BELFAST, Maine — One evening last July, a Belfast volunteer firefighter drove by the Goose River Grocery & Trading Post on Swan Lake Avenue and noticed smoke and flames coming from the building.
He called for help, and two dozen firefighters responded, taking about 10 minutes altogether to knock the fire down. Putting out the fire was, in other words, a relatively straightforward affair — no one was hurt, and the only harm done seemed to be to the building. Since the fire was extinguished, though, there have been more twists and turns in its aftermath than the store’s namesake Goose River.
Kyle J. Skinner, who told the BDN last summer that he and his wife, Helen, purchased the neighborhood institution a couple of months before it was gutted by flame, was not, in fact, the owner of record, according to documents filed at Waldo County Superior Court. In addition, police arrested Skinner in March and charged him with arson in connection with the store fire.
Nevertheless, 35-year-old Skinner filed a civil lawsuit before his arrest over the purchase-and-sale agreement and the insurance settlement from the fire against the couple who actually owned the store. Despite the criminal case against Skinner, his civil suit slowly is continuing to wend its way through the legal system. The money on the line is not insignificant — a professional appraisal company found that the structural damage from the fire added up to nearly $200,000 and the inventory loss was about $46,000.
Skinner is suing Anne and Leslie Smith of Islesboro for breach of contract over the purchase-and-sale agreement, which the parties signed last March. According to the agreement, the purchase price was to be $100,000, of which the Skinners were to pay $20,000 as an earnest money deposit at the time of the closing. The balance of $80,000 was to be paid within 12 months of the closing.
According to the Skinners, the purchase-and-sale agreement stipulated the Smiths would be solely responsible for insuring the property until the transfer of the assets had been completed. If the property were damaged by “fire or any other casualty” before title was transferred, the Skinners would have the option of either purchasing the title and receiving the benefits of all insurance monies recovered by the Smiths or terminating the purchase agreement.
When fire gutted the Swan Lake Avenue business on the evening of July 15, 2014, the transfer of the property to Kyle and Helen Skinner was not complete and the Smiths had not transferred title to the property to the couple, according to court documents. Kyle Skinner wrote in an affidavit dated Oct. 29 that he reached out to the Smiths after the fire “in an attempt to work in concert with them to ensure a smooth transition of the property and to cooperate with the insurance company,” but the defendants refused to cooperate with him.
According to Skinner, the Smiths had received some funds from their insurance company after the fire, but the Islesboro couple said they wouldn’t give those monies to the Skinners.
The Skinners asked the court to place an attachment of $244,212 on the Smiths’ property, on the grounds “it is more likely than not” that the Skinners would recover judgment in that amount against the Smiths.
However, in their Dec. 15 response to the Skinners’ complaint, the Smiths said the Skinners only paid them a total of $18,000 out of the total purchase price of $100,000 and that the closing for the property never took place. They wrote that when the Skinners assumed operation of the grocery store, it was stocked with more than $16,000 in inventory the Smiths paid for and that the stock was not replaced during the three months before the fire in a normal or timely manner.
Defendant Anne Smith said she was approached by grocery store customers who were concerned the business did not appear to have sufficient inventory, according to a memorandum filed in December in opposition to the Skinners’ motion for attachment.
Even months before Skinner was charged with arson, the Smiths accused him in their response to the civil suit of setting fire to the store.
“Upon information and belief, plaintiffs intentionally caused [the] fire and intended to burn down the [store],” the memorandum stated. “The plaintiffs never intended to operate the Goose River Grocery as a business and sold the majority of the existing inventory intending not to replace it.”
Justice Robert Murray denied the motion for attachment Dec. 24, 2014.
In March, Kyle Skinner was charged with arson, insurance deception and attempted theft by deception, after an investigation that included members of the Belfast Police Department, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the National Insurance Crime Bureau and the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
According to the Belfast Police Department, the insurance deception charge had nothing to do with the grocery store fire but rather a previous insurance claim for damaged embroidery machinery Skinner had filed. That alleged deception came to light during the arson investigation, according to police.
When asked to comment about the case, Randy Mailloux, who is representing the Smiths along with attorney Harris Mattson, said it is not his policy to comment on pending cases. Attempts to contact Patrick Mellor, who is representing the Skinners, were unsuccessful.
The resolution of the complicated case will be delayed by a few months, as Justice Murray recently granted a stay of proceedings in the civil case until Oct. 20, 2015.
According to the plaintiff’s motion to stay the case, Mellor wrote that if the case proceeds “it will be impossible for Mr. Skinner to effectively pursue — and defend — the civil case without sacrificing his Fifth Amendment rights” in regard to the ongoing criminal case.
The delay doesn’t sit well with the defendants. The Smiths’ attorney wrote in a response to the motion to stay that his clients did not initiate the lawsuit in the first place but would like it to be decided as promptly as possible. Mattson wrote that because of the ongoing lawsuit, his clients have been unable to utilize the casualty insurance proceeds paid to them, and because the Skinners have claimed equal title in the property, the Smiths have not been able to either repair it or try to sell it.