Yesterday’s SignValue article on the Peterpank Diner Properties, LLC and Ram-Pank v. Wawa, Inc and RETLAW 967 generated strong reader interest.  Insider decided to seek some additional perspective and reached out to Ricard Marques, an investor and principal in VinylWorks, who through Ram-Pank LLC. was one of the plaintiffs in the successful judgement against RETLAW967.

First, some brief background.  Back towards the end of 2019 Ricardo Marques and his Ram-Pank, entity were in the process of acquiring the perpetual easement from Peterpank Diner Properties. Ricardo had his financing lined up and was headed toward closing when the Wawa convenience store being built, erected the 25-foot on-premise gas price sign in the billboard viewing area.  That put a quick hold on the financing and began a two year odyssey that led to the judgement.

Ricardo, congratulations on the judgement.  What happens next? 

We are still dealing with followup related to the judgement.  The defendant is asking the judge for 120 days instead of 30 to remove or lower the sign.  We are waiting for the outcome on that request but I strongly oppose it and will continue to fight them on it. They have overstated their welcome since the minute the sign was installed with the knowledge of a perfectly legitimate easement. .

So it’s never over until it is over?  Are there other issues you need to get resolved before you can get the easement transaction finalized? 

We are filing a motion for all of our legal fees to be paid by the defendant. The judge made a premature decision in denying legal fees to all parties half way through trial before listening to key witnesses such as Paul Wright from SignValue.

What additional information came out during testimony that should help you with your motion? 

On the decision, the Judge writes that Wawa & Retlaw group were aware of the easement. Wawa even went as far as indemnifying themselves with the developer because they were fully aware that the easement could trigger a problem.  So Wawa and the developer chose to ignore the easement and moved ahead to block the billboard thinking there weren’t going to be any consequences to their actions. This is a common case of corporate bullying but since the facts were clearly on my side, I took on the fight.

So far, this has cost me close to $350K and headaches I did not need. But now we have this victory and the Judge basically stating Wawa was well aware of what they were doing and chose to do so therefore causing me harm. That said, from my perspective, it’s only a real victory if they pay up!  Or else it’s an over priced easement…..  We are feeling optimistic about this motion.

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