P.S. Docket No. MD 16-19


March 28, 2016

In the Matter of a Mail Dispute between

JEFFREY T. HENSON and JOHN D. YOUNG

P.S. Docket No. MD 16-19

APPEARANCE FOR DISPUTANT JEFFREY T. HENSON:
Jeffrey T. Henson

APPEARANCE FOR DISPUTANT JOHN D. YOUNG:
John D. Young

INITIAL DECISION

The two parties to this mail dispute, Jeffrey Henson and John Young, both claim to be the president of Homeowner Helper, Inc., and thus both claim the right to direct delivery of mail addressed to the company at P.O. Box 1315, New Lennox, Illinois 60451.  As provided for by the Postal Operations Manual (POM) Section 616.21, the dispute has been referred to the Judicial Officer for a decision.  The dispute was then assigned to me for an Initial Decision, as required by 39 C.F.R. Part 965.  In the interim, the Judicial Officer has ordered the New Lennox Postmaster to hold all mail addressed to Homeowner Helper at P.O. Box 1315.

FINDINGS OF FACT

  1. John Young started Homeowner Helper, Inc. sometime after 1982.1  In 2007, he hired Jeffrey Henson to work for Homeowner Helper. (Young Aff.). 
  2. Homeowner Helper filed an Annual Report with the Illinois Secretary of State in April 2015.  The Annual Report listed Mr. Henson as Homeowner Helper’s president as of April 29, 2015.  (Law Dep’t Letter, Exh. D at 5).
  3. As of February 12, 2016,2 the Illinois Secretary of State listed Mr. Henson as the president, secretary, and registered agent for Homeowner Helper on the state’s publically-accessible website (Henson Decl., February 17, 2016, Attach B).
  4. In 2013, Mr. Henson opened a post office box for Homeowner Helper at the New Lennox Post Office.  Mr. Henson closed the box in 2015 and asked that the mail be forwarded to a post office box in Wilmington, Illinois, and then later to his home in Wilmington.  (Law Dep’t Letter).
  5. In November 2015, Mr. Young applied to reopen Homeowner Helper’s post office box at the New Lennox Post Office (Law Dep’t Letter, Exh. A).
  6. The Acting Postmaster in New Lennox consulted with both Mr. Henson and Mr. Young, and both claimed entitlement to receive mail addressed to Homeowner Helper at the post office box in New Lennox (Law Dep’t Letter).  The matter was then referred to the Judicial Officer Department for further review and decision.

DECISION

If there is a disagreement over the receipt of mail for a corporation, Postal Service regulations provide that the mail must be “delivered according to the order of the organization’s president or equivalent official.”  POM § 614.1; see Domestic Mail Manual § 508.1.5.1; see also Patton and Patton, Jr., MD 07-68 (I.D. April 10, 2007), aff’d, (P.S.D. April 30, 2007).  Here, Mr. Henson and Mr. Young both claim to be the president of Homeowner Helper, and thus each claims entitlement to direct delivery of its mail. 

After reviewing the documents filed by the parties, I find that Mr. Henson has presented the stronger evidence.  Of most importance, I find the records on the Secretary of State’s website and the 2015 Annual Report to be persuasive evidence that Mr. Henson is Homeowner Helper’s current president (Findings 2, 3).  On the other hand, the evidence submitted by Mr. Young is much less persuasive.  For example, Mr. Young submitted Homeowner Helper’s tax returns for 2011, 2012, and 2013, the last of which was filed in September 2014.  The tax returns all list Mr. Young as the president of the company.  Having been filed over 18 months ago, however, they do not necessarily reflect Mr. Young’s current position with the company.  In the face of the more recent records supporting Mr. Henson’s position, I do not give these tax returns much weight in determining Homeowner Helper’s current corporate structure.

Mr. Young also submitted notarized statements from himself and a certified public accountant who had previously served as Homeowner Helper’s registered agent.  Mr. Young’s statement consists primarily of personal attacks against Mr. Henson, but it does not provide any concrete support for Mr. Young’s contention that he is still Homeowner Helper’s president.  In fact, his statement concedes that the registered agent “chang[ed] the corporation to Mr. Henson’s name,” suggesting that Mr. Henson did in fact become Homeowner Helper’s president.  The registered agent’s statement confirms that he filed the necessary documents to make Mr. Henson a corporate officer instead of Mr. Young.

Both Mr. Young and the registered agent now assert that Mr. Henson effectuated the change in corporate governance through fraud and deceit.  The registered agent says that he has tried to undo Mr. Henson’s appointment as an officer, but that he has been unable to do so because Mr. Henson has fraudulently manipulated the Secretary of State’s records.  These assertions, however, are not supported by anything other than the statements themselves.  Mr. Young did not produce any records—such as meeting minutes from a board of directors meeting or documents filed with the Secretary of State—substantiating the registered agent’s attempt to oust Mr. Henson as president.3  In the absence of any such documents, Mr. Young has not shown that there are any irregularities with the Secretary of State’s records, and I thus find the state’s records more credible than the bare assertions set out in the sworn statements from Mr. Young and the registered agent. 

Thus, after weighing the evidence, and for the sole purpose of deciding who gets to direct delivery of the mail, I find that Mr. Henson is the president of Homeowner Helper.  This decision, however, only addresses how mail addressed to Homeowner Helper at P.O. Box 1315 should be delivered by the New Lennox Postmaster.  It does not resolve any other legal disputes between the parties.  Further, this decision does not decide who actually owns the contents of the disputed mail.  Hoeppner and Vollstedt, MD 08-251 (I.D. October 16, 2008).  Nonetheless, if either party gets a court order directing delivery of the mail, postal regulations provide that the mail will be delivered according to that order.  POM §  616.3.

RECOMMENDATION

I recommend that the Judicial Officer issue an order to the New Lennox Postmaster directing that all mail being held, or hereafter received, addressed to Homeowner Helper, Inc. at P.O. Box 1315, New Lennox, Illinois, should be delivered as directed by Jeffrey T. Henson. 

Alan R. Caramella
Administrative Judge

1 The record suggests that the business was not incorporated with the state of Illinois until June 2008 (Letter from Theresa E. Essig, U.S. Postal Serv. Law Dep’t, to Gary E. Shapiro, U.S. Postal Serv. Judicial Officer (Jan. 21, 2016)(on file with the Judicial Officer)[hereinafter Law Dep’t Letter], Exh. D at 7, Line 3).

2 This is the date on the document attached to Mr. Henson’s declaration.  The information remains unchanged as of the date of this decision at the Secretary of State’s website at http://www.ilsos.gov/corporatellc/.

3 The record does include documents purporting to remove Mr. Henson as the registered agent (Law Dep’t Letter, Exh. D at 2–4).  Although it appears that one of these documents was filed with the Secretary of State in November 2015, nothing in the record establishes that the proposed change has been accepted by the State of Illinois.  Of course, even if this change has been made effective, it does not necessarily affect Mr. Henson’s status as president.