Plaintiff Judgment In A Breach Of Contract Action
Omar is on a roll with several recent successes. He obtained a breach of contract judgment for our client, which fabricates and manufactures high precision parts for use in industrial turbine engines and drive shafts. Defendant was an experienced heat-treating vendor that contracted to heat treat approximately 100 precision shafts supplied by the Client. Defendant failed to disclose that it did not have a properly sized heat-treating oven to perform the heat-treating process in the required vertical position. Defendant nonetheless attempted to heat-treat the shafts, which resulted in deformities to the steel rendering them useless and unacceptable to the client’s end customer. Defendant refused to acknowledge responsibility for the defective work.
The case proceeded to trial on a Judicial Reference before Judge James P. Gray (ret.) The highest pre-trial offer was $100,000 payable over several years. Judgment was entered in favor of our client for $165,000, and collection efforts resulted in prompt payment of the entire judgment to our client.
Defense Verdict In Personal Injury Case
Assisted by associate Marcia Cook, Omar obtained a nuisance value verdict for our client, a large residential apartment owner and manager in Costa Mesa, California. The plaintiff, a former tenant of our client, was injured when he crashed into and through a patio glass sliding door located inside of his former apartment. The patio door was original to the construction of the apartment building and contained non-tempered glass which fractured and caused severe lacerations to the Plaintiff’s foot and ankle. Following extensive pre-trial discovery and evidence exclusion motions during the week-long jury trial before Orange County Superior Court Judge Martha Gooding, we were successful in reducing the amount of Plaintiff’s claimed medical treatment costs from $86,000 to $20,000 and preventing plaintiff from making society-wide arguments that the client was responsible to have performed expensive, building-wide upgrades to all windows and doors to ensure that they had conforming tempered glass inserts. At closing arguments, Plaintiff requested that the jury award him $475,000. After deliberating for just 3 hours, the Jury returned an award of $40,000 in favor of the Plaintiff for past medical treatment costs and pain and suffering. The Jury then found plaintiff to be 90% comparatively at fault for his injuries, thus reducing the total award to only $4,000.
Defense Arbitration Award In Contract Enforcement Action
Finally, Omar obtained an arbitration award in favor of our client, an industrial property owner, in a contract enforcement action regarding a liquidated damages provision within a purchase and sale agreement for commercial/industrial property in Santa Ana, California. The purchase agreement contained a liquidated damages provision in the event that the buyer failed to perform and complete the purchase of the property, as well as a provision providing that a $50,000 earnest money deposit would become non-refundable after the contingency period expired. The buyer refused to perform, and after our client issued a 5-day notice to perform, the buyer recorded a lis pendens on the property in order to prevent our client from selling to any other party. The buyer filed the arbitration seeking a refund of the $50,000 deposit and rescission of the purchase agreement. Omar was successful in having the lis pendens withdrawn and defeated the claim. Our client was also awarded his attorneys’ fees and costs as the contract prevailing party.