RCI Lawsuit Settlement Agreement

[GoofyHobbie]

Originally Posted by GoofyHobbie
The attorneys for the Plaintiffs and the Defense are watching Timeshare bulletin boards very carefully to monitor the activity of volunteers such as myself. They have a vested interest in seeing our mission fail.

Originally Posted by JLB Is that true, that the attorneys for the plaintiff wish to see our efforts to object fail?

For attorneys, they have been responsive and polite to me . . . for attorneys.

JLB,

I have not had the pleasure of speaking with any of the primary attorneys (my choice) so I don't know what their demeanor would be. But, I have interacted by E-Mail with one of the Plaintiff's attorneys. That particular attorney has been professional and responsive.

The Plaintiff's attorneys may or may not get paid. We, the objectors, by objecting have at the very least put off the outcome and possibly the amounts that will eventually be paid out to the Plaintiff's Attorneys.

Had things ended in June the payout to the Plaintiffs Attorneys would have been substantial and they would have been awarded fees by the Court for their work. The threat of losing that payday or increasing their cost while not getting a much larger pay day represents what I refer to as their vested interest.

It is possible that the Court might reject the Settlement. If that happens the Plaintiff’s attorneys have to decide if they want to cut their losses, go to trial or work out a better settlement. Any of those options would not be something that the Plaintiff’s attorneys would want to happen given that they had a substantial pay day assured.

The Court, if it does not accept the proposed Settlement, could cause the parties to go to trial. Going to Trial without the benefit of Discovery, might be something that the Plaintiff's attorneys don't look forward to undertaking.

If the Judge were to allow Discovery RCI would not be real happy with that outcome; and the cost of undertaking Discovery by both sides would no doubt be considerable.

Of course the Defense attorneys get paid directly by RCI based on whatever arrangement they have with RCI. The vested interest for them is going home with a Settlement that RCI would be happy with.

RCI, no doubt is happy with the proposed settlement. They will not be happy if they are forced to comply with Discovery, go to trail, or hammer out a Settlement that is more favorable to their Membership.

__________________
Dave

All my posts are based on my personal experience or should be considered my personal opinion about the subject being discussed.

[Carolinian]

Being forced to trail without discovery should be slam dunk reversal at the appellate level. That is a fundamental denial of due process. I cannot imagine that a trial judge would subject himself to getting that much egg on his face. Even without discovery, subpoenas can be used to get all RCI records at trial, but the disadvantage is not having time to really pour over them like attorneys should to prepare for trial.

I agree that the nominal plaintiffs attorneys have only one interest now, and it is not their ''clients''. It is their own payday. I think they have a huge confliict of interest and their approach now is completely unethical. We need to file ethics complaints against them after the Fairness Hearing.

[JLB]

Oh, & here I thought the legal system was only concerned about what is fair and just.

Just kidding . . . why is it the we are so proud of what is such a crappy system?

Don't get me started, but, in short, some of the most unfair people I have run across are in law enforcement, or are attorneys or judges. I have had way too much contact with folks in those lines of work the last 7 years and am trying hard right now to come up with one who I would consider to be fair, reasonable and unbiased, interested in a just outcome.

Strange, I had exactly this conversation with someone in real life today, them being the ones saying what I am saying.

Would anyone here not be uncomfortable, unsure of the outcome, regardless of the facts, in any courtroom in this country?

[JLB]

I was just thinking that if someone was to come up with a way to raid RCI members over to another exchange company, one designed to do what RCI was intended to do . . . help people who want to exchange find others who want to exchange, nothing more . . . RCI would have their legal beagles all over them.



RCI is such a far cry from what it was in the DeHaan days that it should not even be allowed to use the name.

[SoCal]

I can't say the class action suit, its claims, or the outcome are a surprise to me. I always had the feeling RCI was getting paid on both ends of the deal. The get paid by the member paying annual dues and then on the rental. That's really underhanded. What I didn't know about was the outcome. I learned about it on another site where a member posted it in the blog section xxxxxxxxxxxxxx with their comments. Now that I hear the outcome I am even more disappointed. RCI has a lot of power and this story will be buried.