Kimmy and Nathan

Last night I received a phone call and email from Laura Rucker of Dare to Dream Sporthorses regarding my previous post. Here is her email verbatim:

Kimmy,

I have spoken with an attorney about this priviously as I new you would go this route. I am letting you know right now that you need to remove my name and buisness name from your blog page or I will sue you for slander. There are fabricated facts in your story and it is slander. I request you remove anything that includes my name or buisness name from everything or I will be pressing slander charges tomorrow.

Laura

Dare To Dream Sporthorses

Laura- Please feel free to tell me exactly which statements in my previous post you deem to be inaccurate and why. I am more than happy to post your response on this blog or I encourage you to use the commenting section on this blog to post your account of yesterday so my readers can hear your side of the story.

Court is over. OVER OVER OVER!!!!

And in case you are wondering I am pretty excited.

The summary- I only owed Laura $464 plus her court fees. I get to keep Nadia and got her paperwork! If you want more details keep reading. I am warning you it might be a bit long….

We showed up on time and I went in to the court room where a judge explained what was going to go on that day. Then, Laura Rucker of Dare to Dream Sporthorses and I were sent up to mediation. And mediation was hell. Laura was aggressive and the mediator didn’t keep her in check. Unfortunately (or fortunately as you will find out in a minute) she didn’t take any of my generous offers and only was willing to take $3000 and have me STILL return my horse to her!

The mediator finally gave up on us and sent us down to court. I thought we were going to have some time to collect our thoughts, go over each other’s evidence, and take a deep breath but noooo…. we were headed straight to court! So up we went to a fourth floor courtroom. We went in, sat down and waited for the judge but he never came. The clerk asked us how many witnesses we had and I said three (Becky, Pat whom I board from and Nathan) plus me. Laura said just herself and a possible other witness. The clerk then said there wasn’t enough time to try the case before lunch and that we needed to come back at 1:30. Laura proceeded to ask the clerk not once but TWICE if it mattered that my witnesses weren’t material to the case and should just be thrown out. The clerk told her twice it was for the judge to decide and that we were going to recess for lunch no matter what!

During lunch I made copies of all my paperwork to give the judge and Laura (I didn’t know before hand that I had to do this) and I read up on partnership law. Oh and I was a complete nervous wreck and could barely eat lunch.

So back to court at 1:30 we went…

Finally the judge came in about 1:45 and Laura got to state her case. She gave her testimony first and then talked though her evidence and expenses (which the judge had trouble making sense of). At first she was claiming about $5300 worth of expenses, training and board. Then she tacked on damage done to her trailer by the horses ($4700) but that exceeded the total allowed for small claims (she actually tried to ask the judge for legal advise on this!) . Laura settled on suing for the full $7500 allowed by the court and that would include the trailer expenses. She didn’t call her witness who was outside the courtroom tending to Laura’s baby.

I was allowed to contest the trailer expenses which I did and the judge still admitted it. At this point I felt like I was loosing and was going to get completely screwed! Where was I going to come up with $7500??

I read my opening statement because I couldn’t keep track in my head. Here is what I read nearly word for word:

I started taking lessons from Laura Rucker of Dare to Dream Sporthorses in June of 2007. As our relationship grew, she talked about how she made money selling horses and encouraged me to do the same. Over time my responsibilities increased and I started taking an active role in Laura’s business, Dare to Dream Sporthorses. I took care of her horses and taught her students while she was on maternity leave from mid December 2007 till mid February 2008. This included exercising, feeding, and training.

At first we started out small. She brought me to the auction and encouraged me to buy a pony. I successfully sold her and was thrilled. Later I purchased another pony as our first joint venture and, with Laura’s help, put some training on her and sold her. I shared that profit (and some expenses) with Laura.

Laura encouraged me to buy something bigger, requiring more work. She said that it would pay off significantly. We had already purchased a gelding at auction and Laura suggested a mare from a gal she knew. We bought the mare for $2500 because Laura claimed that, with her help, we could sell the horse for $10,000. We never saw much of that help. Laura had one of her working students who had very little riding experience working one of the horses. On repeated occasions Laura would get frustrated with the horses and refuse to work them leaving me, with my little experience, to do it by myself.

In April, we moved barns and signed a joint lease. I paid the deposit with the understanding that I would get it back when I moved out.

I am inexperienced with horses and have only been seriously working with them for the last year. I relied and Laura’s experience and knowledge and trusted her to make good recommendations as to which horses to purchase. I invested the initial capital as well as a bulk of the expenses into these horses. When it became apparent that a profit was not going to happen, Laura took upon herself to remove me from the lease at the barn and on June 29th gave me less than 48 hours notice that I needed to remove my horses.

When Laura kicked me out of the barn, essentially telling me that I was on my own, it appeared that she was cutting her losses so as to not incur any other expenses. She even threatened to put liens on the horses if I didn’t have them out.

