I did represent a publicly traded company called Beckman Coulter. They were involved with a large litigation with a company called Flextronics. Both are multibillion dollar companies. And, it started out as a small suit. Flextronics was supposed to make circuit boards for Beckman Coulter’s use in medical equipment. However, those are difficult circuit boards to make and Flextronics said, well, after a kinda, five year contract, “I’ll do it for two years but, you know, I got a better deal making circuit boards for cell phones. A $2 billion deal with Motorola.” So, they just breached.

So, we sued for the $2 million and we also discovered a $300,000.00 fraud during the course of discovery. So, we go into trial with two causes of action, breach of contract and fraud. And, during this trial, seven weeks into the trial, I had elicited such damning testimony out of the principals from Flextronics that I asked the court to allow me to amend the complaint to conform to the proof I already had admitted. And, the judge allowed us to add two more causes of action for economic duress.

One was a simple overcharging. And, the boss of Flextronics asked his subordinate if Beckman Coulter had paid in full, she said yes. He said, “Well, don’t tell Beckman Coulter and keep on charging them.” She said on the stand and she cried. She’s a single mother said, “I would’ve taken that secret to the grave.” but she’s afraid of losing her job and and that’s why she did it.

The other act by Flextronics was that, we needed certain components for our circuit boards, they’re called lifetime buys. You can’t get ’em anywhere else so, we needed those. In order for us to get those from Flextronics they made us buy all the remaining materials in their warehouse, regardless that it was not relevant to our circuit boards.

We went, the jury gave me $2 million for the first cause of action, breach of contract, $300,000.00 for the fraud, $1.5 million in punitive damages on that theory. And, the two additional causes of action that I brought seven weeks in to the jury trial, the jury gave me – I don’t remember right now what the compensatory damages were but the jury gave me $180 million in punitive damages on that third cause of action and $750 million on the fourth cause of action. All told it was over $934 million.

It was a tremendous victory. It’s the highest verdict in Orange County history, it was the second highest in the United States in that year which was 2003, and it remains the highest in Orange County history. So, that was a great case. It was hard work and preparation to produce that result.