Dave Derrick of East TN Reptiles Lawsuit results!

This post is relatively long and in-depth. This is the factual transpiring that has happened from September 2004 to present between srsnakes (run by Steven Aguilar and Rose Hipskind) and Mr. David Derrick of East TN Reptiles. Since we have already won this lawsuit that was brought against Mr. Derrick, we feel it is only fair to warn the rest of the snake community about the events that occurred between the two companies.

Steve and I purchased three animals from Mr. David Derrick in late September of 2004. A pair of unrelated yearling Hypo Colombian Boas, and a 32 month old Hypo x Hogg Island breeding size male produced by Mr. Derrick. The Hypo pair were skinny but took food quite readily. The Hypo x Hogg Island Male (which we had hoped to use this season in a breeding project) was very skinny. He refused all types of prey items (live, pre-killed, frozen thawed) and was rather lethargic. Mr. Derrick stated on many occasions that this animal had been breeding for five months and would not eat while in breeding mode. He encouraged us to keep the animal and attempt to feed it by other methods. The animal passed away without ever eating in our care and the necropsy revealed that his body had been so starved of nutrition that he would be unable to digest any food. The veterinarian explained that the animal still contained undigested food from its last meal indicating the animal was unhealthy prior to our care since the snake never ate in our possession. Mr. Derrick’s own records show that he had not feed the animal in close to 5 months and had allowed the animal to lose drastic weight (540 grams for a 32 month old animal).

Here is the event timeline: srsnakes is “I” and David Derrick is “you”. This is a copy of an e-mail that was sent to Mr. Derrick on December 12, 2004. Mr. Derrick admitted his guilt by offering us a pair of Sunset x Hypo babies prior to this e-mail (on the same day) as compensation for the breeding size Hypo x Hogg male which had died. This deal was no acceptable for a couple reasons. First, the animals were not yet born and there is no guarantee the female would have produced live young. Secondly, we did not want to make a deal with Mr. Derrick due to his large span of time in which he had not take our phone calls or answered our e-mails. Furthermore, this deal would draw out the process another 5-8 weeks with no guarantee of compensation (following a 32 day wait with no contact from Mr. Derrick). It is for the above reasons that we declined the unborn sunset x hypo pair and requested a refund of our $1,000.00 per our agreement on November 12, 2004. It is at this time that Mr. Derrick told us to “buy a plane ticket” which is exactly what we proceeded in doing. Steve and I have retained all the e-mails which we listing. Yet, this post would become too lengthy so we are just posting the compressed version. If there are any problems we are more than willing to post the original e-mail records.

From: Steve & Rose
To: East TN Reptiles
Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2004 4:23 PM
Subject: Re: Hypo Hog

September 25, 2004- I received the snake and stated to you that the hypo hogg was a little small but should be no problem once he has a few meals

October 25, 2004-I wrote you an e-mail expressing my concern for the snake's health because he had not eaten and he was losing weight fast.

October 30, 2004-You wrote and said he was in "breeding mode"

November 2, 2004- I wrote still expressing my concern. I asked if you would still stand behind the animal if it still did not eat in one, two, or three month’s time. And asked your opinion about the time length of the "breeding mode."

November 2, 2004 - You wrote and said to do a fecal

November 2, 2004- I wrote you and told you that I would do a fecal but since he had not ate he did not defecate. Nor did he the entire time he was in my care.

November 3, 2004- You wrote and said to try a dead prey item overnight.

November 5, 2004- I wrote and told you that I already tried this as well as several other methods with no success. I told you I would keep the animal until Dec 5 and if he would still not eat then you should replace the snake or refund my money.

November 9, 2004- I wrote you asking if you if the terms I asked were acceptable.

November 12, 2004- You wrote, "o.k thanks ,for leting me know i do not power feed,keep in touch, my computer has been down ,just got it back up running this morning didn't have anyway of checking my email,keep me up dated on whats going on i will do whats right.
Thanks, Dave @ East TN Reptiles"

November 23, 2004- I wrote you with concern for the snake’s health because he had dropped 100 grams in one week.

November 28, 2004- I wrote you letting you know that the snake had died and I wanted to discuss refund options.

That is the completion of the e-mail time line that was sent to Mr. Derrick on December 12, 2004. Following this e-mail Mr. Derrick stated, “I guess you better get your plane ticket” insinuating that we sue him.

