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April 7, 2005
Diamond Bruce Anderson Debacle
By QBlog in Arbitration
There's an interesting and very complex story that recently surfaced about an Amway/Quixtar Diamond named Bruce Anderson. Scott Larsen does a pretty good job of making this tale understandable but it's still pretty confusing. I've read most of Larsen's summary as well as Bruce Anderson's own accounting of events and I'll do my best to explain what happened.
- Bruce Anderson was an Amway/Quixtar Diamond
- While still a Diamond, Bruce Anderson won a lawsuit against an Amway videographer named Lee Luster and is awarded over $250,000
- Coincidentally, around the time Bruce Anderson won the $250,000 judgment against Luster, another Amway/Quixtar Diamond named Hal Gooch was sued by none other than videographer Lee Luster
- Luster won his suit against Gooch and was awarded a $250,000 judgment
- Luster owes Anderson $250,000 — Gooch owes Luster $250,000
- Using a legal maneuver called a "Chose in Action," Anderson takes control of Luster's judgment which means that Gooch will just give the $250,000 to Anderson instead of handing it to Luster
- Gooch defaults and doesn't give Anderson the $250,000
- After defaulting, Gooch then tries to send the case to Arbitration since both he and Anderson are IBOs but the Arbitrators reject it saying it has nothing to do with Quixtar
- The Florida courts don't appreciate Gooch defaulting on his ordered payment and they rule in favor of Anderson, demanding that Gooch pay Anderson the $250,000 and then some
- Gooch's Insurance Company finally pays Anderson the money
- Somehow, the Quixtar Arbitrators change their minds afterwards and decide that they should arbitrate the case — after Gooch already lost in open court
- The Arbitrators, who are selected, trained, advised and controlled by Quixtar, rule against Anderson in favor of Hal Gooch
- Unlike the Florida court ruling, all proceedings in the Arbitration are secret and not subject to public scrutiny
- Anderson believes he's been shafted by Quixtar, his lawyer and the Arbitrators and decides to take his case to the court of public opinion
- Unfortunately for Anderson, he is not a "great communicator" and fails to present his case in a way that anyone (except for the hyper-intelligent and lawyers) can easily understand
That's my understanding. There's much, much more to this story and I've probably done a poor job of even giving you the highlights. Anderson's site, and the message he presents, is a complete mess. I spent a couple of hours listening to his video segments and still don't really understand his story. And while Larsen's summary is great, there is still a lot of confusing details that just frustrate people like me.
If you understand this Anderson case, and can boil it down to bullet points, then send me your summary and I'll add it here. The main thing I get from all this is that Quixtar used its BSMAA to royally screw a Diamond. What did you get from this story?
UPDATE - Anderson has launched his own online forum titled The Baboon Brief. If you have questions for him, I suggest you go there and ask him.
Also, thanks for the revision suggestions. However, so far none of them make the case easier to understand. I realize that my bullet points have left out a lot of detail but I feel that they cover the most important points and frame this debacle in the context that makes it easiest for the masses to understand. There's also a Forum topic providing more discussion on the matter.
UPDATE II - I've completely revised the summary as my understanding of this miserably confusing case has grown. I still have a hard time following all this but I hope I've made some sense of it.
Comments
Aren;t you an attorney, ladytw?
I feel better now, I thought I was a few french fries short of a happy meal trying to decipher Anderson's website.
There are a couple of lawsuits missing in that synopsis, I think...Gooch sues Luster (videographer) which in turn lead to Luster suing Gooch, and didn't Anderson 'gain control' of any of Luster's potential winnings via another lawsuit in which HE was suing Luster (and won)? And Luster was also going to be sued by RIAA, but agreed to testify against Gooch, Anderson, Victor, Haugen...and somebody else...instead.
Or something like that. All I can gather so far is that without Quixtar and it's IBOs suing each other and the company, we'd have a few hundred more hungry lawyers.
Yep...guilty as charged.....my whole take on the "affair" was that it was hard to feel too bad for Anderson. He was thick with all these people, so long as it was others that were being screwed. I guess it's not as much fun when you're the "screwee" (that's a legal term, ya know).
