Travel Agent sues dissatisfied customer!

[HarryB1964]

There's an interesting story that just broke in the last couple of days. It concerns a lawsuit filed by the owner of a travel agency in Florida that's being investigated by the State of Florida for selling bogus travel insurance products for several years. This individual has now filed a lawsuit against Chris Elliott, a well-known travel writer, and a customer who purchased one of his travel insurance products, for defaming his good name. While I can't post a link to this story, you should be able to find it if you're at all interested, do a web search on "Palm Coast Travel Sues a Customer".

 

It's an interesting story. Read it and form uour own opinion.

[fideauxdon]

I found it!

It's on Google under "Palm Coast Travel Lawsuit" or "Smolinski Lawsuit".

[smeyer418]

http://www.elliott.org/blog/palm-coast-travel-sues-a-customer-and-me/

 

here is Elliot's view and a copy of the complaint. Remember I said at the time, they had not been ordered to cease and desist...yet but merely received a notice that they might be. I think I told some people to be careful and I wrote an email to someone at the time!

[yogi2929]

http://www.healthnewsflorida.org/index.cfm/go/public.articleView/article/15451

[HarryB1964]

http://www.elliott.org/blog/palm-coast-travel-sues-a-customer-and-me/

 

here is Elliot's view and a copy of the complaint. Remember I said at the time, they had not been ordered to cease and desist...yet but merely received a notice that they might be. I think I told some people to be careful and I wrote an email to someone at the time!

 

To my knowledge, none of the Travel Companies (Palm Coast Travel, Legendary Journeys, Best Price Cruises) have been served with Cease and Desist orders. All of the companies that have created the products, however (Trip Assured, Travel Protection Services, Prime Travel Protection) were served with Cease and Desist Orders, and are now out of business, so any statement that "...they have not been ordered to Cease and desist" is academic. The issue with the Travel Agents is whether they knowingly serially sold these defective products to an unknowing public. I won't comment further on this issue, because there's enough information out there for any interested individual to read the articles and form their own opinions.

I would recommend the Chris Elliott Blogs, and articles by Florida Journalists Diane Lade and Mary Jo Melone. It should also be mentioned that just about all of the information attributed to Chris Elliott is a matter of public record, which was generated by State of Florida officials, so any attempt to sue Chris for publishing this information is strange, to say the least.

[smeyer418]

http://www.healthnewsflorida.org/index.cfm/go/public.articleView/article/15451

 

 

LOL they couldn't locate Palm Coast...

 

 

 

Harry you miss the legal point. None of the travel companies were ordered to cease and desist doing business as travel companies. What the travel companies recieved was a notice of "intent" to order them to cease and desist selling unlicensed travel insurance-or not using unlicensed insurance agents to sell insurance products that is a much different thing. Whether they knowingly sold defective products is not the issue in the lawsuit at all.

 

I read the lawsuit and see what it says. It says Elliot knowingly or intentionally published false and misleading information. Elliot says he relied on the governments press releases and had no independent duty. The problem is that may be an issue of fact for a jury to decide.

 

There is a significant difference between being ordered out of business and merely receiving a notice of intent about the travel insurance.

 

I read the article Yogi published and the fines(no one got fine more than $2500) is much different than being ordered out of business-which no travel company was.

 

Yes there was a company issuing what appears to be illegal policies. But that is a different matter and none of them have anything to do with Palm Coast which is suing and you can read the lawsuit yourself too.

 

In any case the companies that sold non-licensed products have lots of issues but having been told to cease operation as a travel company is not one of them.

 

here is the remaining original(sort) of posting by Elliott with a note that the original article contained imprecise information

 

http://www.elliott.org/blog/florida-orders-travel-agencies-who-sold-unlicensed-insurance-to-stop-transacting-business/

 

Elliott's quote

 

"As I noted when I published this late yesterday, this is a fast-developing story. The original post contained information from an official source that was imprecise."

 

The notices of intent are attached to this last article...

 

I think I emailed Elliott about this when it happened..

[HarryB1964]

We seem to be going around in circles on this, and I'm not really sure that we disagree on anything. We both know that the TAs were not issued Cease and desist orders. The gist of the State of Florida's complaint to the Travel Agents is that they knowingly sold a product that they represented as insurance, and it wasn't insurance. If you read my last note carefully, you'll probably realize that I'm saying what you're saying.

[Buckwheat008]

Mr. Meyer you seem to be missing the point. The state of Florida made an error in their original announcement and that's what Chris Elliott relied on. Palm Coast Travel's issue should be with the state of Florida. This lawsuit makes about as much sense as Bernie Madoff suing bloggers for defaming him. Palm Coast Travel has been selling illegal trip protection for at least six years (See March 29, 2009 Sun Sentinel article by Diane Lade). No judge or jury will have any sympathy for this company. More than likely the state of Florida will commence action against them long before they will see a court date related to this frivilous and malicious lawsuit.

 

Billie Thomas, Esq.

