Once upon a time ..........

There was a small family owned business. The business was in transportation. There was a Papa bear, a Momma bear, an oldest son bear, a middle son bear, a son-in-law bear, and a youngest son bear. It was "bearly" a general partnership.

This partnership stemmed from Papa Bear's long time involvement in the trucking business and some exceptional seasonal hauling. At one point the partnership consisted of only a couple of trucks, but saw growth as the customer base was expanded. The son-in-law bear and the youngest son bear didn't want anything to do with the trucking. Son-in-law bear only wanted to farm while youngest son bear had moved away to coach. Momma bear wouldn't hear of excluding anyone from the partnership. Each year if the partnership caused tax liability, money was sent to cover youngest son bear's increased tax liability. In years where a loss was incurred, youngest son bear enjoyed the expense and lessened tax liability.

In the early nineties, due to a depressed farm economy, the decision was made to "grow" the business. Additional units were leased on, hauling primarily ag commodities. In 1994 an additional gin contract was put in place and in 1995 a long term contract was reached with what was probably one of the premier gin plants in in the state. Additional company units were purchased along with other accessories. After the harvest season it became apparent that the partnership could not let the equipment just "sit", and additional hauling was sought. With the deregulation of the trucking industry, numerous opportunities were present.

The oldest son bear had a knack for coordinating and developing business and dispatch, and "Oh could he grow business". For a long time it seemed as though he could do no wrong.

The middle son bear, out of necessity, joined Momma bear handling the paper side (billing, payables, settlements, and compliance).

In about 1992 a corporation was formed to limit liability exposure, although it wasn't utilized until much later.

In 1997 additional office personnel and additional lease operators were enlisted. The company had grown from three power units to about 35. "Bidness" was good, and people flocked to join a company on the rise. A strong steady growth gradually spun out of control.

You have probably heard that too much growth is as bad as no growth. In this instance it was very very true. As the company size increased so did everything associated with the business. With the exception of the company bank accounts. A business growing out of control is cash starved. This business was anorexic and was in dire need of an IV. With no banker, the company decided to fund its growth by factoring it's receivables. This was affective to a point, but it was very expensive.

In order to curb expenses with company power units a decision was made to trade up to new trucks and to deal with fixed costs (payments) and letting warranty take care of incidental costs (surprises). This proved to be an excellent move. In addition to the new power units a group of new trailer units were also put in place. This would generate lease revenue from the lease operators which would pull these trailers.

The company continued to experience excessive growth.

In 1999 middle son bear went to oldest son bear and expressed his concern about the company growth and the cash flow. Oldest son bear summoned the company comptroller who sided with him and said they did not see the alarm.

Meetings were held to discuss other possibilities, an outside salesman, vehicle for said salesman, and additional trucks and trailers. The majority expressed a desire to curb growth and expenditures until the differential in revenues and growth closed.

Contrary to majority rule, many decisions that were voted against were acted on by oldest son bear with blatant disregard for what the others wanted. In fact, in oldest son bear's desk he had pens named for the different other bears when he signed their names to contracts and purchase orders. These were specialized pens and used specifically for this forgery. If you can't convince them to see your point of view, sign for them anyway.

In 2000, the devil rang the doorbell. Actually, the devil and an accomplice. The devil was a large international company that wanted to make a deal with this small West Texas company. The accomplice was a slick outside salesman who needed a job because his company had failed. If the small family company would agree to buy more power units from the large international company, the large company would give them a contract to haul their class 7 power units and distribute them across the continental U.S. and Canada. Slick basically promised that if they could tie the load down, the small company could haul the world. Long story short, sixty days after signing the contracts and taking delivery on the additional power units, the large international company ceased production of what the small company was supposed to haul. The small company now had all this equipment and not enough freight to justify it and service the debt. Oldest son bear and middle son bear were summoned by the large international company to Kewlona, British Columbia to discuss the developments. There they were assured that the large international company would do "whatever was necessary" to make the small trucking company whole. The large international company executives lied.

Older son bear and middle son bear returned home feeling that the large international company was sincere, because they had been raised to expect the very best from other people. They were wrong to expect this. All of the actions of the large international company indicated they had no intention of "making the small transportation company whole". Ultimately the small company had to take legal action in hopes of rectifying the situation and the hardships caused by the large international company.

With an excess of equipment, calls were made to leasing companies and finance companies to try to return equipment. Most were receptive. The small company agreed to deliver the equipment to the leasing companies anywhere in the continental U.S. at the small company's expense. And everyone was happy or so they thought. About a month after returning the first round of equipment the small company received a letter from a leasing company lawyer. "Thank you for the return of the equipment you were leasing from us. We appreciate the condition it arrived at our location. While you are no longer in possession of said equipment this in no way releases you from your lease payment obligations. We expect your monthly payments in full on the first of each month for the duration of the lease period. And the small company was sad because they knew if they couldn't make the payments while they had the equipment and it could produce limited revenue, there was no way it could make the payments without the equipment.