As Hal Gooch liked to say from stage "If y'all run with dogs, y'all gonna wind up with fleas".
How about this general synopsis:
1.Ambots get programmed to lie
2.Ambots lie
3-1.Gullible victims lose money
03
3-2. Karma eventually gets lying Ambot
Just another example...just another victim.
I think the key point was the second part of the above synapsis. While it wouldn't surprise me to find out that he was involved in his own lawsuit, the fact that he took over Gooch's beef (as far as I can tell) would seem to lead to a major dispute between Gooch and Anderson.
What I'm curious aboutis whether Gooch is part of Anderson's upline. If that's so, there's definite edification problems (What? A lesser is stealing from a greater?) and such an action would make sense within the world of Amway/Quixtar.
QBLOG: one correction. You wrote "Somehow, Gooch convinces the court that the suit was really about Quixtar and that it should be sent to Arbitration"...
No court said it should be in arbitration. Even the arbitration company said it did not belong in arbitration...until Gooch lost in the Florida court.
Somebody wanted to know if Anderson and Gooch were in the same LOS or LOA. Anderson was not in Gooch's downline or in his tools business.
Here is a shorter summary:
Anderson wins $251,000 against Luster in court. Luster is awarded $251,000 for Gooch not keeping an agreement with Luster in a different case.
Luster owes Anderson $251,000, yet Gooch owes Luster $251,000 so the court says that Gooch should just pay Anderson instead of going over Luster.
Gooch appeals three times to the court but is denied. JAMS (the Quixtar arbitration company) also said it is not a case for BSMAA arbitration.
The court forces Gooch to pay Anderson. After it is clear that Gooch loses JAMS now decides it is a case for arbitration (after the Florida court already settled the issue). The JAMWAY court (JAMS + Amway) with no jury decide that Anderson now owes Gooch $729,000.
What is rotten here is that a case settled in court is retried in the Amway private court and JAMS had at first refused to hear the case.
Lessons learned:
The arbitration agreement will be implemented in non IBO business affairs.
You will lose in JAMS court if you challenge people with connections inside the corp.
Arbitration can be one time denied yet at another time accepted.
You must be careful about whom you chose for an attorney. Amway/Quixtar dish out a lot of business and control a lot of attorneys. If you ever get sued in Michigan it would best to get an attorney outside of Grand Rapids lest you find out he is secretly talking to the corp. about your case. This is the problem Anderson had. His attorney was always talking to the Corp. since he did other work for them.
Here is how it should read:
* Bruce Anderson was an Amway/Quixtar Diamond
* Bruce Anderson wins a suit against the videographer Luster and is awarded $250,000
* Through some legal maneuvering by Gooch's attorney working secretly with Anderson's attorney, Anderson gains control of a lawsuit filed by the videographer Luster against Amway/Quixtar Diamond Hal Gooch
* Gooch enters into a settlement agreement with Luster yet later breaches the settlement agreement. Luster is awarded $250,000 by the court.
* Since Anderson had control of Luster's suit, Anderson is awarded the $250,000 that Gooch owes Luster.
* After many appeals the court tells Gooch to pay Anderson. JAMS also writes the case is not one for arbitration under the BSMAA.
* Gooch's insurance company pays Anderson.
* Somehow, Gooch convinces JAMS/Endispute and Quixtar that the suit was really about Quixtar and that it should be sent to Arbitration (the infamous BSMAA at work)
* The Arbitrators, who are selected, trained, controlled and paid by loser of the case, rule against Anderson in favor of Hal Gooch (see Jody Victor Caught On Tape)
* Unlike the Florida court ruling, all proceedings in the Arbitration are secret and not subject to public scrutiny
...and maybe add to that that attorneys have perjured themselvs and/or committed fraud....
