Opening Statement:
There are two sides to every story,
the facts in this case speak for
themselves.
This website has been established
to give the facts from start to finish with
regards to the lawsuit against the DFWMGRC and
Judy Word. Events will be documented
illustrating a time line beginning in April
2005 until the date of the Settlement
Agreement after the court-ordered mediation
with the DFWMGRC on August 27, 2007.
Through this website, you will be able
to see clear and concise evidence from the
Plaintiffs and additional documentation
received from the Defendants supporting the
charges against the Defendants in this
lawsuit.
Who would have thought
that a puppy with a repairable umbilical hernia,
estimated surgical cost of $65 at time of
neutering, would be the focus of a Golden
Retriever Club lawsuit?
Who would have thought
that a private transaction completed to the
satisfaction of a breeder and their client would
be cause for interference after the fact by a
Golden Retriever Club President ?
Who would have thought
that a Golden Retriever Club President would go
on a Golden Retriever Club Of America (GRCA)
Puppy Referral Committee email list and describe
a fictional scenario that simply didn't exist as
she stated?
Who would have thought that
a Golden Retriever Club Board (of which
Plaintiff had just recently resigned from!)
would then rely on inaccurate information
supplied by Judy Word without doing due
diligence to find out the FACTS which Plaintiffs
subsequently proved through Discovery in this
case but without such FACTS allowed to be
brought forth in a Disciplinary Hearing or
subsequently to the DFWMGRC membership, that
resigned Board member's breeding program and
other innocent Club members were all suspended
from the DFWMGRC's puppy referral service?
Who would have thought
that while it was clear that while there was no
violation of any Board directive or 'hesitation'
by the Board that charges would be preferred and
upheld against innocent Club members?
Who would have thought
that so many Bylaws and Standing Rules would be
violated by a Golden Retriever Club Board in
order for them to achieve their political agenda
as the majority of the 2005 DFWMGRC Board had
either dogs related to each other or had bred
litters related to each other?
Who would have thought
that a Golden Retriever Club Board wouldn't
inform their membership of what was really
happening despite being questions by DFWMGRC
members and the only way for the 'innocent' to
resolve the situation would be through
litigation?
The answers to these and many
other questions to follow can be found here on
this website.
You may ask yourselves,
“why did the Plaintiffs tape record selected
conversations?” Great question!
That act alone by the Plaintiffs gives you an
idea of the history known to the Plaintiffs
with regards to the Dallas Ft-Worth Metro
Golden Retriever Club and Judy Word and that
the Plaintiffs recognized that there was a
need to protect themselves where Judy
Word may have been involved and took the
actions that they deemed necessary at the
time.
The information you will be able
to read and hear on this website may be
upsetting in that you may not have ever
thought that the Defendants (Dallas-Ft. Worth
Metro Golden Retriever Club, DFWMGRC, Judy
Word) were capable of what it appears that
they did and how they did it. However,
over the course of history, there are many
people who have done a lot of good but to then
also be guilty of some very negative
actions. These types of actions
must be exposed so that others can protect
themselves from those types of people.
The actions of the Defendants, Dallas-Ft.
Worth Metro Golden Retriever Club/Judy Word,
appear to not only have attempted to harm the
Plaintiffs within the Golden Retriever world
but also more recently went 'outside the box'
attempting to cause harm to the Plaintiff's
business career and source of income to
support his family. These types of
actions are not acceptable and should not be
tolerated by the Golden Retriever
community.
At this
time we offer you an example of what you will
see on this website:
Plaintiffs
noticed that the key words from their personal
Golden Retriever site also then appeared in
exactly the same order, word for word, case for
case, in the source document of a private
website (DFW Golden Breeders) of which Sherri
Farmer is the webmaster and member of which
is competition for Plaintiffs for Golden
Retriever puppy sales in the Dallas area:
http://www.dfwmgrc-lawsuit.com/private_website.html
Back on May 10, 2006, soon
after the DFWMGRC membership meeting adjourned
on that evening, the Plaintiffs received a
harassing anonymous post, the (NotSo)
Anonymous Email linked below, followed over a
year later by a copy of an unsigned letter in
July 2007 that was sent to where was thought
to be Plaintiff's place of employment:
(Not So) Anonymous Email from Sherri Farmer
Immediately after receiving a
copy of the unsigned letter from Plaintiff's
thought to be place of employment, the
Plaintiffs followed the instructions for the
right click, saw what the website issue was and
immediately corrected it to the satisfaction of
all involved. The Plaintiffs had no
knowledge that their website picked up the
business' 'tag' while Plaintiff was putting up
the template for their website in
2005. The thought to be place of
employment that the unsigned letter was sent to
coincidently happens to have been a long time
client of Sherri Farmer's employer. It
appears that the letter sent to Plaintiff's
thought to be place of employment was clearly an
attempt to harm the Plaintiff's personal career
and source of income to support his family.
