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Commonwealth Adoptions International Inc
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Commonwealth Adoptions International Inc
Address:1585 East River Road Suite 121
Tucson, AZ 85718
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RICO Lawsuit Action
OK...for those that want to get in on this I have gotten some information from a lawyer in Michigan willing to take on our case. She says that it does not matter if the agency has filed or will file for bankruptcy...so here is the email she sent me. If you would like to join in all we need is 4 families to file a lawsuit. This lawyer is pretty reasonable as well....like only a couple thousand I believe. I'm sending ehr another email right now to find out.
Anyway, here's the email she just sent me! Thanks to Terri for pointing me in her direction!
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Hi Gina & Bill,
We have reviewed your contract with CAII to see if there were any legal prohibitions to bring a lawsuit (usually there are just some limitations). The contract does state that any legal action must be taken in AZ in a court of competent jurisdiction or arbitration. The way the contract is worded allows us to avoid the arbitration and to move forward with legal action. I have no problem bringing a RICO suit against CAII and its directors in AZ.
What we look for is a pattern of deceptive behavior by CAII experienced by 4 or more families and we are able to bring a RICO suit. The fact that they went out of business is of no consequence to us – the directors are still responsible.
I understand that there are probably more than 4 families who have been victimized by CAII. So yes, you can move forward with a lawsuit against CAII. The difference is whether you bring one alone against CAII or as a multi-plaintiff group.
thanks,
Joni M. Fixel
Fixel Law Offices, PLLC
4990 Northwind Drive, Ste 121
East Lansing, MI 48823
(517) 332-3390
(517) 853-0434
Re: Commonwealth
As the name suggest Wealth is taken from the Common. I thought
I was the only one. I'm out about $14,000. Not to mention 2 years
time and effort 4 case workers and my sanity. I also lost the opportunity to adopt a local child, due to the fact that I wanted to
save a life in Russia. I have a room ready for a little girl. I had to
turn down two referals, due to non-medically treatable issues, when my homestudy clearly stated I could only accept a medically treatable child. Of course, my case worker had not read or considered my homestudy and indicated that I should use their recommended Doctor who knew more about reading medical records of children in orphanages. My Doctor was Indian and has worked in orphanages, but not qualified? I too have received notice from Admirals Insurance Company that my claim is not payable. What happend to BREACH OF CONTRACT? What happened to ETHICS? These people need to go to jail. All these folks do is lie and scam. Thanks to all of you for your posts at least I know I'm not crazy. I'm in on any lawsuit and have contacted the AZ Attorney Gerneral Office. Deborah Owens
Sunsetdeb@aol.com
Lawsuit...
Shoot me an email and I'll give you details on who to contact as well as some other information useful to you to be able to maybe recoup some (if not all) of your losses with CAII.
ginalyn@intouchmi.com
Take care,
Gina
NEW CAII ADDRESS TO GET YOUR FILES RETURNED...
Many have been asking me how to get ahold of CAII now since they've closed. Below is the address sent to me by Marina Mayhew for those wishing to get their files back. I have a form too for you that I can send you in an email for you to print and use to send to CAII...be sure to send it certified mail so that you can track it and they can't say that they didn't get it. Here you go:
Her Email Contact: marinamayhewcaii@yahoo.com
Phone: 520-971-6670
Address:
Commonwealth Adoptions International
P.O. Box 64879
Tucson AZ 85728
Hope this helps!
Gina & Bill Hart
Files
Hi Gina,
Are these our complete files and although we cannot join the suit, do you advise us obtaining our file for some reason? I will gladly do that, and if so can you send me via email the form to complete?
Thanks so much!
Files and Contact Info...
I would advise getting your files if you can...even if you can't join the suit or if your adoptions are final. One big reason for this is because, where do those files end up after they close? Many times in situations like this, clients files are thrown out with other documents from a business...may not want personal stuff ending up in a landfill somewhere.
Also, if for some reason you DO decide to join the suit or something else happens, it's a good idea to have it so that you can submit it when asked for it.
Yes, these are complete files too...I received mine yesterday (after asking for it for 1 month). Just be sure to contact me directly so that I can email you the form you will need. My email address is: ginalyn@intouchmi.com
Hope this helps...
Gina
Insurance Claims...get yours in by 9/24/2008!!!
Hello all,
I don't know if you know this but Commonwealth had an insurance policy that may help you recover some of your money. One thing you
all should know if you don't already is that you have until 9/24/08 to file claims with CAII's insurance. You can only file a claim during the policy
period...so don't delay. The have about 4 names on teh list as supplied by Commonwealth. However you should contact the insurance agency ASAP to see if you need to be added.
