Heathen Brewing LLC has filed a lawsuit in Clark County Superior Court against a Tacoma distributor seeking $17,486, attorney fees of $2,000, plaintiff’s costs — and the whereabouts of a quarter keg of Heathen IPA.
Great Micros Wholesale has not made payments to Heathen since March 27, says the lawsuit filed last week. Great Micros “have kept a running debt to (Heathen) from January of 2015 to date,” the lawsuit says, “and have failed to make any significant payments to significantly reduce their debt since 2016.”
Heathen is one of the more established of Clark County’s 22 microbreweries, having launched in 2012. Heathen maintains its Feral Public House at 1109 Washington St., and its production brewery at 5612 N.E. 119th St., both in Vancouver. It also has a winery, Heathen Estate, at 9400 N.E. 134th St., in Vancouver. The lawsuit identified Sunny Parsons as Heathen’s owner.
The lawsuit describes Parsons’ and Heathen operations manager Danny McCabe’s attempts extending to February to obtain payment of the $17,486 debt on beer from Heathen. Emails and letters were sent to Great Micros owner Gary Getz and his wife, Marlene Getz, seeking payment, the lawsuit says.
The legal action includes an unusual twist — an email dispute about the disposition of a quarter keg of Heathen IPA.
Nearly a week after Heathen officials sent a letter seeking payment, Marlene Getz sent an email Feb. 27 to McCabe telling him a quarter keg of Heathen IPA remained in Great Micros’ inventory. That beer would’ve been sent to Great Micros in July 2017, making it a half-year old.
McCabe responded that day, the lawsuit says, telling Getz “if she still had this particular 1/4 keg in her inventory, its shelf life had expired and it needed to be returned to (Heathen) immediately.”
Getz responded the same day, the lawsuit says, telling McCabe “she could not confirm or deny whether this keg was still in their inventory but ‘will look into it in the morning’ and did not ‘think we (Great Micros Wholesale) had any takers for it anyway.’ ”
The lawsuit says the contract between Heathen and Great Micros required the distributor to sell Heathen’s beer within six weeks of its production date.
In one of his last emails to Marlene Getz, the lawsuit says Parsons offered to set up a payment plan for Great Micros, “provided they pay for all orders before they are delivered and make additional monthly payments of $500 per month toward the existing debt owed to plaintiff.”
No payments have been made, the suit says.
Heathen’s attorney, Mark Sampath, declined to comment on the lawsuit, as did Marlene Getz of Great Micros.
A March 29 scheduling conference has been set before Judge Scott Collier.
