Suit issued to dissolve Stateline's Park Cattle Co.

Bruce Park, former president of Park Cattle Co., is suing to dissolve the company which owns most of Stateline.

Park filed suit in Minden District Court on Wednesday morning through his attorney William Shaw.

Park is asking a judge to order the company into receivership and liquidate its assets, which include Tillman Center, Edgewood Golf Course, Edgewood Water Co., Caesars, Horizon, Harvey's parking garage, two Lake Tahoe homes and a 5,000-acre ranch.

Park is suing Park Cattle Co. and his sisters, Jeanne Park Blach and Kay Park Seeliger, saying they engineered his ouster as president of the company.

Park and Blach, of Elko, each own 24 percent of the shares in the company. Seeliger owns 22.5 percent of the stock.

"The company has a small number of shareholders who historically have participated directly in managing the company and are not mere investigators or speculators," according to court documents. "Typically distribution of profits is in the form of salaries and dividends. The company was organized by family members to promote perpetual ownership by the company."

Park served as president and chairman of the company from 1992 - when his father, Brooks Park - resigned, until 2004. Seeliger and Blach were voting directors and all three were employees.

According to the lawsuit, in March 2004 Blach and Seeliger told Park to resign or he would be removed from his position as president and chairman.

Court documents claim Seeliger and Blach worked with 12.5 percent owner Margo Lourdeaux Kelley to oust Park. The three control 59 percent of the stock.

In exchange for his resignation, he would receive the long-term position of ranch operations manager. According to court documents, Park claims that if he did not comply he would have been voted out and not receive any position with the company.

The position as ranch manager paid $20,000 a month, but according to documents, that salary didn't last long.

On Oct. 13, 2004, Park claims the company sought to change the terms of his employment and when he refused, ordered him to sign a severance agreement, which he would not do.

According to the lawsuit, on Nov. 15, 2004, Park said he was forced to take leave and his pay was reduced to $13,000 a month. The same day he was ordered not to visit any company facility without prior authorization of the company president. The leave was supposed to last until March, but it was extended and Park's salary decreased again to $5,000 a month. Park's leave has been extended three times to last until Dec. 31.

Park alleges that $2 million in legal services have been spent to investigate his operation of the company. He claims that the company is operating at a deficit due to legal fees related to the investigation.

He is asking a judge to place the company in receivership and for dissolution of the company or repurchase of his shares for full-market value.

"Park has no means by which to divest himself of the closely held company stock for fair value and no way to protect his interest in the company, having been expelled from any role in company management and prohibited from even setting foot on company property or company offices," according to the lawsuit.

Park Cattle Co. leases land at Lake Tahoe to Harveys, Caesars Tahoe and the Horizon Resort. The Parks homesteaded land in the Carson Valley in 1871.