LAW LESSONS, PART 2, P.2

Herz then sued the board, claiming that it had libeled him, that it was preventing him from attending meetings and that it was wasting co-op money on the eviction proceeding. The board then asked its corporate attorney to sit in on all meetings — a costly but necessary precaution.

At its attorney's suggestion, the board and the managing agent began to compile a history of Herz's behavior — a list that would become the "Charges and Specifications." They fed the information to the attorney, who prepared a document that ran to 12 pages.

"To get him off the board," explains Lever, "you have to have a paper trail and background. We started compiling a list of the times he was abusive, his illegal sublets, the washing machine, combining two apartments without board approval, and his harassment of board members, other shareholders and myself."

Herz's verbal abuse was nothing if not colorful. According to the Charges and Specifications, he called his neighbors "moron," "putz," "faggot" and "asshole." He spat at one woman and threatened to kill her. Individual shareholders filed numerous complaints with the police. "This is unusual and outrageous behavior," says the board's attorney, David Berkey of Gallet Dreyer & Berkey. Board members, he says, are "supposed to set an example and comply with the rules themselves."

Finally, in April 2008, the directors called a meeting of all shareholders to vote on whether Herz should be removed from the board. About 50 of the 62 shareholders were on hand, Allen says, gratified. "As a board member, things happen that you know about but can't talk about, either legally or because it makes you uncomfortable. We on the board felt very isolated — until the Charges and Specifications were presented. Now, we had a formal platform to explain the difficulties we were experiencing. We no longer felt we were alone."

Herz did not attend that meeting. By a 94 percent margin, shareholders voted to remove him from the board. At the next annual meeting, another member resigned for unrelated reasons and two new members were voted in. In November 2008, the State Supreme Court dismissed Herz's lawsuit against the board.

No Choice, But No Regrets

Looking back, the people involved in this tortured tale see themselves as the victims of incredible bad luck who couldn't have responded much differently. "It's extraordinary that one person takes up so much time and effort," says Lever, the property manager. "I've had people who were quirky and nasty, but you can deal with them and get them to your playing level. I've never experienced legal action before. This was the first time, and hopefully the last. It takes your time away from actually running the building."

If he had to do it again, would he do anything differently? "No," he says flatly, "there's nothing we could have done to stop somebody from having a mean and nasty personality."

Jack Allen agrees. "It was a nightmare, but I don't think we could have done anything much different," he says. "We were really backed into a corner. It was not something we could be proactive about. It was never our choice to start a legal process against him; it was his choice to abuse his position on the board to the point where we had no choice but to start the legal process to remove him," he says.

And in the end, he adds, "This adversity has actually brought the building closer together."

Adapted from Habitat February 2009. For the complete article and more, join our Archive >>

Illustration by Jane Sanders