News you can use

Judge orders Giveaway House settlement meeting

The judge presiding over a contentious lawsuit fighting over who is in charge of a 40-year-old Havre charity issued an order in the lawsuit: Meet with a third-party attorney to try to settle out of court.

The lawsuit was filed in April asking the court to rule whether a board formed in February or a board formed in March is the actual board of nonprofit Community Give-A-Way House Inc., a corporation formed in 1989 by the two women who started Community Giveaway House about 1970.

The charity, which has been housed in a former residence in North Havre, collects donations of clothes and other items and provides them to people in need throughout the region, with a focus on the Havre area.

“Considering the charitable mission of the Community Give-A-Way House and its limited financial resources, the Court finds that the interests of the parties and the greater community are best served by first providing the parties with an opportunity to amicably resolve this dispute without resort to further costly litigation,” state District Judge Dan Boucher wrote in his order.

Boucher ordered the two sides of the lawsuit to participate in a settlement conference with Havre attorney Stephen R. Brown Jr. “on or before December 31, 2013.”

Boucher ordered the parties to notify the court of any unresolved issues within one week of the conference, after which he would schedule a hearing.

The confrontation, mainly between two nonvoting members of the previous board, came to a head in January. Board vice-president Sue Markley helped organize an ad-hoc committee with the intent of removing two other officers. None of the three were listed with the secretary of state as voting directors of the board.

Markley alleged that board Secretary Sheila Forshee, granddaughter of one of the co-founders, had failed in her duties including paying insurance premiums and taxes and filing paperwork to keep the corporation’s nonprofit status current. She also said Forshee had changed the locks on the North Havre property, preventing board members and volunteers from getting in.

At a January meeting, the committee came to agreement that issues raised by Markley were, or were being, resolved and that Forshee and President Kelly Ann Damson should keep their offices. The group also agreed that the three directors of the board had vacated their position by not attending board meetings.

According to the minutes of the meeting, Markley resigned her position at that meeting.

The three people listed as the directors of the board then reorganized the board in February, appointing new directors and officers, including Markley, and removing Forshee and Damson from the board.

Forshee and Damson then formed a new board in March, which included themselves as officers and directors.

Markley’s board filed the lawsuit in April, alleging that its members had tried to come to an agreement with Forshee’s board, but that Forshee and her group continued to present themselves as the board of the charity. The lawsuit asked the court to rule that Markley’s board was the entity in charge of Community Giveaway House and to order Forshee’s group to turn over any Giveaway House property and to award any damages the court found appropriate.

Forshee’s group responded that the directors had vacated their positions and, as existing officers of the board and due to Forshee’s relationship to the co-founder, the actions by Forshee’s group creating the March board were appropriate.

Markley’s group responded that directors only can be removed from the board by other directors, so the February actions created the legitimate board of the nonprofit, adding that because the co-founders incorporated the charity in 1989, the claim that Forshee’s ancestry gives her power to appoint directors was “without legal precedent and contrary to common sense.”

 
 

Reader Comments(2)

Willy writes:

Rocky Boy has their messed up Business Committee and corruption officers, Fort Belknap has their messed up election losers complaining and Havre has the Giveaway House scandal. Wow come one people Cann't we all get along? And then Hi-liners wonder why we are the butt of all the jokes.

Spunky writes:

Oh for Cripes sakes! Is anyone else tired of hearing about this bull crap?