There were 'the hidden case' etc. Andersons attorney were working for somebody else than him - he copped the bill - also a long time friend sold him out--- anyhow, I think he does quite a good job on his site...can't not wait if we hear more of 'Tim' ;)
cheers
Something definately smells foul of dirty lawyering from what I can gather. Supposedly the lawyers swing a deal between the parties that says Gooch is going to pay half of Andersons legal fees to go after Luster, in return for Anderson handing over any judgement he wins to Gooch. WTF!
Who in their right mind would agree to that shitty deal? Umm wouldn't you be much better off to just save your half of the legal fees altogether, and not even pursue the case against Luster if you were only going to hand over anything you might win to Gooch? It doesn't make sense, which is why I don't believe Anderson would ever make such a stupid deal with Gooch.
Why the hell should Gooch just walk away with all the money, the dirty creep wouldn't even pay Anderson his out of pocket legal fees for winning the judgement against Luster in the first place. Then the judgement just gets handed over to Gooch by the Quixtar Jams Arbitration crooks, after it was ruled on in a real court of law that Anderson did not owe Gooch anything. Not only that they tacked on another almost $500,000 and told Anderson to pay Gooch. Can't quite figure out what the extra $500,000 was for!?
According to Anderson he never made any such agreement, it was a backdoor deal made by the crooked lawyers working in cahoots with Quixtar themselves. And a real judge ruled in Andersons favor. Till the Quixtar legal team pulled out the Jamway express, all to protect the bigger kingpin thief Gooch. Just so he wouldn't have to pay Luster for the case he lost, having to do with false imprisonment, death threats etc., that would have exposed him for the criminal he is. What a wonderful corporation to be with. Hah!
Wow, what an "upstanding" company.
All the pro Q apologists must sure be proud to be associated with the big Q - all the SA8 in the world won't clean the stench from this one.
Whether one thinks Anderson got his just desserts or not - it shows that the kingpins are the ones who REALLY run Quixtar.
check it out:
http://www.baron55.com/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=1
Why is it 90% of problems in Quixtar are tool related and have nothing to do with with consumer products?Could it be GREED from the kingpins?Well the corp. is taking up for the wrong people and one day they will see the light! Good dependable hard working people make all companies great and they usually get left in the cold.
Oh, the irony of it all!
Isn't "corporate greed", "your boss/company is screwing you over" a big part of the pitch? (which has some truth to it)
It is at the opens at our hotel.
Yet the same AmQuix people turn a blind eye to what goes on w/ the kingpins and how they, IMO, are keeping the Q from even reaching 10% of its potential so their self-serving little empires won't be threatened.
This page containing a letter by Anderson's attorney gives a nice history of the case as well....at least up until JAMS changes their mind and puts the screws to Anderson.
http://www.amquix.info/christopher_jams.html
Ray> Why is it 90% of problems in Quixtar are tool related and have nothing to do with with consumer products?Could it be GREED from the kingpins?Well the corp. is taking up for the wrong people and one day they will see the light! Good dependable hard working people make all companies great and they usually get left in the cold.
Imran> Good question ray, VERY good question. Why is that? Perhaps it's because product business is legal? Or it's that bonuses are defined very clearly and is sorta contract? Or it's because professional corporation with accounting dept. distribute it, not some kingpins paying to minions? Because it's not secret?
All I know is that I had dealings with JUDGE CECILY BOND AND HER DECISION COSTS US $80k IN A CASE THAT WAS MEDIATED BY HER. I question her decision making. And I have to side with Anderson.
Im bruces son!!!! wow how cool!!!
Picture this...
Your buisiness makes pens at $.25, sells you a pen at $1.00 and forces you to sell it at $1.00.
They collect all the money and distribute it to whoever they want.
But theres a catch. If you uncover any illegal activity preformed by this company you might want to say good by while you still can.
Theres amway for you.
That didnt fit well with the Canadian Gov. did it?
I think this is a good synopsis. One additional issue is the accusation by Anderson that his attorney was somehow co-opted by Quixtar, and was not truly loyal to him. I agree, Anderson's site is very confusing, and I gave up on going through it all in favor of Larsen's analysis about halfway through. He said way too many times "I'll explain that later on"
Posted by: ladytw | April 7, 2005 8:59 PM