[Buckwheat008]

If you read Mr. Smolinski's complaint – particularly beginning at number 17, he makes out like Prime Travel Protection's Jerry Watson was an angel from heaven who found his way to Palm Coast Travel and provided the wonderful opportunity for Smolinski to offer these travel protection plans to his clients. Smolinski makes you feel that he, too is a victim of PTP.

 

Diane Lade of the Sun-Sentinel in a March 29, 2009 article reported that Smolinski’s company offered unauthorized travel plans as far back as 2003. However, if you try to access his company’s website through an internet archive, you get the following response:

 

“We're sorry, access to http://www.smartcruiser.com has been blocked by the site owner via robots.txt”

 

Pretty clever, huh? Well, someone was smart enough to print all of the historical pages of Smolinski’s company websites before he blocked them. The April 2005 pages were sent to me and sure enough, Smolinski was selling unauthorized travel protection plans back then from a company called Trip Assured. A little bit of research shows that Trip Assured was ordered to cease and desist in Florida and several other states in 2006. His website in 2005 even referred to these illegal plans as "insurance" - a violation of Florida statutes.

 

Nice try, Smolinski, but your track record in selling these plans has been well documented. Now, let me get this straight, your lawsuit is based on your concern for the reputation of your company? Maybe you should have thought about that when you started selling this junk to your clients.

[imsulin]

I'm wondering if an almost defunct extended car warranty company will sue me because I call them as often as I can and hang up on them just like they did to me when they robo called my Do Not Call number 4 times a week for a year and a half, refused to identify themselves, and hung up on me when I tried to ask them to stop. Oh, wait. They're faith-based and have a halo, so I'm pretty sure they won't. Grrrr. A year and a half!!

 

(Buckwheat008 - I've enjoyed your posts.)

[smeyer418]

Mr. Meyer you seem to be missing the point. The state of Florida made an error in their original announcement and that's what Chris Elliott relied on. Palm Coast Travel's issue should be with the state of Florida. This lawsuit makes about as much sense as Bernie Madoff suing bloggers for defaming him. Palm Coast Travel has been selling illegal trip protection for at least six years (See March 29, 2009 Sun Sentinel article by Diane Lade). No judge or jury will have any sympathy for this company. More than likely the state of Florida will commence action against them long before they will see a court date related to this frivilous and malicious lawsuit.

 

Billie Thomas, Esq.

 

I expect the lawsuit against Elliott to be dismissed but don't know for sure. I suspect but don't know that the reason he was included was to destroy diversity jurisdiction-this is my opinion. For those of you who are not lawyers, you can have the case removed to Federal court if its based upon a Federal statute or there is diversity of citizenship between the plaintiff and defendant. By adding Mr. Elliott, who like Palm Coast is a citizen of Florida, the lawsuit cannot be removed to Federal courts.

If it were in Federal court, the venue might also be transferred to were the other defendant resides...

 

As for dismissals of cases, even though I gave my opinion above, one of the things I learned in law school and trying cases is you never really know how a case will come out. I have won cases I should have lost and more rarely lost cases I should have won(only one actually).

 

 

Predictions of how a case comes are like betting at horse races...someone always has to lose.

[njhorseman]

I expect the lawsuit against Elliott to be dismissed but don't know for sure. I suspect but don't know that the reason he was included was to destroy diversity jurisdiction-this is my opinion. For those of you who are not lawyers, you can have the case removed to Federal court if its based upon a Federal statute or there is diversity of citizenship between the plaintiff and defendant. By adding Mr. Elliott, who like Palm Coast is a citizen of Florida, the lawsuit cannot be removed to Federal courts.

If it were in Federal court, the venue might also be transferred to were the other defendant resides...

 

As for dismissals of cases, even though I gave my opinion above, one of the things I learned in law school and trying cases is you never really know how a case will come out. I have won cases I should have lost and more rarely lost cases I should have won(only one actually).

 

 

Predictions of how a case comes are like betting at horse races...someone always has to lose.

 

But we had ways to ensure the right horses were losing.:D;)

[smeyer418]

But we had ways to ensure the right horses were losing.:D;)

I have my opinion on the overall lawsuit, which I haven't given on line because obviously the plaintiff in the case....well sues.

 

I don't think I characterized anyone chances on the lawsuit in my two original posts...only explaining what the issues were. What the trier of fact or a judge will do, you can wait and see. I never predict what a jury will do with a set of facts.

 

In any case if you want my opinion my email address is in my signature since I think that goes ot....

[Buckwheat008]

I'm wondering if an almost defunct extended car warranty company will sue me because I call them as often as I can and hang up on them just like they did to me when they robo called my Do Not Call number 4 times a week for a year and a half, refused to identify themselves, and hung up on me when I tried to ask them to stop. Oh, wait. They're faith-based and have a halo, so I'm pretty sure they won't. Grrrr. A year and a half!!

 

(Buckwheat008 - I've enjoyed your posts.)

 

 

imsulin...You have presented a good question. You need to check who owns your "almost defunct extended car warranty company". If Mr. Smolinski is the owner, then I would suspect you will be sued.

 

Best,

 

Buckwheat

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thanks for the links -- good reading.