Another document needed to be
seen at this time is Judy Word's public post to
Golden Retriever Club Of America (GRCA) members
with regards to the Plaintiff's puppy with the
umbilical hernia. Please look first at the
vet report link below to the left and then look
at link to the right to see what Judy Word
posted. Please note the dates on
those reports as those dates will conflict with
other statements made by Judy Word in other
documents posted within this website.
Plaintiff's Vet
Report
Judy Word's initial post to
GRCA Puppy Referral
Judy Word portrays the
hernia as over 2 1/2 inches long by 1/2 inch
wide.
Measurements:
2 and 1/2 inches
_____________________
by 1/2
inch ____
Dr
Kirk Esmond DVM report
Measurement: 1 and 1/2
cm
_____
It appears that Judy's Word's
description of the hernia is not only incorrect
but far from the truth of which can be
told from Dr. Kirk Esmond's Vet report.
Not only does Judy Word misrepresent the size of
the puppy's hernia but she also misquotes Dr.
Kirk Esmond as saying that he 'notices' the
heart murmur. It is clearly written in Dr.
Esmond's report that there was no audible
abnormality under Heart, he heard no
murmur. In BJ Elliot's phone call
with Plaintiffs that you will hear and see later
as you follow through this website, that BJ
Elliot concurs that Dr Esmond found no heart
murmur. Dr. Esmond is a well respected
Veterinarian in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, is
used by a large portion of the dog show
community in this area, and much of his work is
done with the Reproduction portion of his
practice. Dr. Esmond is also a frequently
invited guest speaker at AKC dog breed clubs in
the Dallas Fort Worth area. You can
view the Josey Ranch Pet Hospital website
at www.joseyranchpethospital.com
.
What reason could Judy Word have
had to misrepresent this puppy's hernia on April
15, 2005, the date of the above linked post
(take note of that date for later) and misquote
this very well respected veterinarian that she
also has a client relationship with? The
Plaintiff did offer to compensate for the vet
bill on that day. That is proven with a
letter (see link on top of page) from former
DFWMGRC President Terry Combs who personally
spoke with BJ Elliot on April 25, 2005. BJ
Elliot also stated to Plaintiffs that he spoke
with Terry Combs in a phone conversation with
the Plaintiffs. (Terry Comb's statement
regarding phone call with BJ Elliot)
Judy Word states in documentation in this case
that BJ Elliot refused to speak with Terry
Combs. Why would she have made that
statement when in fact that statement is not
true?
It should also be mentioned at
this time that it was obvious that Judy Word had
contact with BJ Elliot some time between April
12 & 15 as her post to the
GRCA_Puppy_Referral was posted the afternoon of
April 15, 2005. However, in other
documents and more importantly, in her legal
Affidavit in the Defendant's Motion To Dismiss
Judy Word tells a different story. (Defendant's
Affidavits - Motion To Dismiss w/Plaintiff
Rebuttals)
In a
nutshell... Plaintiffs called a puppy referral
volunteer early in the evening of April 22,
2005 to inquire if their litter listing was on
her referral list. After learning from
this volunteer that their puppy was not on the
referral list, Plaintiffs called Judy
Word. Plaintiffs spoke to no other
DFWMGRC club member that evening after
speaking with Judy Word. Judy Word sent an email
to Plaintiffs after midnight as in early in
the morning April 23, 2005 stating the Board
was 'hesitant' to list Plaintiff's
puppy. Email dialogues went back and
forth between the Board and Plaintiffs.
Plaintiffs dropped the matter after those
dialogs and sold the puppy through a personal
reference. Approximately two months
later Plaintiffs then received charges
preferred against them for violating a Board
directive which was IMPOSSIBLE as Plaintiffs
had spoken with the puppy referral volunteer
BEFORE speaking with Judy Word on
4/22/05. And that is what this case
specifically stems from... a alleged violation
by Plaintiffs, subsequent charges preferred
against Plaintiffs, the Disciplinary Hearing
and Sanctions against Plaintiffs and other
innocent DFWMGRC members, and the DFWMGRC
Board's refusal to apologize for their
unsubstantiated actions and sanctions.
