Groomed for success, or a shop of cards?

Column

Upon further review, Ray McEachern believes his first error was trusting Jeana Riggins. Hey, once a Peace Corps guy, always a Peace Corps guy.

Jeana Riggins wouldn't see it that way, of course, but after McEachern was finished suing her for $2,500 in Judge William G. Sestak's courtroom Tuesday morning she vanished without a word, flanked by her attorney and her mother, leaving only what she revealed for the record to go by.

On that front, Riggins' testimony was a thin reed upon which to lean an effective defense, given that the central facts of the case are not in dispute. In October, following her last day as the one and only doggie stylist at McEachern's Woof Gang Bakery and Groomer, Riggins returned with her mother, Ruth Riggins, when the shop was closed, let herself in with her owner-supplied key, and made off with about 400 index cards detailing information about the pooches and people who patronized Woof Gang's boutique.

Jeana Riggins says the cards belonged to her. McEachern says the cards are intellectual property paid for by the shop.

Among the things you learn during a morning in real-world small-claims court: Except for an absence of lights and lecterns, the proceedings play out pretty much the way they do in your average episode of "Judge Judy."

During the hourlong hearing, Sestak herded the contestants through a fairly forgiving legal chute, tolerating a wide range of irrelevancies that provided context and entertainment, if not clarity.

Given latitude, they did their best to work each over pretty good. McEachern, 73, lamented Riggins' belligerence, messiness and aggressive disregard for both fire hazards and plumbing. Regarding McEachern, a serial entrepreneur who spent his 20s in the Peace Corps, Riggins complained that the boss's arbitrary grumpiness created a hostile work environment.

You'd be hostile too, McEachern says, if your groomer neglected the hair trap — a device designed to keep dog fur out of the pipes — despite repeated instruction. Or she snipped off the cable ties you'd used — mindful of the fire inspector — to bundle the grooming tools' electrical cords.

None of which had anything to do with whether the box of cards Riggins took from the shop were hers, or were swiped.

McEachern suspects Riggins was plotting to get herself fired from the outset — not that she was fired, he reiterates — so she could use Woof Gang's client base in partnership with her mom, who operates a grooming shop out of her Sierra Pines home.

From a strictly legal standpoint, McEachern most likely erred when he failed to specify in his contract that client information belonged to the shop. (He won't make that mistake again.) He couldn't be blamed for thinking such a clause was unnecessary: The ebb and flow of groomers is inevitable, but the idea that customer data remains with the shop is an industry standard.

"It's part of the ethics of the grooming profession," says Carol Hatjioannou ("As in, 'how'd-you-want-to' pay for that?" she says), owner-operator of Beautify the Beast in Land O' Lakes. Those "infamous cards" — Sestak's description — "were not hers to take," Hatjioannou says.

"We've had four clients come back and tell us that Jeana called them," McEachern says. "You think out of 400 cards they only called four? I doubt that."

Never mind Riggins' perception of her working conditions. Never mind the claim of severance mentioned in their contract. Severance is a separate issue. Never mind who filled out the cards, or where the cards were kept.

It comes to this: Riggins has been holding hostage the fruits of a five-month advertising campaign, prominent signage and the extra-hefty rent incurred by the shop's proximity to a major grocery store in the Shoppes at Sunlake Centre.

Riggins might have argued that she participated in the marketing costs by accepting only half of what the shop collected for each grooming, but she did not. Nor did anyone suggest that Riggins was paying rent, which might have lent credence to her position.

"I don't know how she could make a claim that they're her records," McEachern says. "The idea that they belong to the groomer … that's crazy."

Another thing about real-world small-claims court that's different from "Judge Judy." Judge Judy issues her ruling after a commercial break. Judge Sestak promised his ruling, in writing, in about two weeks.

I'm on the edge of my seat.