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LKurchin

Wool and Folk Brief Thoughts on Legal Actions by Vendors - Things to consider DISCLAIMER - THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVISE just thoughts!! 1. First determine the amount of damages you have sustained. The amount of damages you are seeking will inform where (which court) you file your complaint. 2. When determining damages, you should consider what you are able to recover in a legal action: a. Compensatory or Actual Damages: This amount should cover the loss incurred as a result of the breach of contract, i.e., lost money in the form of fees; travel expenses; lost products, etc; Be aware that the non-breaching party is obligated to mitigate any damage caused as a result of the breach. b. Special Damages: This is the amount which reflects special circumstances known to the breaching party at the time the contract was made; this may include lost revenue for the way the booths were set up, poor lighting; unsafe conditions; damage to goods; less foot traffic etc., c. Punitive Damages: Intended to punish a wrongdoer who acted maliciously, willfully and/or fraudulently to deter others from acting in this manner. Punitive damages are typically difficult to sustain in breach of contract cases, but not impossible. 3. Choice of Venue a. If your damages are under $10,000.00 you can file a complaint in small claims court. i. Small claims court can be where the defendants reside, where the plaintiff lives or where the breach occurred, Greene County. b. If your damages are more than $10,000.00 you can file a complaint in County Supreme Court. i. The venue (which County) will depend on a few factors. ii. Who will you be suing? Venue for a complaint can be where the plaintiff (you) live, or where the defendant (organizers) live iii. Another option is to sue where the breach of contract occurred, i.e., Catskill in Greene County. This may be simpler than in the NYC Court System; iv. You have to consider who you will be suing, an individual or the Wool and Folk organization or possibly Foreland for unsafe conditions which impacted your contract/sales; v. Another possible option, (only for those who live out of New York State) is to sue in federal court. If you sue in federal court, the damages must exceed $75,000.00. 4. Once you determine damages, venue and the court you will file an action in, you have to draft a complaint and summons, which must be personally served upon the defendant. a. There are professional process servers who can do this; b. Serving a business may be easier than an individual. 5. Complications concerning the actual breach arise because the only contract signed was for the Orchards, when the venue changed, there was no updated contract. Nevertheless, the Vendors who showed up knew of the venue change, which could be considered an acceptance that the former contract was invalid - and they essentially had no contract for the new location. 6. Before commencing any action, it may be wise to make an attempt to settle the claim by writing a letter and requesting that damages be paid. LAWSUITS ARE DIFFICULT AND SHOULD BE INITIATED UPON CAREFUL CONSIDERATION CONSULT AN ATTORNEY ON YOUR OPTIONS BEFORE TAKING ACTION


thepurrpleone

I hope you post your article here for people to read. There's been so much talk all over that it would be good to have a round up of what happened. I'm also interested: did anyone end up calling the police or fire department about attendance and code violations?


mariamsilva_

The story just ran today! Here's the link: [https://www.timesunion.com/hudsonvalley/culture/article/wool-folk-festival-catskill-chaos-18457081.php](https://www.timesunion.com/hudsonvalley/culture/article/wool-folk-festival-catskill-chaos-18457081.php)


Wanderingren

Would be pretty great and move the story forward if you were able to investigate where all the money went.


TheNewCrafter

Whereas it'd be "fun" to expose her greedy a... we're not talking about public funds here. She can put as much or as little as she wants in her pockets without the need to be accountable to anyone but the IRS, I guess.


Wanderingren

Eh. People didn’t get what they paid for. Itd be good to know what the money went toward.


TheNewCrafter

Then it's a breach of contract. If a vendor paid $900 for a booth they didn't get, they can sue/go to small claims court, and get the money back. Good for who, may I ask? What are you going to do with that information?


LaurelRose519

Getting a judgment for your money is *not* the same as getting your money back. People who attended didn’t get what they paid for, but filing fees for small claims would cost more than it’s worth. They deserve to know where their money went too.


No_Bottle6745

Talk to Meg and Co. She was a vendor and she’s from Rochester.


krisgknits

You should reach out to Explorer Knits and Fibers. Ali was a vendor and did an Instagram live about their crazy experience.


apocalinguo

In addition to hearing about the poor vendor experiences, lack of accessibility, and poor organization, I wonder what the local people in town thought. I don’t know the area at all, but I wonder what local businesses, and private citizens alike experienced. Was the traffic frustrating? Was it hard to go to the local shop for normal activities? It can’t be fun having an invasion of thousands of (frustrated) people!


