[vendtalk] Seeking fee advice for rookie who was unable to turn around bad facility

[Kevan Worley]

First, none of us should find fault with him because we don't know all the details. Second, this is not an uncommon situation. Third, if your friend is active in the National Federation of the Blind, i.e. a contributor in some form or fashion, he ought to call me. There are a number of questions which would need to be asked before one could determine the best strategy. Not knowing all the details, one can't know if your friend dropped the ball or if the agency forced him into a situation where dropping the ball was out of his control. Many of us started the program under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Many of our locations were the old-fashioned "under the stairs, in the basement, beneath the leaky pipe, across from the men's room, down the hall from the linen closet, beyond security with no agency support, having been set up to fail." Some through grit, imagination and luck have been able to battle through those challenges and find some success. Some have not been as lucky. We absolutely must fight for those who despite their very best effort, were not given real opportunities for success. The devil is always in the details. The NFB/NABM has legal counsel and advocacy expertise and success. 

At your service,



Kevan Worley
Executive Director
National Association of Blind Merchants
kevanworley at blindmerchants.org 
866-543-6808




-----Original Message-----
From: vendtalk [mailto:vendtalk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Scott Cavna
Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2012 9:19 AM
To: vendtalk at nfbnet.org
Subject: [vendtalk] Seeking fee advice for rookie who was unable to turn around bad facility

Hello
    I know somone who went thru the Ohio Randolph Sheppard program. After training the state offered to put him into a facility with a history of failure. Not seeing many other options he took the state up on the offer.  Not surprisingly as a newbie he was unable to turn the business around.  The state is now taking him to court to recover the start-up inventory they had invested and was subsequently lost by the failing business.
   I'm sure it would be easy for some on this list to be critical of this guy for not being able to re-pay the vendors program.  However I respectfully suggest that it is easy to criticize when you don't have to walk in someone elses situation.   
   Anyway legal aid won't help since it is a civil case, so this guy is going to attempt to take on the state in civil court by himself.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.  We are attempting to use the argument that the state should be liable for the star-up inventory cost since they set-up the newbie vendor in a facility they knew was a failure. 
    Apologize for the cross posting, But I will probably post this to the blindlaw list as well.
                   Thanks 
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