Our most recent appellate victory was in 2024 in a long-running dispute over a substantial property development. In this case, we persuaded a California Court of Appeal to reverse a judgment rendered by a California Superior Court.
In this case, our client asserted derivative and direct claims against two individual defendants, one of whom asserted cross-claims against our client. The jury found for our client on all claims and cross-claims and awarded compensatory damages and punitive damages. After the jury trial, the Superior Court set aside several of the jury’s verdicts. On this basis, the Superior Court entirely absolved one defendant and rejected the jury’s awards of punitive damages.
We appealed from these rulings, as did one of the defendants. After reviewing the briefs, the Court of Appeal invited the parties to submit supplemental briefs on key issues of fact and law that principally concerned the fiduciary duties that a member-manager of an LLC owes to its other members.
Our appeal was successful on virtually all grounds, and we defeated the appealing defendant’s cross-appeal: the Court of Appeal reinstated all of the vacated jury verdicts in favor of our client, reversed the judgment accordingly, and dismissed the cross-appeal. The Court of Appeal also awarded costs of appeal to our client and remanded the case to the Superior Court for a trial on the amount of punitive damages that each defendant must pay. It was a virtually unqualified victory for our client, for whom we also recovered a highly favorable allocation of derivative damages, as well as a large fee award during post-trial proceedings. The case was originally tried by the late Daral Mazzarella, who passed away shortly after the trial.
Case Name: Wardak v. WLOW Partners, LLC et al. (Cal. App. 2024, Case No. G061606). The Court of Appeal’s Decision: Opinion. Our Appellate Submissions: Appellant’s Opening Brief, Appellant’s Reply Brief, and Appellant’s Supplemental Letter Brief.
