Jury awards $1M in condo lawsuit
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By Susan Smallheer STAFF WRITER - Published: December 8, 2009
NEWFANE – A Windham County jury awarded close to $1 million to a West Dover couple who sold their Mount Snow condominium rental business in 2004 to a firm that went out of business after a year.
The jury awarded a total of $924,500 to Donald and Sheila Albano of West Dover, who had sold their business SnowResorts Hospitality Group to Allen Jones of West Dover and Milestones Financial Services Inc., along with Jones' business partner, Albert Miller III, in January 2004.
The verdict included $774,500 in compensatory contractual damages and $150,000 in punitive damages. The jury also awarded attorneys' fees to the Albanos.
A countersuit by Jones against the Albanos resulted in no award by the jury.
The Albanos' attorney, William McCarty of Brattleboro, said the challenge would now be to collect on the verdict. He said Miller left Vermont for Florida and hadn't been found. Milestones went out of business and he said Jones' financial holdings appear to be only in his wife's name.
"I'm going to find some assets," McCarty said.
McCarty said the suit brought charges of fraud, and of misrepresentation of Milestones' financial background.
"Within a year and a half, they had taken all the cash and assets," McCarty said.
The business, which managed many condominiums in the Mount Snow region for the homeowners, had been sold for $850,000, McCarty said, but the Albanos had only been paid $100,000 at the time of the sale before Milestones and Jones went out of business.
"They essentially ran a reservation service and condo owners had contracted with the Albanos," said McCarty. "He was led to believe that Milestones had the financial background."
He said Miller "disappeared" in 2004 and went to Florida. He couldn't be located to even serve him with the lawsuit, McCarty said.
Albano took back his company and made sure "all the deposits cleared," for the condo rentals, he said, and then he sold the remaining portions of his business to another real estate firm in the area.
John Boylan III, a Springfield lawyer, who represented Jones, was on vacation Monday and couldn't be reached for comment.
McCarty said the weeklong trial ended Friday, and the jury deliberated three hours before returning a verdict in favor of the Albanos.
"Mr. Jones filed a counterclaim, but he got zero from the jury," McCarty said. Jones also claimed misrepresentation by the Albanos, he said.
susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com
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