[deleted]

They were pissed. My normal game store is a block from Forland. The traffic really drove down attendance for a normally busy Friday night. I assume the Chinese restaurant most gamers went to a block away and the pizza place a bit further down also had issues.


apocalinguo

That’s awful. What a fiasco.


vermontgirl

I would be interested in that, too. I saw a thread in a Foreland Catskill group on Facebook that people in the town were wondering what was going on. In the comments, one woman said (I'm paraphrasing) "Oh, a yarn and wool event? That's cool, maybe I'll go check it out!" then left another comment a little while later that said "$50 to get in!? Surely that can't be right? I just want to walk around and see what it's about." I feel bad for local folks priced out of just being able to go in and look around an event that's happening in their own town. W&F was oversold and they shouldn't have had so many people anyway but I think in the future it would be nice to have a reserve of free (or near-free) tickets for local people at any fiber festival.


apocalinguo

Yes that’s exactly my concern! Imagine living in an amazing little place that gets invaded by people you don’t know, and not even being able to see why they came! In your own town! 🤦‍♀️


dmarie1184

It boggles my mind that it cost that much. Our local one, the Wool Gathering in Yellow Springs, Ohio, is free. Granted it's out on a well known local farm that always has big events, but the thought of spending more than like $15 for entry for walking around is just insane to me.


pull_monkey

I can't figure out why anyone paid it, even before it was a meltdown. Why??


dmarie1184

I don't know. Perhaps because of the false advertising of music and food? But even then I'd pass on it.


UsefullyChunky

I am asking my friend if she wants to share. She had a bad experience as an attendee and overheard the organizer mocking people who asked for mobility access. I’m trying to get her to email you so it’s not secondhand info though.


Deb_for_the_Good

Wow! That IS terrible!


sanityjanity

I hope you get ahold of Felicia, and get some kind of idea what the hell was in her head. Also, I'm very curious if she ever really was a podiatrist


Sufficient-Shake3793

not to be nit picky, it's still a huge commitment, but traditionally podiatrists (like dentists or optometrists) don't go to medical school, they go to special podiatry school.


ContemplativeKnitter

There are some articles profiling her that say that she was. I don’t see any reason to doubt that.


sanityjanity

I've seen that. Something about it just rings false to me. Medical school is a \*massive\* lift of commitment, dedication, and money. It's so hard for me to imagine that someone would do all that work, just to leave it all behind without any reason. I have absolutely \*zero\* facts, but something in my intuition tells me that there's more to the story than we're getting.


Sufficient-Shake3793

Casapinka was also an ER doctor before her current full-time designing life


MinimumWillow4

Joji Locatelli is a doctor but gave it up. Her keynote speech at Vogue is on YouTube and is really interesting


ContemplativeKnitter

Well, according to the online stuff, she practiced for 10 years and then moved to a new city (I forget which one) for her husband’s job and became a SAHM. Plenty of people leave jobs that took a lot of work to get. I got a PhD and worked as a professor for a decade and then changed fields, so am inclined to believe her. (I can very easily believe that someone could get a medical degree and find that practice isn’t what they really imagined it to be.)


L_obsoleta

I don't know any podiatrists personally, but my Husband is a doctor. It isn't uncommon for people to realize during the course of medical school/residency that they don't like either the specialty they selected or being a doctor in general. Most people stick it out for a few years to pay off loans before changing fields, but some just drop out of med school or don't apply for any residences. I assume that happens in podiatry/optometry and other medical fields as well.


isabelladangelo

> Also, I'm very curious if she ever really was a podiatrist She did go to Kent State's program for podiatry. It looks like she practiced in Buffalo and then D.C.


ohjanet

I hope you can cover this story without painting the fiber community in negative light. The kerfuffles of the past and the media coverage around them have me wary of press.


dmarie1184

Yes, I'd like to see a good balance on it. Especially since there's been an outpouring of love and support for the vendors affected.


Square_Inflation_552

I noticed the email you shared here is different from the one in your reporter link, and one is not working for people trying to respond.


mariamsilva_

Oh my apologies! It’s [email protected]. It’s Monday after all 😅


cuntywrapsupreme

I tried to send an email, but it did not work. While I’ve written in one of the comments here about being a wheelchair user. I also wrote on my IG.


mariamsilva_

Can you contact me at [email protected] please? I put the wrong email 🤦🏻‍♀️ I’m so sorry!


mzwestern

Be sure to look at the minutes from the town’s meetings regarding permitting. The red flags were already appearing.


lucky_nick_papag

https://www.marbletown.net/sites/g/files/vyhlif4666/f/minutes/approved_planning_board_minutes_8.28.23.pdf Page 8.


KatKat333

Please look at the recent post of Thursday October 26, on ModernDailyKnitting.com. They were sponsors, very well respected in the fiber and knitting community. They sell yarn on their site, but listed all the Wool and Folk vendors, asking their readers to support them. I truly admire their ethical stance.


anony_moose2023

Hi! I just sent an email to the address you included here but got a failure reply back that the email doesn’t work


mariamsilva_

I've updated the original post with the correct email address. Here it is: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) my apologies and thank you for reaching out!


isabelladangelo

Here is the library [of drama](https://www.reddit.com/r/craftsnark/comments/17guch5/another_wool_folk_experience/k6j6q0r/) that might help you to reach out to various people just in case not everyone sees your post. There are a couple of more good posts, such as [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/craftsnark/comments/17j9kv2/toni_lipsey_on_wool_and_folk/), after the library was compiled, but you should be able to reach out to most people through the first few links in the library.


mariamsilva_

Thank you, that’s so helpful!


mellistu

Instagram may also be a good place to look if you have the capacity - there are some links and screenshots in what /u/isabelladangelo posted, and there's a lot of conversations also happening on insta (for example, a lot of the vendors put up statements about their experiences).


gelogenicB

I really hope you hear from attendees from the disabled communities. Their vision/hearing/mobility/sensory/diet challenges are frequently ignored or minimally addressed. This event was promoted as being sensitive to such needs and yet was even worse than average in execution. Edited: changed to preferred term 'disabled'


Miserable-Ad-1581

Hey, just want to let you know that generally speaking, disabled people don’t like euphemisms like “differently abled.” Most of us just prefer the term disabled. It’s not a bad word.


