2006, July 25

Today we found out what the settlement offer is from the Grana's.  But first let me bring you up to speed a little.  Our case has been going slow, after our depositions we never heard from them about an offer until we were notified that they have a new attorney.  That attorney appeared to be willing to take the case all the way to court.  We still never received their answer to the inter-derogatory and were scheduled to have a court case to force them to provide them yesterday but at the last minute they did turn them into us and we cancelled that date.  

They have also submitted paperwork stating that they at some point sent us an acceleration letter and other documents basically stating we were in default which is a total lie and should easily be proven out in court.  In those documents they stated that the law that caused us to have buyers remorse went into effect on January 1, 2005 2 months after we purchased the business.  Our attorney immediately went and researched this and shows the law actually went into effect on January 1, 2004 a full year before and probably the reason they closed the office and put the business up for sale.  We are holding this information I assume until Friday when our settlement conference is.

So the settlement conference.  Under the impression that they would not see our settlement offer and only the judge would we submitted a fair and reasonable offer of $75,000 plus attorney fees to be awarded to us in cash in addition to waiving the balance of the note.  Their offer was like $175,000.00 cash which is basically what we owe her plus 24,000 (probably what they have spent in attorney fees).  And more than they were originally asking for.  The only thought here is that they are totally unwilling to settle for anything and that Fri will be a total waste of time.  We will definitely be going to court.  But let's put some creativity and common sense to this thing.  What are they counting on as their Whammy?

1.    Sandra's ego MAY be so big that she thinks her testimony will be overwhelmingly convincing.

            a.  If I was their attorney I would definitely play the retirement card which they are beginning to present in the settlement offer.  They may feel that this alone will get the jury on their side.

            b.  Enlisted testimony of friends of Sandra, insurance adjusters and family members that worked for the company.  Peter and I both feel that to some extent she has Michelle in her back pocket.  Especially since Michelle suddenly stopped mentioning the truck payment she was paying them.  Every month she was stressing about that then suddenly she stopped.  I know that she was near the end but I keep wondering if Grana just offered to stop it or float it if Michelle helped her.  It's good we stopped speaking to her about the lawsuit.

            c.  They actually believe their lies.