been more excited to see the document let alone find more things to discredit in it. The discrepancies between it and their paperwork was just more frosting on the cake.

Here I had been wondering how I was going to build a foundation to get that accounting sheet into evidence and it was provided to me by his lawyer. I was pretty sure that lawyer had no clue at all the anomalies that thing held and now there was no way they could stop me from using it at trial. I was definitely tickled.

Also included in those exhibits were copies of the boarding contract I had signed for Reflection and the purchase agreement on the boxer puppy. In addition there was a copy of Storm's papers showing a date and signature as well as paperwork from the registry showing their attempt to transfer ownership had not been completed because those original papers were now useless.

That document from the registry also showed the postmark date of their attempt to get papers on my horse. It was exactly the day I thought it would be. They had put those papers in the mail the day after I told them they had not satisfied the terms of our contract because BG had not done all the work required. Still they had tried to negotiate those papers so they didn't have to deal with my claims.

There was something else interesting in those papers. In their paperwork to the court, terms of the contract were provided, not all the terms, but some very important ones. The price of the horse was stated. The fact training was to be traded in lieu of payment. The amount per month per horse for training was stated at $300 AND they also listed the training was to be based on a five day work week.

What was not stated was that training was to be for up to five horses per day. Nor were the exceptions to which horses were not to count or the fact the training was to used towards starting young horses under saddle which had always been my intent.

Even though everything wasn't there, things were looking good. I had most of the doors opened that I needed and I didn't even have to do any work to get them there. If they thought I was intimidated by their lawyer and this paperwork, they were very wrong. I was happy at this new turn of events. It played right into my plans.

All the little pieces of my puzzle were falling into place. While each one independently didn't look like much, together they told a story of a very deliberate plan of deceit, manipulation and deception. I was convinced once all the information was exposed there would be a clear picture of two people who told so many lies they couldn't keep their stories straight and maybe even that their plan all along had been to defraud me. This "he said/she said" case was getting more solid all the time.

The challenge I saw was how to present the evidence in a manner that wouldn't bore a judge or jury to death and that would be understandable to them at the same time. The odds were that anyone making the legal determinations in this case was going to have no knowledge of horses or what any of this technical stuff really meant. I was going to have to figure out how to take something that would be as clear as mud to them and turn it into something that made perfect sense.

To be continued...............................

A Little Theory......

Note: I have decided that I am going to try to put all legal terms in red. Knowing the correct term to use is imperative in the legal process and it sure helps when doing searches on the internet or even in the law library. Once I figured out the correct terms, I was in good shape. Sometimes it took me hours to get to those things.

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