Article Courtesy of The Palm
Beach Post
By Jane Musgrave
Published October 13, 2007
WEST PALM BEACH — A $10 million legal battle over
recreation fees at Century Village got personal this week when the company
that owns the social amenities in the massive retirement community off
Okeechobee Boulevard filed a lawsuit against the president of the
development.
In a move that is reminiscent of once trendy SLAPP
suits that unscrupulous developers used to silence critics, WPRF Inc. sued
condominium association president George Loewenstein personally, claiming
he encouraged residents not to pay the company the recreation fees that
are the subject of the legal fight.
"It's just one more attempt in a whole series
of attempts to intimidate the residents out there," said attorney
Denise Bleau, who is representing the community in the dispute over the
recreation fees.
It also is contrary to promises WPRF lawyers made to
a federal judge to convince him that the recreation fee fight should be
resolved through arbitration rather than in a courtroom, she said.
"They assured Judge Hurley that residents would
not be retaliated against for paying money into the court registry,"
she said, referring to U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Hurley.
A company attorney countered that the suit is not
about retaliation or intimidation. It's about making someone take
responsibility for doing something irresponsible, said attorney Daniel
Brams.
"This is really not a SLAPP lawsuit," he
said, referring to the acronym for strategic litigation against public
participation. "We're not trying to attack an old man. But he has to
be responsible for his actions."
Loewenstein's action, Brams contends, created a
nightmare for WPRF, for the federal court system and ultimately for many
of the nearly 8,000 unit owners.
When four residents sued WPRF this year for charging
them full price to use shuffleboard courts, swimming pools, card rooms and
a theater that were under repair for months after the 2004 hurricanes,
Loewenstein began telling people they should begin paying their regular
monthly recreation fees into a court registry, Brams said.
Further, he claims, Loewenstein frightened residents
by saying that if they didn't pay their fees into the registry, they
wouldn't be able to share in any of the money recovered in a successful
court battle.
When Hurley in April turned the case over to an
arbitrator, he also said the fees should never have been paid into a
registry. The money, he said, should be returned.
Exactly how the registry was created is unclear, but
Brams said court clerks have spent hours and hours returning thousands of
dollars to residents.
Many elderly residents are confused about why they
are getting the checks. WPRF has had five employees working full-time,
contacting residents and explaining they owe the money to the company for
recreation fees that are now months delinquent.
"It created absolute havoc," Brams said.
"It's our contention that he knew or should
have known that the money shouldn't be paid into the registry. He wanted
to bring WPRF to its knees."
Loewenstein, who is president of the United Civic
Organization, an umbrella group that represents all the condominium
associations in the development, didn't return a phone call for comment.
But, Bleau said, when he told residents to pay their
fees into a court registry, he was simply passing on the advice of the
association's attorney.
Brams said he doesn't know exactly how much the
company will seek in damages. It depends on how much the collection
ultimately costs the company.
But, he said, Loewenstein's action also hurt the
reputation of the company, which is still under the control of Century
Village creator Irwin Levy.
The lawyer-turned-developer revolutionized South
Florida when he came up with the concept for a retirement city and cloned
it, creating four other giant retirement havens from Pembroke Pines to
West Palm Beach.
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