One probably won't run into Dolan vacationing at a timeshare resort this summer.
The founder of the Dolan Law Firm in San Francisco won a major whistleblower and wrongful termination case against one of the largest players in the timeshare industry in November. Williams v. Wyndham Vacation Ownership, CGC-12-526187 (S.F. Super. Ct., filed Nov. 16, 2012).
Plaintiff Trish Williams claimed she was wrongfully terminated from a sales job at Wyndham in 2010 after raising flags about fraud. Representatives were even opening and maxing out credit cards in customer's names, Williams alleged.
The case had other aspects in common with the fraudulent accounts scandal at Wells Fargo & Co., Dolan said. Sales reps were given unreasonable goals that could only be met by engaging in illegal activities. The mantra from management, he added, went by the acronym TAFT, which showed up euphemistically in court documents as "Tell Them Any Frigging Thing."
According to court records, TAFT often meant telling buyers that Wyndham would guarantee to buy back timeshares and wouldn't raise fees, which neither was true.
Williams only worked for the company for a short time, Dolan said, then litigated against them for years, at a significant personal cost.
Even though a March order reduced the punitive damages against Wyndham from $18.6 million to $12.8 million, San Francisco Judge Richard B. Ulmer Jr. made it clear in his ruling that he sought only to rectify a mismatch between punitive and compensatory damages. He went on to call the company's behavior "highly reprehensible," characterized the testimony of a main defense witness as "lacking in credibility and just plain bizarre," and labeled one of executives involved as an "egregious fraudster."
Like a timeshare buyer, Dolan said he and his team are planning many return visits in court with other companies in the industry. He said he has been approached by four other timeshare sales reps.
"The timeshare industry makes used car dealers look like saints," Dolan said. "These sales practices I know aren't limited just to Wyndham. These are people preying on the elderly who worked so hard to put aside money."
Dolan said the case was brought to him by a former employee and protégé, Anne C. Costin of Costin Law Inc. The two served as co-counsels. Together, they survived an onslaught of paper - much of it redacted or useless - the company inundated them with during discovery.
"In essence she said, 'Hey, do you want to get the band back together?'" Dolan said. "We had a hit single. Hopefully we'll continue."
— Malcolm Maclachlan
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