The lawsuit paperwork was filed with General Sessions Court in Rogersville, Tennessee on January 10, 2005. Mr. Derrick was served within five days of January 10, 2005. This provided Mr. Derrick with more than three weeks to arrange for time to show up at court on February 8, 2005 (the scheduled court date). Steve took three days off of work to fly from Southern California to Charlotte, North Carolina (to save on travel costs) and drove 4.5 hours to Rogersville, TN. Upon the morning of February 8, 2005 Steve woke up early (seeing as he had gotten into the hotel at 3AM and woke at 8AM) and drove to court. The courthouse was approximately 15 miles from Church Hill, TN where Mr. Derrick’s address is located. Steve waited in court until the case was called around 9:30AM. Mr. Derrick did not appear in court. The case was ruled in our favor and Mr. Derrick was given 10 days to appeal the decision. No appeal was filed. The final day was Friday, February 18, 2005. We waited another week to ensure the appeal time was complete. This morning (February 25, 2005) Steve called and confirmed that a judgment of $1,081.50 was entered in our favor against Mr. Derrick. The travel time, expenses and effort were not claimed in the lawsuit, only the purchase price of the animal and the filing fee (which was awarded to us by the judge).
As stated above Steve and I wanted to communicate the factual actions of this situation. We have attempted to state only facts. We have long tried to be a fair and impartial company, but these events have deeply hurt us and we only attempted to solve the issue by the letter of the law. We are not slandering Mr. Derrick or his company we are just bringing to light the facts as we experienced them with Mr. Derrick.

I would think that with 15 years of experience this would be an easy problem to fix. However, due to this experience and several similar situations that were brought to light during and after this situation, Steve and I will personally never do business with Mr. Derrick of East TN Reptiles again. Furthermore, Steve and I hope that this will encourage Mr. Derrick to “do what is right” and repay the debt that he legally owes us.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns regarding this issue.

Sincerely,
Rose Hipskind & Steven Aguilar
www.srsnakes.com
srsnakes@yahoo.com

Looks like you got all your ducks in a row. I applaud you guys on your willingness to follow through on getting justice. If you've read threads like the ones about Bearded Pets where tons of people got ripped off, yet never even bothered to file complaints with Kingsnake, let alone anything requiring more effort. Therebye letting many more people fall prey to their poor and unethical behavior. Hope you guys are able to actually get the money.

i agree. good to see someone finally follow up on a true deal gone bad. i commend your efforts

I glad to finally see a resolution to this. I know it was a hardship for Steve and Rose to find the time and the funds for Steve to go all the way to Tennessee and get a resolution here.
Good Job SRSNAKES

Problem is you will probably never collect from him. What you could do however is sell that judgement amount to a third party to have them attempt to collect the debt. At best you should get some money out of selling the debt to a professional collecting service, and at worst by doing so at least he would be getting phone calls, letters, and possible negative credit reporting. Just a thought I do debt collection for a living, and I've often thought about doing just reptile collections, lol.

Adam,
That might be an item for you to Auction! Collecting from deadbeats in reptile deals!

Problem is you will probably never collect from him. What you could do however is sell that judgement amount to a third party to have them attempt to collect the debt. At best you should get some money out of selling the debt to a professional collecting service, and at worst by doing so at least he would be getting phone calls, letters, and possible negative credit reporting. Just a thought I do debt collection for a living, and I've often thought about doing just reptile collections, lol.

I agree that unless you know a bank account number that you can freeze, or another employer from which you can garnish wages, I'd go to a collection agency. I believe that they can legally add collection fees to the amount of the judgment.

Woops, don't know why the post went up twice. I've really thought about it, however the legalities of it kind of prevent it. Basically there would need to be written agreement between buyer and seller beforehand to be able to legally try to collect on anything. In this case there is a judgement, so you could attempt to collect from a judgemement. Without a judgement or contract you have just a verbal agreement which won't hold up very well.

to go back to square one and try to once again work something out directly with Dave. You went to court and were awarded a judgement when Dave didn't show up for trial or appeal the judgement afterwards. That in itself tells me that by default he has admitted his guilt and knew he didn't have a leg to stand on. I'm sure Dave values the opinions of the many people here reading this thread and does not wish to be viewed in a negative manner. Even though it's a bit after the fact I don't think Dave is beyond acting responsibly even at this late date to keep his reputation respected among peers. Perhaps he never thought things would go this far, and/or was in denial, or simply was not in a position to make things right at the time. For him to walk away from this now that it is in the open will definitely hurt his business especially if he ever plans to market high end snakes. Who in there right mind would want to risk spending thousands of dollars sending money to someone with a bad reputation and does not stand behind their animals?
I believe it is not to late for Dave to make good on something that should have been worked out months ago. I've known Dave for several years now and I know he does have some serious health issues. Sometimes his difficult medical condition/situation does cloud his better judgement.
I highly recommend you make him aware of this thread and perhaps it's not to late for him to do the right thing and make good on this debt so it can be put behind you. I realize I've not heard Dave's side of the story yet but it seems to me the time for that passed along with the court date. I hope he reads this and is responsible enough to work something out with you. Good luck.