Contact Compass Insurance, Liz Chamberlain @ 520-881-5760 or email her @ lchamberlain@compassinsurance.com
Remember, when you are filing a claim to just be brief with them and tell them that you had a contract with Commonwealth Adoptions and they went out of business- you want your money back. We were told by Liz Chamberlain to email her rather than call...but you can try both.
Please forward this to everyone you know from Commonwealth! There isn't much time.
You may still want to keep track of any lawsuit as it may happen that the insurance company denies some or all the claims. If this is the case you may want to work wtih an attorney/become part of the lawsuit to force the insurance to pay. In any case, if the insurance company does pay, it is very likely that you will be required to sign a release in favor of Commonwealth. Best to check it out before you sign any sort of release... best to talk to an attorney about all of this in fact! You may have many more rights that we haven't yet discovered or it may be better for you to go a different route... Just trying to help and keep everybody informed. :-)
Information about the lawsuit
This is just as an FYI for everyone wanting to be in on the lawsuit!
I just wanted to let you guys know that this lawyer that we are using is willing to do a payment plan of the $2500.00 retainer fee...and you can set up the payment plan and they will just write the contract accordingly.
I'm letting you guys know this as I know that many of you (if your like us) were worrried about coming up with that money. Also again, here is her contact information:
Joni M. Fixel
jfixel@fixellawoffices.com
Fixel Law Offices, PLLC
4990 Northwind Drive, Ste 121
East Lansing, MI 48823
(517) 332-3390
(517) 853-0434
I hope this helps...it sure helped us out! Now we can do this without worrying about the money we have to pay to get involved in the lawsuit!
If anyone needs to talk to me about this please just email me...I'll let you know what I can:
ginalyn@intouchmi.com
Gina & Bill Hart
http://www.billandginahart.com/index.html
http://ginanbillsadoptionjourney.blogspot.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/adoption_agency_abuse/
Information You Need To Know...
I wanted to let you guys know of something I found out about a RICO suit...did you know that it is possible to recover 3 times the amount that CAII owes you? I thought that was a pretty nice incentive to do this.
If you are SERIOUS about being a part of this lawsuit please contact me and I will send you the link to the Yahoo Group that I created pertaining to this.
Also, many people on this group and others that are faced with a possible lawsuit against CAII are concerned about retaliation from CAII. Please keep in mind that CAII broke it's contract with us when they closed their doors. Something to think about.
And finally, the lawyer we will be using is willing to do a payment plan for the retainer fee for her services. Please feel free to contact her on this...her contact information is:
Joni M. Fixel
Fixel Law Offices, PLLC
4990 Northwind Drive, Ste 121
East Lansing, MI 48823
(517) 332-3390
(517) 853-0434
Hope to hear from you all soon!
CAII
Hi
I would love the link to the yahoo group u created in reference to CAII. We are out our 1,500.00 refundable depoist ( ha!) not to mention there were many fees in countrie we were foursed to pay( again) that we thought were already paid in the us.
thanks for your help!
BD
The yahoo group that I
The yahoo group that I created about CAII and information on how to get a hold of them and such is:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/adoption_agency_abuse/
Hope this helps!
Gina
Interested as well in a class action lawsuit
Please add us to your list of people interested in a class action lawsuit
My husband and I are also extremely upset after being with Commonwealth for over 2 years and nothing has been done for us. We signed a contract with them in 2006 and shortly after they lost their accreditation. We had completed all our paperwork, homestudy, I600A form and preliminary package with all the needed signatures, only to have it sit on someones desk at Commonwealth for 2 years. When they finally received their accreditation in 2008 every paper had expired so it all had to be done over and more money spent for another homestudy and another I600a form. We were then asked for another $15,000 -which we did not send since we received the email stating they were closing their doors. We are so upset after waiting for years to begin our adoption. We are requesting our money be refunded so we could go to an agency of our choosing. But we were told we would be transferred to ACW - Adoption Center of Washington and that our money would be credited to ACW. We have are hoping this is true but from what I am reading from others we are wondering if the money we paid to Commonwealth really would be credited to ACW. Adopting a child is very expense and we really need the money that we have given Commonwealth to proceed. We worked hard for the money we gave Commonwealth and hope we can all get our money back.
Please let us know what we should do next. Thank you!
Dedee
Email me dedee...
Email me dedee... ginalyn@intouchmi.com I'll email you what I have from Joni and get you in touch with her!
I'm sorry about what you guys went through too... I hope that they get what is coming to them from all of this.
Gina
RE RICO Lawsuit Action
Can you give me your email info so I can contact you directly?
tmahoneykneisel@gmail.com
Thanks
Tamara