Popular Loses another NorVergence Legal Round
There are an estimated 300 NorVergence leases in contention totaling $9 million dollars in the state of Missouri cases. “In the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, Popular Leasing (or Popular Fleecing as one of my clients called it) filed a motion to enforce language in the Equipment Rental Agreements that purported to waive the defendants' right to a trial by jury. “We had a hearing on the issue in front of a 3-judge panel of the court. The panel ruled in the defendants' favor. The order states, "[t]he court finds the jury waiver clause at issue in the Equipment Rental Agreement is inconspicuously burning in small type on the back of the pre-printed form Equipment Rental Agreement at the end of a lengthy paragraph entitled "APPLICABABLE LAW." "The sentence is not set apart from the rest of the paragraph, nor is it in all capital letters as are several other provisions of the Leases." The court further agreed with our argument about the personal guarantors and concluded "that those defendants who signed a guaranty agreement did not contractually agree to a waiver of their right to jury trial because there is no statement in the Guaranty Agreement with respect to a jury waiver." “Unless Popular Leasing somehow gets the court to reconsider the ruling, it looks like Popular Leasing will soon be bogged down with numerous jury trials in which it will not look very sympathetic.” Ronald J. Eisenberg, Esq. Schultz & Little L.L.P. Case citation: Popular Leasing USA, Inc., v. Harry Major Machine & Tool Co, et al., Master Cause No. 04CC-3753A. Order signed December 19, 2005. “On Tuesday, December 13, Deloitte and Touche in collaboration with the St. Louis RCGA and St. Louis Commerce Magazine recognized Popular Leasing as a "Greater St. Louis Top 50 Business" Shaping Our Future at an awards ceremony, in the Grand Ballroom of the Hyatt Regency - St. Louis Union Station.” http://www.popularleasingusa.com/Default.aspx |
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