Originally Posted By: Joe Kelly
This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
I am not trying to hide anything, As a matter of fact I have tried numerous times to provide information. I informed all on this board about this in another thread, Pa membership, and I guess no one bothered to check?
?Update 3-1-04
After having yet again refused to substantively answer any of the questions of compliance with Pennsylvania?s ACT 114, the Home Inspector?s law, which have been asked numerous times since February of 2002, Mr. Gromicko filed suit against myself and PHIC for having dared to ask said questions.
I know that if my livelihood and professional stature depended on certain points of law I would demand nothing less than full disclosure from the organization I base my reputation on.
It has been NACHI?s defense that I, or we, have no right to ask these questions and therefore they do not have to answer. That is true, however the questions still go unanswered.
On July 24, 2003, Mr. Gromicko posted the proposed law suit against PHIC, and me personally. The complaint was actually filed on 8-1-03 and served several weeks later. As required, a timely response of Preliminary Objections was filed in mid September of 2003. These preliminary objections basically stated that the complaint filed did not meet requirements of the Pennsylvania rules of civil procedure, contain the actual writings described in the original complaint, and that as plead the counts are wholly inadequate. As required by law, NACHI was given 20 days to file a written response and as of yet has not responded.
At the same time of our response to NACHI?s complaint, 9-25-03, a counter-suit asking for Declaratory Judgment was filed. This complaint basically asks a judge to formally pose the same questions asked numerous times in hopes of finally having someone in a position of authority able to verify compliance of ACT 114.
I will not post the complaint but it is a matter of public record in the Chester County Court of Common Pleas, Case #03-07803 for those who would like to investigate. Mr. Gromicko is now in possession of this document and may wish to post it for your information? One line from the complaint, and posed with every question, sums up the whole thing. Upon information and belief defendant NACHI was not at the time of the effective date of the Home Inspection Law and is not presently a National Home Inspection organization as defined in the ACT.
It has taken until now, almost a full six months, to be able to deliver this complaint because the physical addresses given by NACHI, 1220 Valley Forge RD, and 518 Kimberton Rd., are mail box facilities. After numerous attempts the Sheriff?s department was unable to locate a physical address for this cyber-space organization. A recent volley of email communications between Mr. Gromicko and myself, last weekend, gave us the authority to serve his attorney, which has now been done.
Among other things, this volley of emails asked that I not receive the unsolicited notifications of NACHI meetings, as I have done several times before yet still receive. While the door was open, Mr. Gromicko was again asked to answer the questions of compliance. His response was again less than complete referring to his unverifiable web site claims. Mr. Gromicko did propose a settlement, ?Give NACHI it's share of PHIC and call a truce.? My response was, ?I don't understand what you mean by this? There is no share to be given, NACHI has always been welcome to share in our efforts, all we request is that you answer those 7 questions. We met with Joe H. and would welcome him to our upcoming meeting but with pending litigation it is not possible. Drop the suit, answer the questions, welcome aboard.? And Nick?s response was ?We will agree to provide you with all this stuff (it's on our website) once I have been given a seat on PHIC's board.? To which I replied, ?No one can give anyone a seat, you must be elected by the membership.? To which he replied, ?Get me elected on the condition that once appointed to the board I will give you anything you ask. You can make it conditional, but since you drew first blood, you should put me on first.? This is where I ended our communication since it appears I am being asked to do something unethical to avoid litigation?
Draw your own conclusions from this information, I will not be responding to any further posts on this topic. Since the questions of compliance have not been answered in over 2 years, and it does not appear they will be soon, there is no other option than to have a Judge ask the questions.?
I don?t understand how Nick can claim no knowledge of the suit for Declaratory Judgment. We met with Joe Haggerty on 2-2-04 and hand delivered it to him at that time. It was emailed to Nick shortly thereafter. The declaratory judgment was filed along with our preliminary objections to the suit against us on 9-16-03, however because Nachi does not have a physical address that the Sheriffs office could locate it took over 5 months to finally be able to serve the suit.
This is the written permission from Nick to serve his Attorney on 2-22-04;
NACHI is represented by counsel and so can be served at the law offices of the counsel who initiated the action. Jim Munnis' contact info is at
www.nachi.org/contact.htm Your legal counsel surely knows he can serve an entity by serving it's cousel.
Nick
PS Would you like to settle? I have a proposal.
On 2-23-04 the papers were drawn up and the Sheriff was asked to serve Mr. Munnis. On 3-3-04 a letter was sent to Mr. Munnis verifying that he was indeed the proper venue for service, and service was made to Nachi and Nick, through counsel on 3-15-04. That is the date when the 20 day response period started. In an email on 4-16-04 Nick states he is aware that he and Nachi are in default.
?Today I was informed by your attorney, Phillip D. Berger, that you secretly kept your lawsuits in effect and that NACHI is now in default for failing to respond.?
?Please let me know that this is some sort of clerical error, that it will be corrected, and that I need not re-file on Monday morning amending to include all members of PHIC.?
?4-16-04, my response;
There is no foolishness going on, only a search for the truth. When we met with Joe H. it was for an open exchange of information and to open lines of communication, which I believe happened. There is, nor was, any "Gentleman's Agreement." The only mention was the same one we had during our last volley of emails, "Drop the suit, answer the questions, and welcome aboard." You did drop the suit, and Joe said he would try and answer the questions, which are still unanswered. The whole purpose of the Declaratory Judgment was to finally bring this to closure by having the questions answered in a court of law.
Answer the questions wholly, truthfully, and provide verification of those answers and this will all go away. Intimidation and threats are not the answers.
Where is the secrecy you imply? You dropped your suit on 3-8-04, ours wasn't served to you until 3-15??
As you can see Nick and his counsel were fully aware of this law suit and chose not to respond. It is a shame that it has come down to this since it has always been so easy to resolve over the past years, simply answer the questions.
On 5-5-04 Nachi & counsel were formally notified of being in default and given an additional 10 day grace period to respond. On 5-6-04 the default judgment was filed and could have easily been rescinded during the grace period. I gave it another 10 days to see if there would be even a late response, nothing. Remember I did not post the judgment on your web site. I don?t understand all this denial, accusations, and again threats? Just formally answer the questions and provide verifiable proof, what is so hard about that?
Nick and his counsel have all this formal documentation, nothing is being hidden, except from the membership. If you file a motion to reopen it brings us back to the same place we were in February of 2002, answer the questions and it all goes away.
I won?t go into name calling but Nick is right, this is ?pathetic?
