Tuesday, April 12, 2011

TNJ.................. Getting to the Evidence............


Part One

Once I got done with all of the court documents, I began on the actual evidence I had gathered to that point. I wanted to send them off in some semblance of chronological order but that didn't really work in a way that wasn't confusing to me so I knew it wouldn't work for someone who had no idea what all this stuff might be. Instead I ended up going with the most important pieces first. From there, it was how a piece fit into the case.

I began with the calendar I had created. Since it was done in a Publisher document, and not everyone has that program, I scanned my calendar in first. In the email I made sure he knew that supporting documentation was following and would be identified as such in each emails. Then I set about scanning in copies of all of those supporting documents with the exception of the blog entries. Those I informed him would follow shortly.

I was still working on finding all the links for my blog entries, using that as my "cool down" work for the scanners respite. There were so many blog posts with important information and as I located each link I double checked the post for content just in case something I hadn't realized before turned out to be pertinent too.

In the meantime, I scanned in all the emails I had received from BG and WF since some of them were evidence for my calendar while some were evidence of other things. Still I figured it was better to keep all emails from them grouped together for ease in locating particular evidence.

As I sent off these documents, the message to the attorney explained the purpose of each attached email and why that was significant to the case. I tried to send those in an order of the calendar evidence first, followed by the other emails from them. I ranked the remaining emails in order based on their importance to the case with BG's differing explanations of how and when the work was done coming next, followed by emails they sent to others that had direct bearing.

Once I was past the emails I went through all of the copies of bills, statements, repair quotes, cancelled checks etc that I had that supported either me or my truck was someplace else than working horses. By the time I had those all scanned in and sent with an explanation of how each fit the case, the work on the links for the calendar was complete and sent along with the journal I had kept at the beginning of our venture.

With the information on the calendar complete, I sent him the documents I had created using that calendar. There was a excel spreadsheet showing the horses and the number of days those horses were worked in each month and then a total number of days for each horse. There was also a document where I converted numbers of horses credited to BG into actual training dollars. These were done by month so I could show BG's claims per month versus actual work done.

After everything surrounding the calendar was done, I was down to the odd items appearing on BG's accounting sheet. I tried to go down the sheet page by page and address the anomalies there. I would define the issue in the email and provide the supporting evidence as an attachment for each inappropriate charge beginning with the charges for board.

The proof about charges for a pen instead of a full care stall came down to pictures of my horses actually living in the pens at BG's facility, blog posts about horses coming and going from those pens and not always staying there, and bills provided to other clients for board charged for horses living in pens. I explained in the email how each piece challenged in a different manner the authenticity of those charges.

In addition as a question about board, I had my cancelled checks and the invoices from the feed store where I had charged their hay to pay my board bill for Reflection, as well as documents proving Dave's unemployed status along with an accounting sheet showing how those bills were paid each month since individual feed bills did not equal board bills. It was a combination of them that added up to the appropriate total and that document made it clearer for everyone to see.

I had the USEF rules on showing in owner classes and on amateur status and to help with a couple of issues. The rule on owner classes had to do with the transfer of the paperwork so I included the copies of those documents at this time with appropriate explanations.

The amateur status had to do with determining groom duties that should have been part of training fees AND that lunging is not considered training. To go along with that I had articles on groom duties and responsibilities of trainers to support BG either should have done the grooming and tacking etc of my horses or he should have discounted his fees because I did it. When I sent the emails off with those items, I explained about BG's training charges for lunging my two conditioning horses and his credit against TK that gave him half that amount for conditioning that horse.

From there I went onto the issue of training for Legs. There were all of those show records of each horse that BG had worked with in the entire time I'd known him as well as the show records of both of my horses. In the message of the email I explained how I planned on using these with my expert to show why I never would have agreed for BG to do anything but remedial type work with Legs and why BG's charging me for the use of Dandy was totally inappropriate. To go along with this I sent him copies of the pictures of both kids riding Dandy. I also let him know there was video evidence of the kids in the ring if he needed. I just needed to know what format to supply them.

For that last page of the document with all of it's additional charges, I had prepared a document countering those charges. I sent that document with an explanation and all of the supporting evidence. I told him where to find that information in the emails he'd already received and then I included what had not already sent like an email they sent to another client that stated they did not charge their clients show fees.

By the time I finished all of this, I was two weeks into the process. I called the attorney to let him know I was indeed finished so we could make a plan for what came next. The attorney told me that he had the time to look over my paperwork at the beginning of the following week. Once he was done with that, he would call me so we could set up and appointment.

I could tell from that conversation he hadn't really looked at my paperwork yet. He'd just filed them into a folder in his mail program. The reason I knew this was because he thought he would be ready to set up that appointment in a couple of days. I figured in a couple of days his head would be spinning and he wouldn't know which end was up.........but it was all good. I had an attorney and he now had my entire case sitting in his lap.

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

Working the Final Pieces......

This isn't a baby that was born here but he is one of Leg's babies. Can you tell from the picture that this foal isn't a purebred? He's considered to be a half-Arabian although his mother was 3/4's so that makes him 7/8's Arabian. Meet Nugget.

Visit Blog Village and vote daily for this blog Here They are now measuring the rankings by votes out, so if you find my blog on the site, please click that link too to improve my rankings. TY

10 comments:

  1. I can't tell the baby is not a purebred. He's cute as the dickens.

    I'll be once the attorney got all this paperwork his head was spinning with how much research and work you did. Still it must have been a relief to have someone else who was professional involved and not have to have the whole burden on your shoulders.

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  2. Holy cow, it must have taken you hours to email all that to him. I'm quite interested in reading about what he thought after looking at all your evidence.

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  3. I can't tell he isn't purebred, what a cutie! and look at those legs!!!! I bet your attorney was some shocked when he opened up thos files ! Such attention to details must have been although surprising probabley very welcome

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  4. haha would have liked to see the attorneys face when he opens all those emails! Must have been a huge relief to heve an attorney on your side.

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  5. Arlene, ya he was a cute little bugger and can you see how collected that canter is. amazing when they come out that athletic.

    Getting this attorney involved was a huge relief.

    smazourek, I sent them out as I finished each document or whatever I thought one email could handle because after my first attempts I had them bouncing back for size.

    fern, Nuggest does have long legs. Even today he is leggy like his dad.

    I think you'll get a chuckle out of his response to my detail.

    Crystal, I think I would have liked to see his expression as well. LOL It was a huge relief to have an attorney but even more this one in particular. He took my case on knowing that he'd be carrying the financial burden of it until I could pay him. That was pretty cool. AND he knew his stuff when it came to equine law.

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  6. I agree with you that in a few days his head would be spinning. But I bet that eventually he would appreciate your attention to detail.

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  7. I couldn't tell the foals not purebred either, but he looks like he has his daddies attitude.

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  8. I imagine, knowing you had an attorney probably freed up some room in your brain to organize all your facts even better than you would have. It's nice to know someone else is at least thinking about part of the problem. I'm looking forward to reading about your meeting. I bet he was impressed with the level of detail you brought.

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  9. I'm still following along here and on FB. Maybe when you're done writing all of this, you could write a manual for handling your own equine court cases. Or just court cases in WA State.

    After each installment, I'm anxiously awaiting the next installment!

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  10. It seems like a lot and hopefully as you put each thing into place, organizing it for yourself, it made it that much easier for him to put it all together when he got around to digging through it all.

    I bet he really appreciated the help you had from those two women.

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