Shortly thereafter, son-in-law bear was beginning to refinance his farming operation. It was then that he learned that the leasing company had filed a credit card chargeback of $750K for the defaulted lease. When contacted to inquire why they had done it as a credit card chargeback the leasing company responded saying "we are a large leasing company and we can do whatever we want". With a large chargeback like this on his credit report there was no way son-in-law bear could cash flow for conventional farm financing. The scramble was on to figure a way out of this mess. Further investigation showed that the leasing company had charged back to each of the partners, the full amount of the lease. (Ultimately the 750K lease default escalated to a tax credit for the leasing company in excess of 8M).

Ultimately the son-in-law bear and his wife were able to secure a small operating loan for the crop year. They filed chapter 7 bankruptcy for protection. The bankruptcy filing was done against the wishes of oldest son bear because he felt if one domino fell, the rest would soon have to follow.

Through the course of filing, it became evident to son-in-law bear that he had been scammed, many documents had been signed but not by him, and bad blood boiled. For the son-in-law bear at his brother-in-law (oldest son bear) for his deceit and the other way for son-in-law not following oldest son bear's wishes. Son-in-law bear's attorney advised son-in-law that the only way to avoid bankruptcy was to file forgery charges against oldest son bear.

In the mean time, middle son bear saw he could not get financing to continue his farming so he met with his landlord and explained the situation and the need to return the land to the landlord. The landlord thanked the middle son bear and asked for a reference on who he should rent the land to. Middle son bear recommended the son-in-law bear and the landlord did it. This insured the landlord had a tenant and it also would help the son-in-law bears situation. At that time the landlord expressed his desire to place all of his farmland in the hands of a single tenant.
This would be a touchy situation because oldest bear son farmed one of the landlord's farms.

Soon after, oldest son bear discovered that he too could not attain farm financing and his son (grandson bear) took over his dad's farming. The first year this worked out all right but after that, grand son bear could not get financing and the farming operation suffered. Crops were not planted timely, farming practices were modified to save money. In short, everyone knew the landlords would not stand for this indefinitely.

Everyone had high hopes for the legal action filed against the large international company. A law firm from Amarillo had been enlisted to handle the litigation. One problem the small companies lawyers encountered was the stalling of the larger company as money was no object. Finally in November of 2003 the case cam to trial. What was expected to take a few days was stretched into December. Everyone, including the jurors became worn down and frayed. Finally, the night before the jury charge was to be presented, the large company's lawyers came to the smaller company wanting to settle. A meeting was set up. The lawyers for the large company told the American headquarters what was in the works and finally the big wigs there decided it was time to let the parent company in Germany know what was going on. It had been in the works for over three years but the American officials of the large international company had never told their bosses about the litigation. The officials in Germany were furious and told their American counterparts to with draw their offer to settle, that they would take their chances and appeal. The power of money.

To bring the two sides together the large international company had put five million dollars on the table, but at the direction of their bosses in Germany the offer was withdrawn. The case went to the jury.

After a day of deliberations the jury came back with a verdict for the defendants, saying the numbers were so big they just couldn't comprehend them.

And all hopes of rescuing the small family business were dimmed.

Three years later, oldest son bear continues to struggle with the remains of the failed business. The others over the years have cut their ties and tried to salvage what remained of their private lives.

It is sad that the small company failed, but that isn't the saddest part of this tale.

The saddest part of this tale is the bad blood that continues to exist between the members of the family. It seems that every time you think the family can put this behind them something happens that will re-open the wounds.

In April of this year the landlord contacted son-in-law bear asking him to take the farm land that grandson bear was farming. The landlord told son-in-law bear that he was not happy with the farming practices and the crop production of grandson bear. Son-in-law bear declined at that time. In August the landlord returned and repeated his request for the 2007 crop year. Son-in-law bear was in a difficult position. The landlord told him that he was consolidating all of his farm land with a single producer and he had chosen son-in-law bear, if he wasn't interested he would find someone else to take all the land. To me it wasn't much of a choice, either take additional land or lose what you already had. Son-in-law agreed to take the additional land.

Middle son bear was aware of this development, and shortly thereafter, Momma Bear and Papa Bear were made aware. Everyone knew oldest son bear and grandson bear were going to have another bad spell when they received notice from the landlord.

Recently the sister bear asked oldest son bear to sit down with son-in-law bear and just try to clear the air. The poison is affecting both of them. Sister bear told them both that until they got it all out they could not heal. Oldest son bear's response was "that for a month and a half he had spent every waking moment trying to figure out how to "ruin" son-in-law bear" but finally decided he wasn't worth it. Sister bear asked him if he ever thought that if oldest son bear ruined son-in-law bear it would also ruin her. Oldest son bear replied that collateral damage "happens".

The last exchange occurred in front of both Momma bear and Papa bear.

It is difficult to put everything behind you when some people don't want to.

It is sad that some people can't let go of the past, forgive and forget and try to get on down the road. It is not for us to judge. It is for us to do the best we can and to be the best we possible can.

And for the mean time, the family did not live happily after.

And the end hasn't happened yet.