Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

with the AMA. It's our belief that the judge and the jury made some erroneous decisions, and based on that and what we believe the contract for all the AMA is, (that) will be the foundation for the appeal that we're making to the Fourth Circuit Court in Richmond. The joint-venture agreement, which is one of the things which Roger Edmondson said was violated, was one of the main points of his litigation. RR: It's our belief that what we had with Roger was a contractual relationship. Whether it was a joint. venture or it was a contract is one of the points of the dispute. So that's what takes us to the courthouse to begin with, is a different interpretation of what the relationship was. So I think it's fair to say that we have a different perspective on the situation than Roger does. Q A What about the attempts to setQ tle? A-RR: The information is that the fiAMA has made several offers to settle this dispute with Roge~. And, for whatever reason, he's either not accepted them or they've been rejected. QAre there offers still out there? A-RR: As [ understand it, we've fimade ongoing attempts to try to resolve this dispute through settlement and that discussions continue between counsel. HOW long will the appeal process take? . A- RR: It's estimated that an appeal ficould ta ke up to 18 months. Courts are unpredictable, but certainly up to 18 months. Q What are the grounds for the appeal? RR: Not having read all the papers, principally the grounds for appeal are anchored in our belief that this is purely a contract dispute and that Roger received compensation when he was under the agreement Q A The reasons you would appeal have already been filed with the lower court or you had to file already with the appeals court? RR: Before we can even file an appeal,. procedurally, it's my understanding that we first have to go to the lower court and say, "Okay, we don't agree with you and we want a new trial." And it was that motion for a new trial that was rejected by the same judge. Having proceeded with that formality, which we're required to . do, we now develop our papers to pursue to the Fourth Circuit Court in Richmond, which is the next logical step in the process, as I understand it. Q A IS there any sense of why the AMA lost the case? RR: I've talked to some people and we've kind of talked among ourselves on this, and I guess our sense is that one of the- reasons we lost the case is because the court chose to permit some evidence that we didn't think was particularly relevant to the case, admitted some evidence that shouldn't have been permitted. Ultimately, we think maybe the proximity of the holiday had some effect on the jury's willingness to give the deliberation the time they needed to understand the case. And all those things probably worked to our disadvantage. Q A It would be the judge who let the evidence in. RR: He's the one who makes the rulings. It was his interpretation of what the issues were that were different than what our counsel thought they were. And, as 1 understand the rules, some things are permissible in certain circumstances and not permissible in others, and he chose to permit some things that we believe perhaps Q A unreasonably put information before the jury that didn't need to be there. And what were they, specifically? RR: I can't give you the specifics. It's just sort of the sense I get from the people I talked with, including our counsel. GH: There's elements of that, the reasons for the loss and the reasons for the appeal that go into the appeal itself, and that's where I'm not sure we can comment. We can check on it. Q A A At this point, how does this trial affect the AMA members? RR: Good question. I don't think in terms of the opera tion of the association it affects us very much at all. We had made provisions for judgment in our ongoing financial planning, which is, in fact, reflected in the annual report tha t we published in December. We're continuing to go forward with the bu iness of the as odation. Plans that we've made to celebrate our 75th anniversary are ongoing. We'll open the museum in July to celebrate our Vintage Motorcycle Days in central Ohio, in Lexington, at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. We'll open the museum. We've got any number of events that are scheduled to go on with that. For us, it's continuing on. Q A IS the AMA insured against lawsuits like this? RR: This particular lawsuit is not insured. Q A So any judgment will have to come out of... RR: ... retained earnings. First of all, let me emphasize that, first of all, we believe we'll be successful on appeal. The judgment will either be overturned or perhaps settled for a substantially lesser amount, a reduced amount. In the unlikely event that we are forced to settle for the amount of the judgment that was decided in Asheville, provisions have been made to do that; it's been reflected in our Q A annual report, published in December. We continue on. GH: More than that, there's been a good deal of misinformation about how much this is going to cost individual AMA members. It's just not the case. About half of the AMA's income comes from membership dues; the other half comes from nonmembership dues and there's all kinds of sources for that, ranging from magazine advertising to our travel department. There are certain elements within the AMA which are for profit and there are certain elements that are not for profit. Currently it's about 50 percent'membership assets and 50 percent non-dues income. But you know that money is also invested, and that becomes partof the retained earnings. So the numbers that have been bandied from different sources about how it's going to cost every AMA member X number of dollars are simply not true. A Has Roger put liens against any Q AMA properties? A - RR: Our bond was presented two rtweeks ago tomorrow (February 26) to the clerk of the court. Our attorneys called on Monday, the following Monday (March 1), and were assured that the bond had arrived and was, at least to their survey, everything was okay with that. My understanding from that point is that Tuesday (March 2), Roger's attorneys filed obj~ctions to that bond. They had an obligation, as 1 understand it, to notify our attorneys when they filed that objection. The judge ruled to accept their objections on that Wednesday (March .3). Our attorneys did not receive any notification of those objections until Thursday night (March 4). And, in fact, the first indication that it was apparently noticed was when our attorney here in Ohio called the court to find out what the status was', because he hadn't heard anything, and was told that the bond had been rejected because of the objections and they had not been \old that. So, on Friday morning (March 5), the message 1 had was that the bond Continued on page 18 • g: '" -.... N .s::. !:! ." ::E 15

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