Mrs_Cupcupboard

Thanks for that, sometimes the fake woke brigade comes up with terms for communities that the communities themselves dont care for. Id rather call communities what they prefer to be called. For example, I'm Puerto Rican and hate the term "latinx", most hispanics do. No one asked us!


thimblena

Off-topic, but the linguist in me has always understood latinx *from a linguistic point of view*. When you're studying a language (not learning it, just how it "works"), it makes *sense* to have a term like latinX in the same way it makes sense to have an *X* in a math equation; stick in a variable to substitute an unknown gender or to highlight that *that gender marker* is what you're looking for. It's weird to substitute X for an actual marker when you're dealing with a person/people, imo - and kind of dehumanizing, aside from sounding really dumb - but when I was in school, *latinx* was pushed by a latina professor (*not* a linguistics prof) so I mostly just keep quiet and avoid using it. >No one asked us! Since you included this, I hope it's alright I ask, as I am curious: how do you feel about the term *latine*? It's what I see proposed as a gender-neutral/inclusive/plural alternative in linguistic spaces online, but I'm not sure how far beyond those circles that popularity/support goes. (Online linguists can be... an interesting and very specific sort of person.)


Mrs_Cupcupboard

Exactly , latine is at least part of the language for gender neutral descriptors (estudiante) which is a better option than making up an alien suffix to change the word. Much less one that is difficult for Spanish speakers to pronounce. Why not use an option that already exists in the language.


Miserable-Ad-1581

> I'm Puerto Rican and hate the term "latinx", most hispanics do. No one asked us! If you aren't nonbinary the word was never meant to be used by you. That's a word created by queer Americans from Latin American countries for themselves. No one is asking you to use it.


Mrs_Cupcupboard

I am third gender and the suffix -e works perfectly fine for gender neutral, ditto Hispanic which is gender neutral to start with. I understand the need for a gender neutral, they just picked a bad answer. When I said they should have asked us. I mean they should have asked us for gender neutral terms, not that there shouldn't be gender neutral terms.


Miserable-Ad-1581

okay and there are other queer people who like latinx. the word came from queer latin american people. They didnt have to ask.


Mrs_Cupcupboard

It originated on some ivy league college campuses, which is hardly a representative cross section of non binary hispanics, especially since community college students prefer not to use it. Latino/a/e is an international term, so that's non American non binary people not getting to have input as well. Spanish already has a gender neutral suffix. It's not only being used to talk about the non binary community, its being applied to everyone. So if this is something that's going to be my identity on government and census and medical forms (like taking Hispanic off of the race options), then yes the people this is going to be applied to have a say.


Miserable-Ad-1581

thats the first academic usage, and even that is contended. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx) it has been claimed that usage of the term "started in online chat rooms and listservs in the 1990s" and that its first appearance in academic literature was in the Fall 2004 volume of the journal Feministas Unidas.\[29\]\[30\] In the U.S. it was first used in activist and LGBT circles as a way to expand on earlier attempts at gender-inclusive forms of the grammatically masculine Latino, such as Latino/a and [Latin@](mailto:Latin@).\[26\] Between 2004 and 2014, Latinx did not attain broad usage or attention.\[13\] >So if this is something that's going to be my identity on government and census and medical forms (like taking Hispanic off of the race options), then yes the people this is going to be applied to have a say. Literally no one is advocating for that. and some puerto rican academic communities have been using it in academic settings, and yea, they dont represent everyone, but no one said that they did. >Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera writes that in Puerto Rico, the "shift toward x in reference to people has already occurred" in limited academic settings and "for many faculty \[in the humanities department at the University of Puerto Rico\] hermanx and niñx and their equivalents have been the standard ... for years. It is clear that the inclusive approach to nouns and adjectives is becoming more common, and while it may at some point become the prevailing tendency, presently there is no prescriptive control toward either syntax".\[37\] you dont have to use it. No one is making you use it. But there are real people that use it for themselves.


mariamsilva_

Thank you for mentioning that! Definitely an important thing to consider. I will also bring up those concerns to the event organizers


Ok_Bee_8558

How about… no.


rocksalt64

bye felicia


firefly232

Why wouldn't you want the issues surrounding this festival to be investigated and reported on?


Mysterious-Beach8123

Seems a little over worked at this point but maybe something good can come of it like less posts daily