Lawsuit contests sale of Danville Nail & Spa

MADISON – A Vietnamese woman is seeking injunctive relief enjoining the sale of Danville Nail & Spa.

Plaintiff Arlene Pham is a native of Vietnam and family in California. Complaint represents that she married Ut Ngoc, also Vietnamese, in May in Westminster, Calif., and her family members “advanced certain funds… for purposes of starting a nail salon.”

The couple met in Hawaii in November 2011.

Attorney Peter A. Hendricks, of Madison, filed the woman’s complaint Jan. 17 in Boone Circuit Court, giving her address as South Charleston, with Ngoc listed on Mall Road in Danville, where the contested business is located.

The Phams returned to West Virginia in late May, says the complaint, beginning interior construction for a nail salon.

The plaintiff’s family advanced money, the complaint continues, reliant upon the “parties’ marriage as well as their representations… and endeavors to establish and maintain a partnership in a nail salon operation at Danville.”

Licenses and leases were placed in Ngoc’s name, according to the complaint, after remodeling and product costs amounted to more than $30,000. With “all of the monies… loans from various family members of Plaintiff in reliance upon the marital ceremony with the understanding that the parties were married and further induced by the representations and acknowledgment… they were to engage in a partnership in a nail salon business.”

The complaint says the nail salon flourished before “Defendant began to remove funds from the business to pursue a gambling habit.”

A situation developed wherein the defendant removed Pham from the business “under a pretense of a domestic violence petition, then declared that they were not married because no marriage license (was) executed… The parties were never married and there was no business partnership,” the complaint relates.

Pham contends she was forced to work away from the Danville salon and then was fired from a Charleston position when Defendant led friends to believe she would “steal (from) employees and patrons” where she was employed.

She complains that being removed from the Danville business and losing her Charleston job financially devastated her, forcing her to leave West Virginia and join her family in California.

Included in Plaintiff’s prayer is that the court declare “a partnership in fact or by equity exists,” then dissolve it by selling all assets and good will, with proceeds divided. She seeks general, compensatory and punitive damages with interest and litigation expenses.

Judge William S. Thompson scheduled a hearing for Feb. 5 on the woman’s motion for injunctive relief.

Boone Circuit Court case number: 13-C-12