The Manhattan Club Lawsuit - RedWeek's Report & Most Recent Info

From Mr Zimmerman Attorney about this issue last year regarding small claims court.

A complaint costs more than $40; Who is being sued? For what cause(s) of action? Under what statute?; A breach of contract claim must identify the contract, and the particular breach, as well as the correct party who breached the contract; A fraud claim must be plead with specificity, and will likely require the plaintiff to depose the defendant; Is the AOD to be used? If so, on what evidentiary basis?; How will damages be proven? What are the contract damages? What are the fraud damages?; and The defendant(s) will likely defend the case vigorously, and seek a dismissal of the claim(s) on the merits, and thus with prejudice. The suggested approach seems to imply that you simply file a complaint and collect $25K. The litigation process does not work like that. Thanks,

Thank you, Sue. This forum always benefits from the observations of authoritative commentators.

nathanz2, correction to your info: Small claims maxes out at $10K I think. Civil court goes to $25K per case. While the AOD is specifically barred from any future court proceedings, the evidence in the NYAG's documents 138, 380 and 411 are not excluded and contain compelling findings testimony. They provide solid evidence of Eichner's, T Park's and O Park's wrong doing, violations of the Offering Plan and violations of business law. I would guesstimate that I've done 3-4 trips for the court case only, having signed up for another workshop which brought me to the city. I love coming to NYC (why I bought in the first place), so it wasn't an onerous burden although costly. In terms of hours invested, I'd guesstimate maybe 50 hours in terms or online research, 20 in writing legal docs, copying, mailing, etc. So according to your estimate, I've saved myself about $10,000. I'd charge at least $150/hr for my services, $150/hr X 60 hrs = $9000 and 10 hrs @ $75/hr = $750 for clerical work, totaling $9750 saved which looks pretty good to me! btw, my court case binder was so well organized and comprehensively documented that John Smith, Esq., the free legal consultant at the court, said it was more impressive than what most attorneys bring to the court. I'm feeling pretty good about my work now that you've made me think about it more deeply!

Sue, astute observations. Filing a lawsuit is just the beginning of the journey to freedom imho. You don't have to depose, and you can submit your Interrogatories for discovery by registered return receipt mail. They will reply something like irrelevant to all of your questions, then you have to go to the clerk's office and get the form for a Motion to Compel discovery. (You could probably even ask them for the form when you submit your Summons which starts the ball rolling.) YOU choose a date to present your motion to the judge, one piece of the very specific process that I wasn't aware of initially. I got it right after consulting with the free court attorney and the Court Clerk. So my Motion to Compel hearing is in Sept, and hopefully the last pretrial conference will be in December before we go before a judge. I'm hoping to get this thing settled asap and get out of these burdensome contracts.

SueO, in terms of who to sue, I'd list Ian Bruce Eichner, T Park or O Park, depending on which company signed your sales contract.

SueO, go with breach of contract, show how they breached the contract based on the AG's docs, provide specific details on how you lost money in your initial summons.

I have continually paid my dues and am up-to-date. I’ve had several bad experiences. Six years ago my mother died unexpectedly and they would not let me move my reservation to a later date as I must use my four days my mid-August, I don’t remember the exact date but I just wanted to move my reservation to the following month, so I had to lose the day. You know they must have booked it to get paid twice.

Just now, I asked if I could move my date from August to November 21 as I have a wedding in Howard Beach, Queens, where I am originally from and Covid is prevalent in NY. They told me NO but offered some kind of deal with RCI that will cost additional money. I am so angry. I hope these lawyers can tear them apart.

Thanks for listening.

Best,

Susan Faeth

ms faeth, you are a good and well-intentioned TMC OWNER; up-to-date with your payments and doing all the right things. if you think that TMC cared one iota of your mom passing, whether or not you had a corresponding reservation after her unfortunate and untimely passing, think again. you're...all of us owners are, dealing with an inhumane, greedy, selfish and fraudulent organization that cares solely and only about profit motive; nothing more...life, death, coronavirus/covid-10, sandy hurricane, with no reservation postponement or anything else in the interest of us owners. all they care about is the money that we're shoveling into their coffers. we are burdening their albatross together, but by no means are we owners working together to loosen this monster bird's grip.

that's a problem we've yet to solve. perhaps mr zimmerman would help with the establishment of a site only for owners' use and with the use of the owners' contact list, which he's yet to present to us, perhaps with good reason. but we need it.

it's been said so often, "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!." when will our TMC albatross finally be lifted? we must get zimmerman to respond as he said he would. those of us who responded to him with our funds to retain him deserve more than we're getting.

.

susanf800 wrote:

I have continually paid my dues and am up-to-date. I’ve had several bad experiences. Six years ago my mother died unexpectedly and they would not let me move my reservation to a later date as I must use my four days my mid-August, I don’t remember the exact date but I just wanted to move my reservation to the following month, so I had to lose the day. You know they must have booked it to get paid twice.

Just now, I asked if I could move my date from August to November 21 as I have a wedding in Howard Beach, Queens, where I am originally from and Covid is prevalent in NY. They told me NO but offered some kind of deal with RCI that will cost additional money. I am so angry. I hope these lawyers can tear them apart.

Thanks for listening.

