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Manhattan Club Lawsuit
These guys seem straight shooters to me.
If anyone thinks that there is some way you can get relief without legal fees, you are dreaming.
Supporting this suit with $1,250 seems like a reasonable option, and for all the complaining, I've seen nothing better as a solution.
I'm in.
Craig Rodby
Craig R.
I am an attorney and owner of 2 MC flex weeks since 2003 & 2007 (approx,), and am current on my maintenance. Nonetheless I am inclined to join the action, but have 2 Qs:
1. Why a $1250 (arbitrary) retainer? Seems to me your retainer should be a fixed amount (whether it be $25,000, $50,000, $100,000 or whatever, DIVIDED by the # of plaintiffs willing to sign tour retainer agreement. That’s fairer to those who DO sign up; and to you as well. For instance, hypothetically, if ALL 16,000 owners retained your firm, your retainer fee would be (gasp) about $20 million (@ $1250 per). On the other hand, if there are only 50 plaintiffs, I don’t see how you could even get past a motion to dismiss for $50,000.
2. Assuming a good recovery and your 30% contingency fee (which is fair, to be sure), will the retainers you receive be applied against the contingency fee if that is larger than the total retainers paid to your firm? Likewise, if you discontinue prior to utilization of all retainers, I assume the difference will be refunded??
Steven W
As a purchaser of unit from secondary market li paid less than some who purchased directly from tmc. Can i assume i would get the same relief/payment as all owners pf similar catigory of ownership. Please confirm. And when ready contact me as i hate to see the bastards walk away unchallanged
sueo79 wrote:From attorney - Mr Zimmerman 6/7/2018:I am writing to address issues raised over the last week in recent posts regarding my firm The Zimmerman Law Group (ZLG) and its proposed strategy for obtaining relief for aggrieved TMC timeshare owners.
ZLG is a small firm, whose main focus has been intellectual property litigation on behalf of plaintiffs in various federal courts. It is acknowledged that we have not previously handled timeshare or not-for-profit corporation cases, and have never claimed to have such experience. However, ZLG comes to this case with a different perspective than your typical real estate or corporate attorneys, and offers TMC timeshare owners an advantage as compared to the previous efforts. Specifically, ZLG seeks to use the extensive experience its attorneys have attained litigating complex commercial cases involving significant discovery, contract claims, fraud claims and civil RICO claims, against large financial institutions represented by large national law firms, to pursue various claims against the deep-pocketed Eichners.
One post referenced sanctionable conduct in the Eon-Net case. The conduct at issue was aggressive and diligent representation of a client in asserting a software patent against a bank, in a case that began in 2005 in Newark, New Jersey, ended in 2011 in Seattle, Washington, and involved two separate appeals to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., during which time the legal climate turned decidedly against software patent owners, and in favor of patent challengers. I consider the opprobrium garnered from this case to be a badge of honor. You can read about that case at https://www.wired.com/2012/11/ff-steven-levy-the-patent-problem/.
We have spent many hours reviewing the law, facts, and issues in this case, and have developed a credible strategy that can ultimately prevail. As noted by many, we have formidable adversaries. However, we have a potentially formidable group of clients, which, if they pool their resources, will enable us to counter and ultimately prevail over any tactics employed by the Eichners and their lawyers, even if that requires us to go to trial. A jury is exceedingly unlikely to be sympathetic to the Eichners. Our intention is to prepare and conduct this case as if we are going to trial. That is the best way to guarantee a favorable outcome.
A motion to dismiss is likely to be the first substantive legal tactic employed by the Eichners to defeat our case. However, given the detailed allegations we intend to include in the complaint, and given the admissions made by the Eichners in their settlement with NY State AG Schneiderman, such a motion is likely to fail. Discovery will then commence in earnest which may entail hundreds, if not thousands, of depositions, and the review of tens of thousands of pages of documents. The requested retainer of $1,250.00 is intended primarily to cover these discovery costs. Settlement discussions are also likely to begin if we defeat the motion to dismiss. The larger the number of owners who retain us, the less likely will be the need for any additional funds beyond the initial retainer. We therefore encourage you to convince your TMC co-owners to retain us to successfully fight this battle on your behalves.
