A family divided by a house

By BILL CHAISSON
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CLAREMONT – In March 2016 Kimberly Bombria thought she had entered into a rent-to-own agreement with Karen Oullette for a home on Spring Street. In March of this year she found out she not only didn’t have such an agreement, but she was being asked to leave the house so it could be sold to someone else. In April, Bombria filed a civil lawsuit against Oullette because she felt Oullette had reneged on a verbal agreement. Furthermore, she wanted compensation for invasion of her privacy and the resulting stress.

A hearing held in April determined that the case should go forward to a jury trial, which got underway on Wednesday, June 13 with Judge Brian Tucker presiding and continues at least until Friday. Bombria is represented by Gregory Silverman of the Preti Flaherty firm in Concord. Oullette’s attorney is Anthony diPadova. Jr. of Buckley & Zopf in Claremont. The attorneys made their opening statements to the jury on Wednesday morning, and each told the plaintiff’s and the defendant’s version of the same events.

From either side of the issue the story is a cautionary tale: beware of mixing family relationships with business deals. Ray Lewko is Bombria’s fiancé, and he is also Karen Oullette’s cousin. The house is owned by Lewko’s aunt Mary Zombeck, who was quite elderly and had moved in with Kevin Breault, Oullette’s brother and Lewko’s cousin. Breault is being represented by James Mulligan of Simpson & Mulligan in Lebanon. Oullette’s son Anthony was living in the house in late 2015 with four or five of his friends.

In his opening statement Silverman told the jury that Bombria and Lewko claim Oullette asked them if they would like to rent the house. After showing it to them, she is said to have offered them a rent-to-own option. The plaintiff admits that this was a verbal offer that took place in a car just before Oullette dropped off Lewko at the motel where he was then staying. Both Bombria and Lewko have stated on the witness stand that the Oullette named a purchase price of $25,000 and $800 per month in rent, half of which would go toward the purchase price.

Mulligan made the opening statement for both Oullette and her brother. Mulligan said that it was Breault who reached out to Lewko about perhaps buying the home. Lewko had been taking care on his elderly father, but his father had moved into a nursing home and Lewko, unable to find an apartment near his job, was staying in a motel. According to Mulligan, Breault was not a party to the rent-to-own agreement at all and expected the $800 per month rent to help defray expenses related to caring for the elderly Zombeck. Breault wish to sell the house quickly in order to pay medical expenses for the ailing Zombeck. Lewko moved into the Spring Street house on March 1, 2016 and Breault drew up a contract for him to purchase the house for $25,000 by May 3, 2016. When Lewko was unable to close on the house on that date, he was given an extension to June 30, 2016. Lewko gave Breault a check for $5,000 at this time. Further extensions followed, with the last dated Dec. 5, 2016. By January 2017, Mulligan said, Breault and Oullette decided they had to “free up the home for sale.” 

On Wednesday afternoon the plaintiffs had created a table with three columns on a poster set up on an easel. The headings were “Description,” “Dates,” and “Amount.” Nine entries that included rent, lump sum and utility payments and repair bills totalled to $25,071. It was still there the next morning.

As of Thursday morning only Bombria and Lewko had taken the stand, with Oullette scheduled to do so on Thursday afternoon. In her testimony Bombria said she had been nervous about entering into the entire situation because it involved Lewko’s extended family and she had also had a rent-to-own agreement go badly in the past. 

Bombria is legally blind, having been injured while working in the violent ward of a psychiatric hospital. Because of her disability, she is receives government benefits. At the time she met Lewko, she was living in a subsidized apartment in downtown Bellows Falls. She was only persuaded to leave it because Lewko convinced her that his own family would never betray them and the house was a great opportunity.

Bombria and Lewko admitted several times that they either did not know the legally correct procedure or did not think it was necessary because they were dealing with family members. Contracts were signed without being read and documents were signed without witnesses present. In the absence of computers, contracts were handwritten and then copies written out again. If an original was lost, there was no back-up. Because Bombria received government benefits she faced a large amount of paperwork with multiple agencies as she tried to document an informal family arrangement for them.

The other aspect of this suit is Bombria’s complaint that Oullette invaded her privacy. Oullette, Bombria testified, regularly entered her aunt’s former home unannounced and without knocking. The house was still full of family possessions, which Oullette retrieved a few at a time, and her aunt still received mail there, which she picked up at intervals. Because she is sight-impaired, Bombria could not always tell who was in the house, and because she was not a member of the family, she was not used to these laissez-faire entry privileges. She said she asked Oullette to text or call before a visit, but this request was honored only occasionally.

DiPadova ennumerated  the number of times that Bombria accepted rides from Oullette in order to do errands as evidence of their friendship. Bombria countered that it more a matter of convenience. Neither she nor Lewko own a car.

DiPadova cross-examined Bombria by drilling down into the fine points of the transcript from her deposition at the April hearing and testing her memory for the details of events that transpired between January 2016 and earlier this year. He was able to find many minor inconsistencies in her statements and her recollections. Bombria at one point claimed that the court stenographer had erred in the transcript.

During a break in the proceedings on Thursday morning, Silverman said that he hoped that Oullette would take the stand on Thursday afternoon and that he and his colleagues would make their closing statements on Friday morning. He hoped for a jury decision by 5 p.m. 

While Lewko was on the stand he described the close relationship he had with Oullette since childhood. Silverman asked him “Did you ever think you would be in court like this, with her on the other side?” Lewko was silent for a few seconds. “No,” he said. “I didn’t.”

The Eagle Times will continue to follow the case.