A Con Man Continues the Co-Op Con

The Windermere Oaks Water Supply Corporation is a non-profit corporation. The articles of incorporation say so. A judge has said so.

Yet, in a recent NextDoor post, one of the neighborhood confidence men continued his errant-wrong-mistaken-false claims that the corporation is a co-op (or cooperative) under law. Here’s his post.

Why is this important? Well, it is not, really, but to demonstrate the ongoing confidence game being waged against the water corporation, I thought I’d dig into it for anyone left in this neighborhood who wants honest accounting of current events.

You can see in the NextDoor post that the con man Bruce Sorgen repeats his ongoing con. He does it every time he can. I remember him saying it at the annual meeting on April 15.

Repeating falsities over and again, time after time, is the way that con men work to convince people about something that is not true. It’s part of his confidence game with people who make the mistake of believing his baloney.

The Co-op con was important to his original case, the 48292 case of Dial, Ffrench, Sorgen versus the water company and seven former directors (myself included) and current director Dorothy Taylor. You can read their 3rd amended pleading (a good piece of fiction as it turned out) here. The word “cooperative” is mentioned 87 times, because they contended the non-profit corporation is a coop.

The reason for their con was simple: By attempting to convince the judge that the water company is a Cooperative, Sorgen and Dial and Ffrench could “(i) seek to recover damages for wrongs done to them individually where the wrongdoers have violated duties arising from contract or otherwise and owing directly by them to the Plaintiffs…”

In sum, Sorgen, Dial and Ffrench wanted money directly from myself and others. And the only way they could get there — through the law — was to con the judge into believing the non-profit corporation is a cooperative.

After our attorneys disproved the con, the judge smote down Bruce’s false claim. Her order against them can be found here. (Look to the bottom of page 2 and top of page 3 and see the image below.)

The attorney for the directors demonstrated to the judge that the Plaintiffs did “not have standing as members of ‘cooperative’ because the Windermere Oaks Water Supply Cooperation is just what its name says — a water supply corporation, not a cooperative. Under Texas law, not only is this WSC not a cooperative, it is prohibited from being a cooperative. All claims based on non-existent standing as a member of a ‘cooperative must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction. This would include any claim seeking damages for Plaintiffs or WOWSC members.” (emphasis added, and see page 3 of this document.)

So the con men and their con lawyer tried their best to con the judge. Didn’t work.

You paid for that in the higher fees that were levied to defend directors against bogus claims from Sorgen et al.

Now at least the water company will be recovering those fees from the insurance company. Nonetheless, Sorgen’s con attempt cost the insurance company money.

The water company’s Directors and Officers insurance cost $7,000+ last year, and it will likely go up, because the customers of WOWSC continue to sue the corporation for bogus claims. That is not lost on insurance companies. Nice going, Bruce.

IMAGES OF PERTINENT LEGAL DOCUMENTS

To save you the time of downloading the full documents, here are the pertinent parts of the Defendant directors rebuttal to the false claims that the non-profit is a cooperative. And below that is the judge’s order.

JUDGE’S ORDER AGAINST THE CON

Just remember this every time you hear the con-men and con-women in the neighborhood tell you that the non-profit corporation is a cooperative. They are conning you.

As an aside, did Jeff Walker’s imaginary friends Henry and Harry Haas make it to the May 25 meeting?