We would prefer, and it is our intention, to not ask owners for any additional funds beyond the intial $1,250.00 retainer. However, the need for an additional retainer will ultimately depend on how many owners retain us. We cannot guarantee that additional money will not be required to properly fund this litigatation to prevent the Eichners from trying to defeat us by outspending us using legal tactics such as excessive discovery. We therefore expressly reserve the right to ask for an additional retainer. In any event, any call for replenishment of the retainer will likely not be necessary, if at all, until after the anticipated motion to dismiss filed by the Eichners is defeated. If a request for further retainer funds is declined by you, we may be unable to properly fund this litigation, which could diminish the prospects of obtaining particular compensation for your damages. With your support, we seek to take on this case because it is interesting and legally challenging, pits us against a Goliath, and offers the potential for a significant recovery.
As best we can tell, no law firm other than ZLG is willing to risk taking on the Eichners on the bases we have proposed. Previous class action efforts have been tried and failed. This resulted from various factors, not least of which is the very nature of a class action, which requires common issues of fact and law to be decided for the class as a whole. However, in this case, each client has had a separate experience, and bought a different unit at a different time. Therefore, a class action could not purport to cover all the issues for all the timeshare owners.
Further, the relief attained by former AG Schneiderman’s settlement with the Eichners has left most TMC owners as aggrieved as they were before his settlement and is therefore of little or no value to them.
We do not expect this case to be easy, we do not expect results overnight, and we do not expect this case to be without possible risks and/or setbacks. We do not expect or require all the TMC owners to share our vision and plan. Indeed, because the various forums we now have for communicating with potential clients are “public” and not protected by the attorney client privilege, we have not revealed our full plans. Also, the strategy continues to evolve, as we gain more insight into what has transpired. However, we have revealed a sufficient portion of our case to enable potential clients (and the Eichners) to consider its merits.
We are not seeking to simply sue the Eichners, in a litigation with no end in sight. We have a clear plan for resolution. The building has significant value of which the Eichners are currently the primary beneficiary. The Eichners must be removed, and they must compensate the TMC owners for their losses.
The best way to do this is to pursue a two-pronged approach: commencement of a lawsuit against the Eichners including a full range of allegations of wrongdoing, while simultaneously seeking to sell or otherwise repurpose the building, so that existing owners can attain liquidity for their investment, while being freed of the unreasonable obligation to pay exorbitant maintenance fees going forward.
In connection with this plan, our contingent fee of 30% applies to any recovery we obtain from a settlement, liquidation and/or damages award. It does not apply to any maintenance fees that an owner did not pay and which we are successful in having forgiven or otherwise absolved. As previously indicated, since we may represent or otherwise be aligned with a technically “adverse” party, such as a prospective buyer or broker to effectuate our plan, we will ask you to waive any potential conflict arising from such a scenario.
Finally, it is our intention to retain an independent forensic accountant to equitably allocate any settlement, liquidation and/or damages award among the owners who retain us, to account for the differences that exist amongst them. For example, owners who are current on their maintenance fees will be presumably entitled to a greater share of any recovery than those who are not current. Likewise, those owners who retain us and incur the time and expense of participating in the litigation will be eligible to receive damages and may preferentially receive proceeds from a disposition of the building, compared to those owners who do not retain us to represent them in the lawsuit.
Jean-Marc Zimmerman Zimmerman Law Group 233 Watchung Fork Westfield, NJ 07090 jmz@tmcsuit.com
This communication constitutes an advertisement under the Rules of Professional Conduct governing the practice of lawyers. Our past results are no guarantee of future performance.
Sidney F.
OK - there is a lot of confusion by some posting on this site. What property do you think Eicher has the right to sell? Our time shares were fee simple ownership so does the Manhattan Club Timeshare Association not own the property? I thought Eichner was to distance himself from the management and ownership of any unsold timeshares. Do some believe that Eicher owns the building? So, when some owners are posting about a sale, it seems those owners believe that the entire building is to be sold with the further belief that the building could be demolished or converted to some other use. That is not the conclusion I have come to.
Gail J.
kivin631,
"their incompetent and shameful representation as board members........." your description of these of our three so-called representatives (owners to boot) is much too kind. i see them as NON REPRESENTATIVES...........READ " in it for themselves". they NEVER, EVER DID ANYTHING ON OWNERS' BEHALVES THAT I HAVE BEEN MADE AWARE OF. let them rot with eichner and his cohorts in crime (as i interpret it.)
as a related aside concerning schneiderman, i find his competency, in court, on our behalves very questionable. eichner now has material provided by schneiderman (from his court prowess....or lack thereof) to write a comedic autobiography. eichner continues to build his empire thumbing his nose at all authority........read about his current nyc flatiron section victories. he's probably going to build more buildings (or take ownership of them) to apply his crafty fraud to other unsuspecting investors.