Best,

Susan Faeth

The devil is in the details. What needs to be made clear is that the AOD precludes the AOD agreement from being used in legal proceedings against The Manhattan Club. The AOD does not say that the public information documents of the court proceedings and the evidence from the New York Attorney General's investigation could not be used in Court against The Manhattan Club. The AOD was a cleverly written document that almost protects The Manhattan Club. In clause 88 of the AOD, the last clause of the document, it states the AOD does not prevent any individual from pursuing their full legal rights under the law.

Thank you so much. I just want you to know that my timeshare is paid in full by me Jessie Owen's and my sister Scarlett Parker 10,000.00 and our dues are up to date. We can no longer keep timeshare our mother has Alzheimer and we cannot keep it. We offered to return it before the maintenance starts again. No one can help us and they put us on a so called waiting list. Please help us. Thank you

ladies, call the NEW YORK STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE IMMEDIATELY AND DIRECTLY (MS LETICIA JAMES) (NOT A SECRETARY;ASK TO SPEAK WITH MS JAMES DIRECTLY) AND DESCRIBE YOUR POSITION TO HER. SHE MIGHT BE BUSY BUT TELL HER OFFICE THAT YOU'LL ACCEPT A CALL FROM HER AT A FUTURE TIME (TIME AND DATE AS NECESSARY.) taking the bull by the horns is necessary. in your description of your issue, THIS IS ESSENTIAL. KEEP IN MIND THAT THE "WAITING LIST" IS ANOTHER SUBTERFUGE to put off your necessary request. they know how to do it all. now, YOU KNOW BETTER.

jessieo3 wrote:

Thank you so much. I just want you to know that my timeshare is paid in full by me Jessie Owen's and my sister Scarlett Parker 10,000.00 and our dues are up to date. We can no longer keep timeshare our mother has Alzheimer and we cannot keep it. We offered to return it before the maintenance starts again. No one can help us and they put us on a so called waiting list. Please help us. Thank you

Thank you so much for your reply to our statement

If you don't pay the maintaining fee for one year ( of course can not use the days) , will they make you pay the maintaining fee you miss and also for the current year in order to make a reservation?

Thanks!

I feel your pain... I brought a 1 bedroom Suite back in 1999 and have been following this since then... Everything you have all been saying has happened to me but I'm afraid the outcome will be bad. It was for me...Experiences in life... Thieves!!!

Chris, if Zimmerman has the contact list, I doubt very much if he can share it with you. My guess is that it would be for his use only. I don't want you or any of the other 14 to 18, 000 TMC owners to have my personal information. This is quite different than a residential or summer vacation condo association. in that case the people are your neighbors and friends and you know each other quite well in many cases.

It seems to me that you were getting frustrated with Mr Zimmerman. If so, I think it was a poor choice to demonstrate it on this site. You're looking to recruit people to pay him $1,250.

I really don't blame you for being frustrated. The entire situation is ridiculous.

chrisv126 wrote:

ms faeth, you are a good and well-intentioned TMC OWNER; up-to-date with your payments and doing all the right things. if you think that TMC cared one iota of your mom passing, whether or not you had a corresponding reservation after her unfortunate and untimely passing, think again. you're...all of us owners are, dealing with an inhumane, greedy, selfish and fraudulent organization that cares solely and only about profit motive; nothing more...life, death, coronavirus/covid-10, sandy hurricane, with no reservation postponement or anything else in the interest of us owners. all they care about is the money that we're shoveling into their coffers. we are burdening their albatross together, but by no means are we owners working together to loosen this monster bird's grip.

that's a problem we've yet to solve. perhaps mr zimmerman would help with the establishment of a site only for owners' use and with the use of the owners' contact list, which he's yet to present to us, perhaps with good reason. but we need it.

it's been said so often, "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!." when will our TMC albatross finally be lifted? we must get zimmerman to respond as he said he would. those of us who responded to him with our funds to retain him deserve more than we're getting.

.

susanf800 wrote:

I have continually paid my dues and am up-to-date. I’ve had several bad experiences. Six years ago my mother died unexpectedly and they would not let me move my reservation to a later date as I must use my four days my mid-August, I don’t remember the exact date but I just wanted to move my reservation to the following month, so I had to lose the day. You know they must have booked it to get paid twice.

Just now, I asked if I could move my date from August to November 21 as I have a wedding in Howard Beach, Queens, where I am originally from and Covid is prevalent in NY. They told me NO but offered some kind of deal with RCI that will cost additional money. I am so angry. I hope these lawyers can tear them apart.

Thanks for listening.

Best,

Susan Faeth

My Mom is a MC owner... sorry, "victim", and I had been following this for her on here but haven't checked in in quite a while after I advised her to stop paying the fee based on this thread a while back and she hasn't gotten a threatening letter in a while. She no longer uses it and just wanted/wants to be rid of it.

She recently received a check from the Manhattan Club (I think for maybe $100), after not using it for the last few years and again not paying the fee. There was no information, letter, etc. explaining what it was for.

Is this possibly restitution for the AG settlement described here, and if not, any idea what it is? https://www.redweek.com/resources/ask-redweek/manhattan-club-settlement-owner-payouts

Seems like a good sign that THEY are paying HER as opposed to sending threatening letters about not receiving the fee. Does this mean that the saga may be over, or is this just a stopgap and they will start harassing her again??