The DFWMGRC had lost 18 memberships in 2006
(documented in their Newsletter) and had lost
another 10 memberships in 2007 (documented
elsewhere) that did not pay their dues to
renew their memberships. In addition, in
2007, one Board member and his spouse resigned
from the DFWMGRC after just a month or so of
his being in office, and now two more
memberships have resigned as a part of the
settlement agreement of this lawsuit.
The DFWMGRC membership is approximately half
of what it was when Plaintiffs first joined in
the mid 90’s. According to
documentation, the DFWMGRC has lost over 30
memberships since 2006. There are
currently 54 memberships at the time of this
writing (2007). That is a loss of over
1/3 of of the membership during the period
under the leadership of the Boards addressed
in the lawsuit. These statistics in and
of themselves speak volumes as to what can be
perceived as the status of the DFWMGRC in
recent years.
After Court-ordered
Mediation, Defendants (DFWMGRC) agreed to pay
Plaintiffs $7500 to settle the Lawsuit out of
Court. Plaintiffs refused for the
settlement agreement to be confidential so
that the facts of this case could be made
available to the Public and the Golden
Retriever Community.
Check from Defendants to
Plaintiffs from Settlement
Plaintiffs agreed to settle this
case out of court as the Defendants
(DFWMGRC/Judy Word) had unlimited resources with
a Pro Bono attorney (employer of Sherri Farmer,
2005 Board member) and Plaintiff's contend that
the Defendants were going to throw every legal
maneuver/roadblock that they could in order to
deplete the Plaintiffs' financial resources
which were very limited as it would be expected
with any family. At the time of
Mediation, the Plaintiffs and their supporters
had in their possession enough original evidence
and additional evidence through LEGAL DISCOVERY
to have the ability to put together the lawsuit
website to prove that Plaintiffs did nothing
wrong at any time during their membership in the
Dallas-Ft. Worth Metro Golden Retriever
Club. It is Plaintiff's contention
that IF the DFWMGRC were innocent of any
wrong-doing in this case, they would have moved
forward as their costs in this case were
negligible. Plaintiffs had the support of
long time DFWMGRC members and anyone viewing the
lawsuit website can clearly see which party is
lacking in ethics and integrity.
To the Dallas-Ft.Worth Metro
Golden Retriever Club members: The Club as a whole was not informed of the
entire truth of what was going on and here is
your opportunity to learn the truth.
Considering the Plaintiffs 12 years of active
membership in this Club, you should take the
time to learn the factual events that took
place rather than the minimal information
provided by the DFWMGRC Board.
To the Golden Retriever Club Of
America members: Your visits are also welcome and it is the intent of this
website that any negative information you may
have previously heard with regards to any
innocent members of the GRCA and/or DFWMGRC
involved in this case may not have been the
truth. This website is here to state the
truth and the facts and evidence behind the
truth in this case.
Plaintiffs and Defendants
entered into a Settlement Agreement on August
27, 2007. Defendants DFWMGRC paid
Plaintiffs $7500. Plaintiffs and Defendant
Judy Word (and her husband Mark) resigned from
the DFWMGRC as members in good standing
according to Article 2, Section 6 (a) of the
DFWMGRC Bylaws. Plaintiffs refused the
Defendants request for confidentiality of the
Settlement Agreement and the settlement
agreement is not confidential. Plaintiffs
refused for the settlement agreement to be
confidential so that the facts of this case
could be made available to the Public and the
Golden Retriever Community.
The purposes of this web site
are:
To dispel all rumors and untruths
that may have been perpetuated with regards to
this case about the Plaintiffs and to undo any
and all damage that may have been done to
their good name and reputation.
To have all the facts and
circumstances exposed of what was going on
behind the scenes that the DFWMGRC Board members
would not disclose to their membership.
To prevent what happened to the Plaintiffs from
happening to any other GRCA member or member
of a Golden Retriever Club.
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2005
DFWMGRC Board Members and their
respective Kennel Names during lawsuit:
Judy
Word - Bravo Golden Retrievers - Rockwall Texas
Sherri
Farmer - Spirits Golden Retrievers - Wylie Texas
Nancy
Crowley - Camlin Golden Retrievers, bred to Judy
Word's stud dog - Parker Texas
Molly
Chapman - owned two Bravo Golden Retrievers -
Plano Texas
Lynda
Williams - owned bitch sired by Judy Word's stud
dog - Kennedale Texas
Debra
Allen - Gold Sun Golden Retrievers, bred to Judy
Word's stud dog - Royce City Texas
Rita
Robins - no known kennel name, no dogs related
to Board members - Sachse Texas
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