Thread: NSP gets sued by chair members. Is anyone in the loop on this?

I got an email from National Ski Patrol about some crap that has been happening with their elected peoples. Here's what's on the nsp site.



Background
In a letter dated July 17, 2012, Mr. Edward C. Gassman, who is a member of the National Ski Patrol, a member of its board of directors, and a practicing lawyer, demanded that the NSP provide him with the names and addresses, including email addresses, of all of the NSP's members. Mr. Gassman's letter stated that the reason why he desired access to the membership list was that he wished "to be able to communicate … with the members of the NSP" with respect to the following matters:

Issues of organizational interest;
To educate the membership on the purposes and results of the member rights litigation approximately seven years ago;
To solicit input from the membership on critical issues;
To educate the membership on the purpose and efforts being made to the Bylaws and Procedures and Policies of the NSP;
To open a discussion on board candidates for the upcoming election; and
To use the statutory provisions of Section 7-128-108 of the Colorado Revised Statutes (which deal with the removal of directors).

Mr. Gassman's letter imposed a deadline of July 27, 2012 and threatened to "exercise our statutory judicial remedies fully and without delay if that becomes necessary."

The NSP's legal counsel has advised it that Colorado law gives the members of nonprofit corporations the right, under certain circumstances, to inspect and to obtain a copy of the corporation's membership list, that is, the names and addresses of all the members.

In response to Mr. Gassman's letter and its threat of litigation, the NSP prepared a CD-ROM containing the names, addresses, and email addresses of all of its voting members and, as Colorado law requires, made that CD-ROM available at its offices on July 27, the deadline stated in Mr. Gassman's letter. Mr. Gassman did not appear in the NSP's offices that day to inspect or copy that CD-ROM, nor did he telephone or make any other inquiry regarding whether the membership list he demanded was available to him.

The Lawsuit
Instead, five days later, on August 1, 2012, Mr. Gassman and five other individuals (the "Gassman Plaintiffs"), all of whom are members of the NSP and most of whom are also members of its board of directors, filed a lawsuit in the District Court for Jefferson County, Colo., seeking a court order to compel the NSP to deliver its membership list, including email addresses, to the plaintiffs and to require the NSP to pay those plaintiffs' legal fees for having filed the lawsuit. A copy of that Complaint was served on the NSP on August 2, 2012.

The NSP's legal counsel wrote a letter the next day to the lawyer representing the Gassman Plaintiffs, indicating that the requested membership list had already been made available voluntarily in the NSP's offices on the date demanded and asking that the lawsuit therefore be dismissed. The NSP subsequently delivered a copy of its membership email list to Mr. Gassman and his colleagues, but the lawsuit has not been dismissed and is still pending; the NSP intends to defend against it vigorously.

The NSP understands, but deeply regrets that delivering its membership email list to Mr. Gassman and his fellow plaintiffs may result in NSP members receiving emails they would prefer not to receive. However, Colorado law does favor allowing certain members access to a nonprofit corporation's mailing list for the purpose of communicating with other members on matters of common interest. Had the NSP not voluntarily provided its membership list to the Gassman Plaintiffs, there is a significant risk that the Jefferson County District Court could have ordered it to do so anyway, costing the NSP substantial legal fees. Quite simply, the NSP's hands were tied.



-- What kind of crap is this????

Originally Posted by jbaker

-- What kind of crap is this????

middle-aged white guy pissing match

asshole lawyer's pissing match no less.

also thinking jilted gay lover syndrome?

Ed is a tool, always has been.

Originally Posted by Bunion

Ed is a tool, always has been.

where does he patrol--I'll be sure to avoid the place.

common problem among NSP vollies

I still keep my membership active, but I dread the OEC/OTH weekend.

NSP tried to call their bluff and failed.

Made a cdrom but kept it at their offices? Retards. They could have spent a dollar on postage and saved the whole debacle. Its not like it was a bullshit request.

Now they have to pay their own lawyers. Ineptitude of the highest degree considering the absolute minimal cost they tried to avoid.

Originally Posted by AdironRider

NSP tried to call their bluff and failed.

Made a cdrom but kept it at their offices? Retards. They could have spent a dollar on postage and saved the whole debacle. Its not like it was a bullshit request.

Not sure about in Colorado, but in some places that's all that needs to be done. Sounds to me like NSP just did the minimum they were legally required to do. The lawyer guy sounds like a douche.

Shocker....

Originally Posted by old goat

where does he patrol--I'll be sure to avoid the place.

I'm not sure where he patrols, but the lawsuit was filed in Jefferson county. West Denver.

NSP Headquarters are in Lakewood, so they filed locally

Mr. Gasman should blow it out his ass!

It sounds like they all got canned. NSP just sent out info on a vote for new board members

Originally Posted by toast2266

Not sure about in Colorado, but in some places that's all that needs to be done. Sounds to me like NSP just did the minimum they were legally required to do. The lawyer guy sounds like a douche.

Not disputing any of those points. But given how simple it would have been to prevent this from happening, they are both douches of top order.

Originally Posted by AdironRider

Not disputing any of those points. But given how simple it would have been to prevent this from happening, they are both douches of top order.

You assume, likely incorrectly, that NSP would have avoided this by bending over backwards for the grandstanding douchebag. He's representing himself, he'll go until his ego's fulfilled.

I can't remember much of the original suit

Originally Posted by Hugh Conway

You assume, likely incorrectly, that NSP would have avoided this by bending over backwards for the grandstanding douchebag. He's representing himself, he'll go until his ego's fulfilled.

