Suit to be argued in Texas

Friday, Sept. 8, 2000 | 10:52 a.m.

A dispute over ownership of the Maxim hotel in Las Vegas may be decided in Texas state court, after a Nevada judge removed the case from the court calendar.

In a recent decision, Judge Nancy Saitta moved off the calendar a lawsuit filed earlier this year by investors Hillel Meyers, Donald Saunders and Thomas Russell against Gary Kornman, owner of Premier Interval Resorts of Dallas. Premier is the former owner of the Maxim.

Attorneys for Kornman's AE Marketing, a co-defendant in the case, had argued that the disputes covered in the Nevada lawsuit were also at issue in a lawsuit filed by AE Marketing against the three investors in October 1999.

The investors, former shareholders in Premier, accused Kornman, businessman Howard Jenkins and Georgia company Meralex of orchestrating a "squeeze-out" of the investors' position in Premier. Their lawsuit contained allegations that Kornman had intentionally sabotaged previous sales of the Maxim, and collaborated with Jenkins to drive the Maxim into bankruptcy. Meralex was the mortgage holder of the property.

With the lawsuit off-calendar, the claims will now be argued in a Dallas court. However, the Nevada case was not dismissed, leaving the door open for the three investors to resume the case in Nevada at a later date.

The three plaintiffs failed in May to obtain an injunction that would have stopped Meralex's foreclosure sale of the property. In June, the property was sold in a foreclosure auction to Revanche LLC of Houston for $10 million.