REPLY TO THIS MESSA
kevin631 wrote:I just cannot believe it.Early Saturday morning I received the ballot for the upcoming election of the Board of Directors of the Manhattan Club. The three current “non-sponsored” board members have the audacity to be running for reelection. This is either complete arrogance and or stupidity on their part to believe that owners will just forgive and forget the total lack of representation and communication from these three board members over the last few years. I encourage all owners to carefully read the biographies of the five candidates. Obviously these three individuals have no shame or embarrassment concerning their incompetent and shameful representation as board members.
Chris V.
I completed a survey a few months ago. I would like to know if it was received. My husband and I are interested in participating in the Class action law suit but would like more info. I read the extensive post but would prefer detailed info from the law office in writing. If you are depending on this Red week blog to recruit interested parties it seems like just the recruitment could take years! I am willing to be an active participant in the lawsuit; whatever it takes! There are very good questions within the blog. I look forward to reading your lawfirm’s responses. Thanks
Rosemary G.
I began working with an attorney more than a year ago to get out of my contract with TMC. Of course I still own because they currently aren't buying, selling, or taking units back because of the AG investigation and settlement. I did contact the AG office to get some idea of when I might be able to give my unit back. I recently got a reply but all it said was "Please be advised that the Manhattan Club is not allowed to buy and sell timeshares in the state of New York." so I did not get my question answered.
I am current with my maintenance fees but after 20 years of rising fees, I am just plain finished with TMC. I wasn''t looking to get anything other than to stop paying fees and get out of the contract. After making many calls to law firms, I decided to bite the bullet and hire one of the more reasonably priced ones with good reviews to the tune of $4000. I figured if I never paid another maintenance fee, which I won't be doing, I would be ahead in less than 2 years. So here is the reason for this post. I am just putting my 2 cents worth into this conversation to say that in light of what I have paid, $1250 seems to me a very reasonable retainer fee for ZLG. I am not sure what I am doing at this point in regard to ZLG but if I didn't already have something in the works I would definitely participate. Let me repeat, I am getting nothing for my imoney other than to be out of my contract.
Karen B.
I have said repeatedly that we are the owners. Eichner was the manager. He cannot have anything to do with timeshares, at least in New York. The Manhattan Club was developed as a timeshare. He cannot retain the building on his own, unless New York real estate is different from that of California. It is, somewhat, because in California you're required to turn the Board over to the owners when a certain percentage of the units are sold. I can't believe he didn't reach that threshold.
Laura H.
FYI....Time Share Units may be sold as a partial ownership, lease, or "right to use", in which case the latter holds no claim to ownership of the property. The terms "Owner" and "Ownership" are misleading. At best, "Ownership" is of a percentage of timeshare structure for use of....not property that is owned. It is simply the right to use for a percentage of time.
In other words, the Eichners and other parties own and will continue to own the building after the sale of The Manhattan Club Timeshare and the "right to use" business.
According to AG filing and the Martin Act: timeshares are purchased for recreational use and not for profit or investment. Furthermore, the AG filing states timeshares have no resale value and actual resale is uncertain as per the Martin Act. The Eichners and representatives are being found guilty of making fraudulent claims implying something other than "right to use" and underestimating bad debts in the annual budget . (violations of the Martin Act) However, that doesn't change what The Manhattan Club Timeshare business actually is.
I have said repeatedly that we are the owners. Eichner was the manager. He cannot have anything to do with timeshares, at least in New York. The Manhattan Club was developed as a timeshare. He cannot retain the building on his own, unless New York real estate is different from that of California. It is, somewhat, because in California you're required to turn the Board over to the owners when a certain percentage of the units are sold. I can't believe he didn't reach that threshold.
Dennis R.
I received the contract today from the lawyer via email and we decided to join the litigation. After all the money that we have lost the fee seems reasonable to us,. I will be sending it in shortly. Hopefully something will finally be done and this will just be a bad memory.
Tom
Thomas L.