I removed my horses within the allotted time and have been caring for them ever since. I have continued to accrue expenses and have invested a lot of time into their care, training, and selling. I sold the gelding on July 28th. I still have the broodmare and am working on getting her into decent, sellable shape. Because of Laura’s disregard to the horse’s health we are having trouble selling her.

I added a couple of other points I can’t remember at this time. Laura asked me a couple of questions in a terribly rude manner but I answered them with poise. I entered all my evidence which the judge understood because it was clear and concise.

Then Pat testified for me and boy was she a lifesaver. She testified as to her expertise and experience with horses and to the condition of the horses when they arrived at her place. Pat was poised and calm and explained every detail carefully to the judge. The judge really liked her and asked her for her opinion as the value of the Nadia (the horse I still had) and how much money it would take to get her in to sellable shape. Pat guessed she was worth between $3k – $4k but that it would take at least another $2k to get here there! Laura got to cross examine Pat but didn’t manage to discredit Pat at all.

Nathan was next and he did all right but had trouble staying on track. It was worth it to watch Laura squirm… she can’t stand Nathan! My favorite line from the judge to Laura while cross examining Nathan was “you have to convince me not him!”

Finally Laura got to make her final statement which didn’t really add anything to the argument. Then the judge said this was a classic case of a business dealings gone wrong and that everyone was going to lose money.

Amidst much protesting from Laura the judge finally gave his verdict. He looked at both of our out of pocket expenses ($3848.55 for me and $1876 for Laura). He threw out all of her training time, advertising time and trailer expenses saying it was the cost of doing business. Then he subtracted the estimated value of selling Nadia ($4500) minus $2000 it will take to keep her for the next few months until she is sellable. So I went down to about $948 l still had invested and Laura was still at $1876. He divided the difference and I owed Laura ONLY $464 plus her court fees.

If this doesn’t make sense sorry. We are already celebrating with champagne.

I wrote Laura her check, told her I was going to eat cake, and ran out the door! We all celebrated at Sweet Life for a bit and later went out to dinner at Turtles.

All in all I felt it was fair. I am happy with the outcome and am thrilled everything is over. Justice was served and I have faith in the legal system.

Yey!

Anyone want to buy a holsteiner broodmare?

- Eat it Laura -

–
NG          

I am down to just two horses which is so nice. I am ready for horses to just be fun and to be done with all the drama but one more big hurdle looms on the horizon- court.

Monday, August 25th, I will be appearing at the Lane County Circuit Court to defend myself against Laura Rucker of Dare to Dream Sporthorses. She filed a claim against me shortly after I took my horses claiming all manner of exorbitant expenses. I filed a response and requested a court date and now it is only one week away. I am completely stressed out, I can’t think straight, and Nathan and I are arguing. I wish I could crawl under a rock, go to sleep and not wake up till this nightmare is over.

You see in our family Nathan is the fighter and (believe it or not) I prefer to run from confrontation. Well, unless that confrontation is with my family but that is a post for another day. I wanted to leave a horse when I took my horses from Laura’s so that this whole litigation wouldn’t happen. That would have meant we were out thousands of more dollars. Nathan didn’t want to get screwed any more than we had already been and wanted to fight it out.

The problem lies in the fact that I am the one who has to appear before the judge by myself. Nathan will be in the audience and I have lots of friends coming to support me but it will just me standing up there… and Laura who intimidates the hell out of me.

I can’t seem to wrap my mind around the argument I am supposed to make. I am a nervous wreck and I don’t want to go. I screwed up, made a bad business decision, and lost some money. Can’t we just leave it at that and walk away? Please?

Anyone have any suggestions about what I should do besides running away to Canada and becoming an ex-pat?

So I need to add a couple of updates:

Both my meetings last Wednesday went really well. I didn’t get an outright no from either company and both said they would look into the possibility and get back to me. I am following up today so hopefully soon I will have more details to share. Keep your fingers crossed!

Enterprise… the vain of my existence. The area manager called me apologizing for what happened but didn’t offer any compensation. He did say he was going to talk to the branch and find out why everything went wrong that day. I get to make all my reservations through the area manager now so we will see how that goes. I am not holding my breath.

Katie and Josh were here for a couple of days which was wonderful. I am sad the visit was so short and that I had to work so much but it was great to see them.

Other than that life is boring right now. If I could only find my brain…

Yesterday was our third anniversary. We have known each other for close to six years, been together for over five and a half years and survived three wonderful years of marriage.

I love you Nathan! You are absolutely the best thing that has ever happened to me.  I can’t wait to see what the rest of our life together will be like.

I sent this email to every CEO I could find at Enterprise Rent a Car. I am frustrated and mad… Any suggestions?