I can't remember much of the original suit

Bending over backwards is putting a CD in the mail? Man life is tough.

According to https://www.nsp.org/members/Administ...ers_Roster.pdf Ed Gassman's e-mail is ecgassman@yahoo.com - feel free to send complaints his way. He has your e-mail, why not shoot him one yourself if you have such a problem with the lawsuit?

Originally Posted by yellowstoner

According to https://www.nsp.org/members/Administ...ers_Roster.pdf Ed Gassman's e-mail is ecgassman@yahoo.com - feel free to send complaints his way. He has your e-mail, why not shoot him one yourself if you have such a problem with the lawsuit?

That is an awesome idea.

LAWSUIT AGAINST NSP DISMISSED (10.10.12)

The lawsuit filed against the NSP has been dismissed with prejudice as of September 12, 2012. Each party in the lawsuit will bear its own attorney costs.

Haaaaaaaaaaaa Hah (nelson voice)

Interesting comments on this blog post, lots of infighting at the NSP it seems

http://ski-patrol.net/wordpress/national-ski-patrol-in-fighting-begins-anew/

Originally Posted by Krash

Interesting comments on this blog post, lots of infighting at the NSP it seems

http://ski-patrol.net/wordpress/national-ski-patrol-in-fighting-begins-anew/

That's alot of bullshit for not bothering to say what they want to do. Sounds like standard NSP lawyer douche members stirring shit.

Bunion FTW

Now even more details: http://ski-patrol.net/wordpress/nsp-...es-on-horizon/

Email today:

There is trouble brewing. If you care about the NSP and ski patrolling know that the NSP leadership is heading toward a liability lawsuit, which may destroy the reputation and well-being of this historic organization. Please inform yourselves and request that this be stopped.

The NSP has an organization issue and is in a scandal.

Think of Lance Armstrong and Penn State combined. Lance finally identified that he could not have won the 7 consecutive titles without enhancement drugs. For years Lance had an aggressive and elaborate plan to cover-up his cheating with bullying and intimidation of those around him who knew about his cheating.

Like Penn State, the NSP Board of Directors has known for years about the improprieties occurring in our NSP office. Some have turned their heads; some have been actively covering up the issues; a minority has tried to do the right thing but have consistently been outvoted by the majority.

Based on several years of Office Staff reports, the NSP’s Executive Director is in over his head, lacking the extensive management skills needed to run the NSP – a non-profit rescue and education organization. Measurable progress has ceased, for the management style is that of complete and over-bearing control punctuated with bullying and intimidation of the staff.

As a result, the NSP National Office has a staff turnover rate of 39%, which is 153% higher than the National turnover average. NSP office staff is being harmed, experiencing stress from a hostile office environment. Staff employees are demeaned, called names, and their employment threatened if they expose to the Board the internal operations of the office environment. Promotions have been offered to some staff pending the condition that they do not turn (name removed) in. Two more staff employees left in December, 2012, without previously securing other employment positions, due to the intolerable environment at the NSP. The Staff have stated that they dread coming to work.

The Office Staff has reported this situation to the Board for several years. The Board has actively covered-up the issues. Most recently the Board purposely failed to properly investigate a code of conduct report on this misconduct. Only a few board members (4 versus 8) have stood-up and spoken out against the office management behaviors. These 4 have been asked to resign by the Executive Director, other Board members, and Division Directors (Sept-Oct 2012). The 2012 NSP elections have been tampered with to put in-place those that will align with this on-going cover-up.

Despite being informed of liability exposure and possible loss of our NSP Federal Charter, the Board, when confronted, holds the position that they would rather continue with the 75th Gala party to collect members’ and sponsors’ monies than deal with the office environment and well-documented management issues.

The following are quotes pulled from NSP employee reports to the Board on Executive Director’s behaviors.

“Culture of fear,” “fear of retribution,” “fearful work place,” “pattern of disrespect and anger outburst toward staff,” “people will resign because the environment is so miserable,” “his management style is one to threaten and intimate,” “I certainly felt threatened,” “I felt like he was going to haul off and hit me,” “called me the Cancer of NSP,” “I am a broken employee,” “if you work for me, you cannot tell the Board what goes on in this office, or I’ll fire you,” “(name removed) retaliated against (name removed) employee.”

The Board cannot keep hiding when all this factual information is available. They are exposing the NSP to potentially very expensive liability. Based on the gross negligence of a number of NSP directors and officers, the NSP may lose its Federal Charter. An NSP liability lawsuit may destroy the reputation and well being of this historic organization.

Located on this website is a corporation record of a file sent to the NSP Board:
www.MemberAction2013.org

“NSP’s Scandal Exposed - NSP’s Organizational Health Issue 2012 – 2013, Response to Code of Conduct (CoC) Findings by the National Ski Patrol Board of Directors (BoD), dated 31 December 2012”.

See section 2.5, pages 12-20. It exposes the cover-up by the Board.

To date the Board continues to ignore these facts about hiding the misconduct that occurred during the investigations of the claims of the hostile environment at the NSP Lakewood office. This active denial continues as additional reports of Office Staff abuse and hostility are sent to the Board.

NSP Members are requested to speak out and tell your Division Directors that this must cease, and that those NSP officers who are not being proper stewards of our organization should resign (or be removed per Section 7-128-108); The NSP mission and Charter is too important for these abusive behaviors in the office to be allowed to continue another day.