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Rymal v. Baergen6/8/2004
oyees before the October 1999 dinner, but not of other employees afterwards. There was documentary evidence indicating that commencing in November 1999 through July 2000, Baergen began requiring that he sign off on duties that plaintiff typically handled independently. Baergen requested that plaintiff think about going into sales full time and giving up her sales manager position and her marketing and customer service responsibilities. Baergen then began reducing these duties and responsibilities, including her advertising and account assignment duties, without a legitimate basis according to plaintiff, and plaintiff testified that she was informed by Baergen in July 2000 that he had hired someone else to be the sales manager. There was testimony by an accounts receivable employee, however, suggesting that plaintiff was not performing at an acceptable manner, in that she kept messing up paperwork. Plaintiff indicated that she subsequently discovered that Baergen had told headquarters that he had actually terminated her as sales manager on March 1, 2000. The job duties and responsibilities discussed by us in this paragraph related to plaintiff's employment with Clark. In regard to vehicle expenses that were not paid to plaintiff per Baergen, she stated that it did not pertain to expenses incurred for MTD but for Clark. A March 6, 2000, letter regarding the expenses penned by plaintiff and sent to Baergen, suggested that she might go higher up to mediate the issue, and Baergen's written response was "go wherever the f you want."
Plaintiff's deposition reflects that her responsibilities with MTD included computer billing, contacting clients, doing mailers, negotiating insurance, interviewing and meeting with drivers, making bank deposits, and paying bills. Plaintiff insisted that she was a twenty-five percent owner of MTD, that she was the secretary-treasurer, and that Baergen stole her interest. Baergen testified that plaintiff did not own an interest in MTD. Regarding MTD duties, plaintiff stated that she spent about twelve to fifteen hours per week working for the business on average, but it varied depending on such things as special openings and events; Baergen testified that plaintiff spent about ten hours a week doing MTD work. Plaintiff indicated that at times she could work as many as thirty hours a week for MTD. She testified in her deposition that the bulk of the work, bookkeeping, payables, billing, and payroll, was done on evenings and Saturdays from her home. Plaintiff asserted that two to five hours of the MTD weekly work was done in Baergen's presence. There was also substantial evidence showing that Baergen and plaintiff were conducting MTD business during their hours at Clark. Many MTD phone calls were fielded by plaintiff and Baergen on Clark time. MTD-related documents were often faxed to Baergen at Clark. A lockbox was kept on Clark's premises, where MTD documents were kept and dropped off by drivers. An employee of MTD and Clark who took over plaintiff's duties after plaintiff left in July 2000, testified that he continued as plaintiff had done by basically fielding MTD phone calls, booking films, making runs, and handling faxes while at Clark. This ceased when the Clark corporate office discovered what was occurring.
Evidence showed that up through 1998, plaintiff was earning on average about $30,000 per year with MTD. This amount included a salary and bonuses that were typically given out at the end of the year but at times sporadically during the year. For 1999, plaintiff was only paid approximately $12,500, and there was no evidence that MTD saw a reduction in business for the year. It appears that a bonus was not paid to plaintiff for 1999, and a March 6, 2000, letter from Baer
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