
But, one day, while Stan was out of town, there was a knock on the front door. The Huerfano County Deputy Sheriff stood on the front step. He was serving me with a lawsuit that T.C. had filed against the partnership and against Stan personally.
I signed for the documents, and the sheriff left. I started reading and my hands began to shake. T.C. was suing us for millions and millions of dollars in future profits that he was allegedly losing because we had broken our contract with him. Huh? He was the one who had never signed the contract! The allegations made no sense[i], but we had to go through the wringer of counter-suing, and months and months of sleeplessness and anxiety as we worked with attorneys to decipher this unexpected development. We were bewildered about what had gone wrong and what to do next.
We diligently searched for a new development partner, or some way to rescue this project, and all the time and money we had invested in it. Nine years had now passed since we initially purchased the property. We were truly heartsick on behalf of our partners who had begun to hope to make a better-than-expected return on their money from this development. What on earth could we do to rescue this sinking ship? © Sharon Cairns Mann
[i] While I would love to provide details, I’m prohibited by the final settlement from doing so.