Dear Enterprise,
 
I am frustrated. I feel like I have given you so many chances to retain me as a customer and yet you do not seem to want my business! If this were the first time this had happened I might understand but you can’t seem to correct your problem.
 
First, a little background. I work for a national non-profit and travel for work on a regular basis. When I started working I didn’t want to put miles on my cars and decided to start renting. Renting saves my foundation a good bit of money and saved wear and tear on my vehicles. I had a college friend who was an assistant manager at one of your branches and he always took good care of me. I rent between 10 to 15 times a year for anywhere from one to four days each time.
 
Last October (October 24th to be precise) I had a reservation at your branch on Garfield St in Eugene OR. When I went to pick up said reservation there wasn’t a car available. Very very frustrating. I was given some less than workable options including taking a car that got terrible gas mileage. I left in tears and took my own truck. I called the 1800 number for Enterprise to complain and was given back to the branch on Garfield. They offered me a free upgrade for my next rental for my troubles. I was less than impressed but didn’t want to drive my own cars so I went back to renting at Enterprise.
 
This Spring I went to rent a car on April 30th, this time at the branch on 6th since I was more than fed up with the branch on Garfield. I had several really good experiences with the branch on 6th but on the 30th I went to pick up my car WHICH I HAD A RESERVATION for and waited for over an hour. It seems like when I make a reservation it is merely a suggestion and does not in any way guarantee that I will have a car. This was made abundantly clear yesterday.
 
Tuesday the 5th of August I called the Enterprise branch on 6th St early in the morning to make a reservation. The gentleman was very sweet and made the reservation for me. I was under the impression I would have a car to pick up on at 8 am on the morning of the 6th. Later in the afternoon I called back to let them know I would be traveling out of state and asked if that would be a problem for my rental. They said no and that they would note it on my reservation. Still I was under the impression I would have a car to pick up at 8 am the next morning.
 
My husband and I went out to breakfast and I was about 15 min to go pick up my rental. When we drove into the parking lot there were only 3 cargo vans and no cars. The office was full of customers. I got a sinking feeling. I walked in and told them I had a reservation and needed to get my car. The guy behind the counter looked up a bunch of information and then asked for my license. I asked him if I would have a car and he said that they might have one within 20 min but there was no guarantee. I needed to be on the road by 9 am and still had to swing by my office to pick up some things for the trip. I couldn’t wait another 20 min to potentially have a car by 8:45. He was very diplomatic but explained that the car I was supposed to have had a bent rim and was taken to the shop and would be returned soon but that he couldn’t guarantee I could leave by 9 am. He also said that there were supposed to be more cars but people hadn’t returned them. If there was a car they would have held it for me but there simply weren’t any car. I asked him why did they take a reservation if they didn’t have a car and he didn’t have an answer.There were cars at the airport location but they were held for reservations- just not my reservation. I was furious at this point seeing as I had worked for over 6 months to schedule the meetings I was traveling to and wasn’t going to let Enterprise screw it up.
 
Irritated, I left the branch and talked to my husband who was in the car. He went inside and told the manager to find me a car even if it was at a competitors.  The manager mentioned there might be a suburban they could give me instead. I had to drive over 500 miles and didn’t want to take a gas guzzler so I told him I would take it is the rental was free (I would have to pay so much more for gas so I thought it was fair) I was told no, it would be a free upgrade but no… wait… that car is reserved for someone at 9:30 so I couldn’t have it. WHAT??
 
To the manager’s credit he did get on the phone and call around and found a car at Avis but it was now 8:45, I was stressed, needing to get to the office and get on the road. I didn’t have time to drive to another rental location across town. In tears now, I left and resigned myself to taking my little car with over 160,000 miles on it.
 
The wear and tear on my car is frustrating but what is worse is that renting a car saves my foundation money. For driving I will be compensated $225 but if I had rented the total cost including gas would have been around $160.
 
So I would like to know what does a reservation mean?
 
I love your company when everything goes well but it just seems like it is a crap shoot. I dread every time I have to rent from you because I don’t know what will happen. You simply are just not a dependable company.
 
Please advise me on how you plan to correct this problem or recommend one of your competitors that can actually take and honor a reservation.
 
Kimmy Gustafson

Do you think they will actually do anything?

After months of cold calling two big companies I finally have meetings- with both of them. And both meetings are tomorrow. Thankfully my boss is coming along to help make the asks. I wish I could provide more details but can’t. I promise I will write all about it as soon as I get back from my trip

I am responsible for the fundraising for the March of Dimes in Jackson, Josephine, Klamath, Lincoln, and Linn-Benton County. I have met moderate success in some sites while only utter failure in others. A yes from even one of these two companies would be huge and certainly be more than I can even dare to dream of at this moment.

So, please, wish me luck! If you don’t ask the answer is always no right?