Wonder if the cost of the lawsuit was worth it?

[rikkis_playpen Diamond Club Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close rikkis_playpen]

Hotel on the Cay recently won a case that was pushed to appeals court when they won a $33k judgment against a defaulting owner.

The judge's opinion is here..

I have to wonder what the legal costs were, and if they'll ever be able to collect?

[bnoble Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close bnoble]

Sometimes, one does these sorts of things not to recover money from the defendant in question, but to establish a chilling-effect precedent for other owners thinking of doing the same thing. The ruling also seems to include reimbursement of fees and costs, but I suspect collection will be difficult.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Not that we are seeing the ultimate cost, the same could be said for the RCI lawsuit.

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

In that it was for past dues on nine timeshare units, it was a more lucrative target to go after. I would imagine that the lawyer involved did some research as to whether or not the defendants could pay.

[Jya-Ning Silver Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close Jya-Ning]

Wow, 2003 to 2010. Wonder what happen to those 9 intervals during that period.

Jya-Ning

[Tia Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Tia]

Our resort would try to rent them, but if not then the lost income/cost goes to the HOA.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Since this was all handled under summary judgment, there was no trial and accordingly the Association's legal costs on this weren't very large.

Essentially the Association filed suit and made preliminary filings and notice. The defendants didn't respond, which legally was equivalent to them stipulating that the facts alleged by the Association were true. With that stipulation in place, it was easy for the Association to obtain summary judgment in their favor on all matters alleged.

Only in appeal of the summary judgment did the Mina's attempt to raise issues of fact, but by then it was too late. In my experience courts are very deferential to stipulated facts; once something is stipulated it's pretty hard to undo the admission.

At that point the appeals process was pretty straightforward, as the only relevant issue at appeal was whether the district court had followed appropriate procedures in issuing summary judgment.

******

Legally this was pretty simple. Had the Mina's not ignored the original filings the case might have gone differently. But they didn't react until they realized that not only were they going to lose the timeshare units, they were also on the hook for more than $30,000.

By that time, it was too late for them to mount any defense.